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Kate, Princess of Wales, Says She Has Cancer and Is Undergoing Chemotherapy

Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at Westminster Abbey in central London on May 6, 2023, ahead of the coronations of Britain's King Charles III and Britain's Camilla, Queen Consort. Britain's Catherine announced cancer diagnosis on March 22, 2024. (AFP)
Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at Westminster Abbey in central London on May 6, 2023, ahead of the coronations of Britain's King Charles III and Britain's Camilla, Queen Consort. Britain's Catherine announced cancer diagnosis on March 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Kate, Princess of Wales, Says She Has Cancer and Is Undergoing Chemotherapy

Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at Westminster Abbey in central London on May 6, 2023, ahead of the coronations of Britain's King Charles III and Britain's Camilla, Queen Consort. Britain's Catherine announced cancer diagnosis on March 22, 2024. (AFP)
Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales arrives at Westminster Abbey in central London on May 6, 2023, ahead of the coronations of Britain's King Charles III and Britain's Camilla, Queen Consort. Britain's Catherine announced cancer diagnosis on March 22, 2024. (AFP)

Kate, the Princess of Wales, said Friday she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.

The video announcement came after weeks of speculation spread on social media about her whereabouts and health since she was hospitalized in January for unspecified abdominal surgery.

Kate, 42, hadn’t been seen publicly since Christmas until video surfaced this week of her with her husband, Prince William, heir to the throne, walking from a farm shop near their Windsor home.

Kensington Palace had given little detail about Kate’s condition beyond saying it wasn’t cancer-related, the surgery was successful and recuperation would keep the princess away from public duties until April.

The news is another shock for the royal family since the announcement last month that King Charles III was being treated for an unspecified type of cancer that was caught while undergoing a procedure for a benign enlarged prostate.

Charles, 75, has withdrawn from public duties while he has cancer treatment, though he's appeared frequently in photos carrying on meetings with government officials and dignitaries and was even seen going to church.

Kate, on the other hand, had been out of view, leading to weeks of speculation and gossip. Attempts to put rumors to bed by releasing a photo of her on Mother's Day in the UK surrounded by her three smiling children backfired when The Associated Press and other news agencies retracted the image because it had been manipulated.

Kate issued a statement the next day acknowledging she liked to “experiment with editing” and apologizing for “any confusion” the photo had caused. But that did little to quell the speculation.

Even the footage published by The Sun and TMZ that appeared to show Kate and William shopping sparked a new flurry of rumor-mongering, with some armchair sleuths refusing to believe the video showed Kate at all.

Earlier this week, a British privacy watchdog said it was investigating a report that staff at the private London hospital where she was treated tried to snoop on her medical records while she was a patient for abdominal surgery.

The former Kate Middleton, who married William in a fairy-tale wedding in 2011, has boosted the popularity and appeal of the British monarchy worldwide more than any royal since Princess Diana.

The princess is the oldest of three children brought up in a well-to-do neighborhood in Berkshire, west of London. The Middletons have no aristocratic background, and the British press often referred to Kate as a “commoner” marrying into royalty.

Kate attended the private girls’ school Marlborough College and then University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she met William around 2001. Friends and housemates at first, their relationship came to be in the public eye when they were pictured together on a skiing holiday in Switzerland in 2004.

Kate graduated in 2005 with a degree in art history and a budding relationship with the prince.

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Varieties

Waste into Gold: Oyster Shells Repurposed as Magic 'Seawool'

Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP
Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP
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Waste into Gold: Oyster Shells Repurposed as Magic 'Seawool'

Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP
Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a 'low-carbon product'. Sam Yeh / AFP

Growing up on Taiwan's west coast where mollusc farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function -- a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called "Seawool".
Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes.
"They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer," the 42-year-old told AFP at his factory in Tainan.
"So I was curious about why oyster shells have such a miraculous effect."
Wang's Creative Tech Textile company, established in 2010, was already producing an "eco-fabric" -- a polyester material made out of recycled plastic bottles -- but he felt its texture was a bit "ordinary".
So he started working with a research institute to experiment making fabric out of the oyster shell residue, in 2013 coming up with the right formula that produces a material similar to wool.
The fabric and clothing generate around NT$200 million (US$6.1 million) a year, with the bulk of it sourced by outdoor and sustainability clothing brands in Europe and the United States.
The Made-in-Taiwan fabric would not be possible without the island's unique oyster farming culture, Wang said.
'A magical yarn'
"This industry chain cannot be found anywhere else overseas," he says.
"We have people to harvest oysters, we have specialists to clean oyster shells, and we have people for drying and calcining (treating) oyster shells."
But its popularity also means that about 160,000 tons of shells are discarded yearly, according to data from the agricultural ministry.
They pile up on the streets of aqua-farming towns -- the majority in western cities such as Yunlin, Changhua and Chiayi -- causing environmental issues by emitting fishy smells and providing breeding sites for mosquitos.
At Wang's factory, the shells are ground into nano beads and combined with yarn made from recycled plastic bottles.
"It creates a magical yarn," he said. "Oyster shell is a material with low thermal conductivity -- it does not absorb heat nor does it dissipate heat."
Turning the shells -- which capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- into Seawool also does not require water, making it a "low-carbon product," said Wang.
A half-hour drive from his showroom where activewear jackets, sweaters and pants are displayed, state enterprise Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) also has a factory that grinds discarded shells into a powder that is used in manufacturing household items, like incense sticks.
The crushed shells help to reduce smoke and the toxic chemicals emitted from burning incense, said Chen Wei-jen, deputy chief of TSC's biotech business division.
From waste to gold
"We hope oyster shells can have multiple industrial applications and interested companies can use it as a raw material to make their products more environmentally friendly and add value to their products," Chen said.
Before the shells get to the factories, farmers in Chiayi -- a county famed for producing oysters -- collect the molluscs at dawn from racks installed along the coast.
They are sorted into baskets before being sent to plants such as Dai Sen-tai's factory, where they are machine-washed before being sent to small family-run businesses that shuck the meat and send the shells south.
Dai, whose family have been in the oyster farming industry for three generations, said he is happy that Taiwan is breathing new life into the sea waste.
"When I was a child, no one wanted oyster shells -- they were dumped and discarded everywhere," he told AFP.
"It's good that the waste has been turned into gold now."