Former Israeli PM Shimon Peres dies

Peres served twice as Israel's prime minister and once as president. He was one of the last of a generation of Israeli politicians who were present at the new nation's birth in 1948. He was the architect of Israel's secret nuclear programme and won the Nobel Peace prize in 1994 for his role negotiating peace accords with the Palestinians a year earlier. Peres shared that accolade with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was later assassinated, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He maintained an active public schedule into old age, mostly through his non-governmental Peres Centre for Peace, which promotes closer ties between Israel and the Palestinians.