Former US president Jimmy Carter passes away at 100

Former US President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100 on Sunday (US local time) at his home in Plains, Georgia, as reported by the Washington Post, citing his son James E Carter III.

Carter’s son confirmed his death but did not provide an immediate cause. According to the Carter Center’s statement from February 2023, after a series of hospital stays, the former US President decided to stop further medical treatment and spend his remaining time at home under hospice care. In recent years, he had been treated for an aggressive form of melanoma skin cancer, with tumors that spread to his liver and brain.

The Washington Post also noted that Carter was last photographed outside his home with family and friends on October 1, as he watched a flyover held to mark his 100th birthday.

Throughout his lifetime, Jimmy Carter wore many hats. He was a small-town peanut farmer, a US Navy veteran, and the governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. He became the first president from the Deep South since 1837 and the only Democrat elected president between Lyndon B Johnson and Bill Clinton’s terms in the White House.

As the 39th President of the US, Carter is remembered for achieving the signing of the Camp David Accords, which led to the first significant Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the Six-Day War of 1967 and a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that has endured.

In recognition of his efforts, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development,” according to the Nobel Prize statement.

The Washington Post report also highlighted Carter’s role in pushing through the Panama Canal treaties, which placed the critical waterway under Panamanian control, improving US relations with Latin American neighbors. 

Taking advantage of the opening made by US President Richard Nixon, Carter granted full diplomatic recognition to China and made human rights a central theme of American foreign policy, the report added.