Former Israel president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Shimon Peres died in hospital on Wednesday after suffering a stroke. He was 93. He was elected the country's prime minister on two occasions and became its ninth president in 2007. He was one of the last surviving statesmen associated with the country's founding in 1948.

He was credited with being one of the major negotiators of the Oslo peace accords of 1993-1995 involving Yitzhak Rabi, Israel's prime minister at the time, and Palestine Liberation Organisation chief Yasser Arafat. He also helped develop the West Asian nation's secret nuclear arms programme, largely without the United States' backing in the 1950s and 1960s.