US Senator John McCain, the Vietnam War hero turned senator and presidential candidate, has died aged 81.

Mr McCain died on Saturday surrounded by his family, according to a short statement released by his office.

He was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour in July 2017 and had been undergoing medical treatment.

His family announced Mr McCain, who left Washington in December, had decided to stop treatment on Friday.

Mr McCain's daughter Meghan said the task of her lifetime would now be "to live up to his example, his expectations, and his love".

"The days and years to come will not be the same without my dad - but they will be good days, filled with life and love, because of the example he lived for us," she wrote in a statement shared on Twitter.

The six-term senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee was diagnosed after doctors discovered his tumour during surgery to remove a blood clot from above his left eye last July.

John McCain was born on the eve of World War II, at the dawn of the "American Century" - a time when the US was at the peak of its political, military and cultural power. He dies at what could be considered that age's twilight, as the nation turns inward and contemplates walls, literal and metaphorical, to insulate itself from the rest of this world.

Source: BBC Online

BDST: 0949 HRS, AUG 26, 2018
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