Nancy Reagan Remembered

by Ken Schwartz

Former first lady Nancy Reagan was remembered with laughter and tears Friday by 1,000 invited mourners during her funeral at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Nancy Reagan was 94 when she died of heart failure Sunday in Bel Air, California.

Current first lady Michelle Obama represented the White House at Friday's service. President Barack Obama said in his weekly address Saturday that "as president, I know just how important it is to have a strong life partner and President Reagan was as lucky as I am."

A long list of Reagan family friends, ranging from conservative Republicans to left-wing Democrats, attended the funeral. They included members of White House families going back nearly 60 years, including Caroline Kennedy, Steven Ford, former President George W. Bush, and ex-first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Rosalynn Carter.

Actors Tom Selleck and Bo Derek and singers Johnny Mantis and Wayne Newton were among the Hollywood elite.

Tough, dedicated to husband

Nancy Reagan was remembered as a tough and often stubborn woman, but someone who was 100 percent devoted to her late husband, President Ronald Reagan.

Daughter Patti Davis said the one sure way to get on Nancy Reagan's bad side was to show even the smallest bit of disrespect to her husband.

She recalls seeing them sitting together on a California beach at sunset — not talking or moving, just sitting.

Davis recalled how, as a young girl, she fell and cracked her skull, and Nancy Reagan tenderly held her head with one hand while driving with the other to a hospital emergency room.

She also had the mourners laughing with a story about his father getting a rubdown from a massage therapist. She said Nancy Reagan sneaked into the room, kissed her prone husband on the back of the neck, and snuck out, leaving the perplexed Reagan to believe it was the burly massage therapist who kissed him.

Advocacy for stem cell research

When Ronald Reagan died from complications of Alzheimer's disease in 2004, Nancy Reagan became an inexhaustible advocate for stem cell research, which doctors believe could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's.

Obama said he was "proud" that Nancy Reagan was one of the first people he called when he signed an order to resume federal stem cell research.

"Nobody understood better than Nancy Reagan the importance of pursuing treatments that hold the potential and the promise to improve and save lives," the president said.

Obama ordered all U.S. flags on government buildings flown at half-staff until Friday night, when Reagan's casket was put in the ground next to her beloved husband at the presidential library named for him.

Besides Patti Davis and son Ron Reagan, Nancy Reagan is survived by a stepson, Michael, who Ronald Reagan adopted during his first marriage to actress Jane Wyman.

Dignitaries Praise Ariel Sharon at Funeral

by Scott Bobb

Israel's former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been buried at his home in the Negev before family, friends and a delegation of visiting dignitaries, following civilian and military services.

He was praised earlier in the day during a memorial service at the Knesset - the Israeli parliament - by Israeli and foreign dignitaries.

Israel's president, Shimon Peres, called him an exceptional soldier who knew how to win.

Peres said rest, great leader, who did not allow himself to rest when serving his people, defending his country and making its fields blossom.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said although he and Sharon did not always agree when in government together they cooperated for the security and economy of the country.

He added that Sharon was a practical and pragmatic man whose pragmatism was full of deep feelings for his country and the Jewish people.

Sharon died Saturday at the age of 85. He had been in a coma for eight years after suffering a stroke while prime minister.

A veteran of four Arab-Israeli wars from 1948 to 1973, he was an independent commander who entered politics after his military career ended.

He was revered by some Israelis and criticized by others. He was generally condemned by Palestinians for his tough military tactics and offensives in which hundreds of Palestinians were killed.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said like all real leaders Sharon had a north star that guided him.

"His north star was the survival of the state of Israel and the Jewish people wherever they resided," he said.

Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed, saying Sharon never wavered from this strategic objective.

"The state which from the age of 14 he fought to bring into being had to be protected for future generations. When that meant fighting, he fought. When that meant making peace, he sought peace. And the same iron determination he took to the field of war, he took to the chamber of diplomacy," said Blair.

Security was tightened in southern Israel prior to Sharon's burial at his ranch some 10 kilometers east of the Gaza Strip. The anti-rocket defense system, called Iron Dome, was deployed in the area amid reports of rocket firing.

Sharon, while prime minister in 2005, ordered an Israeli military operation in Gaza in which more than 1,000 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

He subsequently ordered the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza.

A long-time member of the conservative Likud party, he broke away to form the centrist Kadima party the same year. He called elections for March 2006 but suffered the stroke two months before they were held.

Israel's Sharon Dies at 85

by Luis Ramirez

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has died from complications associated with a massive stroke he suffered eight years ago. He was 85.

Israeli news reports say Sharon died Saturday at a hospital near Tel Aviv.

Sharon served as prime minister from 2001 until 2006, when a stroke left him hospitalized and in a coma.

A week ago, medical officials said his kidneys and other vital organs had begun to fail.

As a soldier, Sharon was known for his daring heroics on the battlefield in the decades following the creation of the State of Israel, most notably during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In a brilliant tactical display, he led Israeli troops across the Suez Canal, cutting off Egypt's third army.

He was also known to many for being reckless and brutal. In 1982, he led an invasion of Lebanon that resulted in the massacre, by Lebanese militias, of hundreds of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.

Dennis Ross, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator, says the military shaped Sharon.

"He certainly came to believe that the only way peace would be possible would be for Israeli strength to be respected." he said.

As a politician, Sharon was also controversial. As a cabinet member, he promoted the establishment of Jewish settlements throughout the Palestinian territories. 

Palestinian scholar Shukri Abed says this won him further hatred among Arabs. 

"To say the least, not trusted, and probably hated by many of them, because of his strong positions, because he was an advocate of  building settlements," Abed said. "He was the father of building settlements."

As head of the opposition in 2000, Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif, in Jerusalem sparked anger among the Palestinians and triggered the uprising known as the Second Intifada. 

He became prime minister in 2001.

His government suppressed the uprising within a few years, and began work on the security barrier that now separates Israelis from Palestinians.

While Sharon is remembered as a tough leader who spared no action to defend his people, he was also one who could take difficult steps. 

In 2005, he oversaw Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, pulling Israeli settlers and soldiers out of the enclave in the hopes of achieving peace with the Palestinians.

"The relocation of the settlements will be in order to draw an efficient security line that will create a disengagement line between Israel and the Palestinians," Sharon said at the time.

He left the hawkish Likud party to form the centrist Kadima party which subsequently engaged in intense but unsuccessful peace talks with the Palestinians, aimed at establishing a separate Palestinian state.

In 2006, Sharon suffered a series of strokes and slipped into a coma. He was replaced by Ehud Olmert as prime minister.
  
In a vegetative state, the former prime minister spent the next few years at a hospital near Tel Aviv before being transferred to home care at his ranch in southern Israel. 

Sharon dedicated his life to building a strong Israel.  His efforts to bring peace remain a work in progress.

Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said there is "deep sorrow" in the Jewish state over Sharon's death. Sharon says the former leader will live forever in the nation's heart.

Omri Ceren is a senior adviser at The Israel Project, a pro-Israel nonprofit group in Washington. He told VOA Sharon is a figure of "overarching importance" in Israel's history for his role in reshaping the country's civil and military sectors.

"Sharon was both a military hero - at times, arguably one of the country's greatest military heroes in the aftermath of particular wars - but also a political giant," Ceren said. "He, in the military context, was thought to have been critical to winning - to literally, quite literally, winning - entire theaters during wars like the Yom Kippur War, the 1973 war. And politically, he quite literally redrew Israel's electoral map."

Former US Presidential Candidate George McGovern Dies

George McGovern, a former U.S. lawmaker best known for a devastating defeat in the 1972 presidential election, has died. McGovern passed away at age 90 on Sunday in his native South Dakota. Family members say he had been suffering from a “combination of medical conditions.”

McGovern served terms as a Democratic Congressman and a Senator between 1957 and 1981.

In 1972, he campaigned on a platform opposing the Vietnam war as he challenged then-President Richard Nixon. He suffered one of the most severe defeats in a U.S. presidential election, winning a majority of votes in only one of the 50 U.S. states and in the District of Columbia.

In a 2006 interview, McGovern said his views on the Vietnam War were shaped by the time he spent as a World-War-Two combat pilot.

“I came out of that war, especially after the atomic bomb was set off — destroying two great cities in Japan — with the feeling that we have got to do something to halt this kind of barbaric enterprise. So, I think almost from the end of World War Two, I have been doing what I can to settle our disputes with other countries, where possible, without going to war.”

McGovern said he saw parallels between the Vietnam War and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“I think it was a great mistake to go into Vietnam, a country that was no threat to the United States and wanted nothing much other than to be recognized as a legitimate government. It was a mistake to go into Iraq, another country that was no threat to us and had nothing to do with the 9-11 attack. Our leaders, some of them, seem to think we are fighting terrorism in Iraq. I think we're causing it.”

In later life, McGovern served as a lecturer, teacher and the U.N. Global Ambassador on World Hunger.

President Barack Obama called McGovern a “statesman of great conscience and conviction.” Former President Bill Clinton and his wife Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said they were deeply saddened to learn of their friend's passing and that “we must continue to draw inspiration from his example and build the world he fought for.”

Former Senator Arlen Specter Dies of Cancer

Former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter has died of cancer at age 82. The Republican-turned Democrat represented Pennsylvania for 30 years, playing key roles in confirmation battles for U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

First elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1980, Specter garnered national attention and Republican ire for resisting then-President Ronald Reagan's 1987 Supreme Court pick, Robert Bork. Specter again played a prominent role in President George H. W. Bush's 1991 nomination of Clarence Thomas to the nation's highest court, fiercely interrogating witness Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

Long known as a political moderate in a Republican Party that was shifting further to the right on social issues and other matters, Specter switched to the Democratic Party in 2009. At the time, it was assumed he would have been hard pressed to survive a primary fight against fellow-Republican challengers the following year. He lost his 2010 primary election battle to a Democrat who lost the general election to Pennsylvania's current Republican senator.

Before entering politics, Specter served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia. He also served as a counsel for the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Specter had several bouts of cancer in recent years. He is survived by a wife and two children.

Former First Lady of France Danielle Mitterrand Dies

Danielle Mitterrand, a hero of the French Resistance and widow of former President of France Francois Mitterrand, has died at the age of 87.

Mitterrand died early Tuesday after being hospitalized in Paris for several days. She helped redefine the role of first lady, and was known as a humanitarian and activist for the underdog.

Mrs. Mitterrand lent her support to ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Kurds. She was also a strong supporter of Cuba's Fidel Castro and started several charities to help the disadvantaged.

During World War II, she met her future husband as both worked for the French Resistance. She was awarded a prestigious medal for her work against the Nazi occupation of France.

Photo: Danielle Mitterrand in 2005 by Kenji-Baptiste OIKAWA.