Czech President Vaclav Havel, recovering in an Austrian hospital from emergency surgery on his intestine, should be fit to return to Prague in about a week, his surgeon said yesterday.
The 61-year-old president, who has suffered from breathing difficulties and an abscess in his abdomen since undergoing the emergency surgery nearly two weeks ago, was awake and moving.
"Over the weekend his general condition has much improved," said Prof Ernst Bodner, chief surgeon at Innsbruck University hospital.
South Africa's last apartheid-era president, F.W. de Klerk, and the wife of Greek shipping magnate Tony Georgiadis plan to marry, according to press reports in Johannesburg.
De Klerk was quoted by the Johannesburg Sunday Times as saying he would divorce his wife of 39 years, Marike. At the same time Elita Georgiadis told the newspaper she had started divorce proceedings against her husband of 27 years, who owns a vineyard in South Africa.
Nguyen Van Linh, former general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party, died yesterday at the age of 82, senior party sources said.
An arch conservative and campaigner against corruption, he served as Vietnam's senior leader from 1986-91.