Archbishop Desmond Tutu has cancelled travel plans for the rest of the year so he can undergo new treatment for prostate cancer, it has been announced.

The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said in a statement yesterday that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate is starting a new course of medication to manage “the prostate cancer he’s been living with for the past 15 years”.

He had planned to attend a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Rome this week

Tutu’s daughter and the foundation’s director, Mpho Tutu, said her 83-year-old father had planned to attend a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Rome this week.

The meeting was shifted to Rome after the Nobel laureates suspended plans to hold their annual meeting in South Africa because they said the government there refused to grant a visa to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader.

The South African government had said the Dalai Lama cancelled his planned visit as South African diplomats in New Delhi were processing his visa application.

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