UNITED STATES: Six-term senator, John McCain dies at 81

U.S. Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who ran for president in 2008 as a maverick Republican, died on Saturday. He was 81. An Arizona senator for more than three decades, McCain had been suffering from glioblastoma, a brain cancer, since July 2017 and had not been at the U.S. Capitol […]

U.S. Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who ran for president in 2008 as a maverick Republican, died on Saturday. He was 81.

An Arizona senator for more than three decades, McCain had been suffering from glioblastoma, a brain cancer, since July 2017 and had not been at the U.S. Capitol this year.

He died on Saturday afternoon at his ranch in Arizona with his wife Cindy and other family members at his bedside.

Trump has tweeted his “deepest sympathies and respect” to McCain’s family, although he added no words of praise for McCain himself.

All five living former presidents – Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter – paid tribute to McCain’s courage and character.

The son and grandson of Navy admirals, he was a bomber pilot during the war in Vietnam. When his plane was shot down, he spent more than five years as a prisoner-of-war.

He backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and criticised President Obama for not intervening more in the Syrian civil war.