TRIBUTES TO TOP US DIPLOMAT AND FEMINIST ICON ALBRIGHT

MADELEINE Albright “turned the tide of history,” US President Joe Biden said, paying homage to news of her death at the age of 84. She died of cancer, her family said in a statement on Wednesday.

Albright, who fled the Nazis as a child in Czechoslovakia during WWII, rose to become the 64th US Secretary of State and the first woman to hold the post, and in her later years, a pop culture feminist icon.

She came to the US as an 11-yearold political refugee and served as the country’s top diplomat under former president Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

Clinton paid tribute, saying she had been “a passionate force for freedom, democracy, and human rights”. In a statement released with his wife Hillary, Clinton said Albright was “one of the finest Secretaries of State, an outstanding UN Ambassador, a brilliant professor, and an extraordinary human being”.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield: “She left an indelible mark on the world and on the United Nations.”