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Tributes pour in for Jimmy Carter for retirement peace work following his death at 100
Then US president-elect Jimmy Carter leans over to shake hands with some of the people riding the ‘Peanut Special’ to Washington, January 19, 1977

TRIBUTES have poured in for former US president Jimmy Carter following his death at 100 on Sunday.

Carter was US president from 1977-81.

Praise came even from countries long victimised by the United States, in a nod to Carter’s work in retirement for a more peaceful foreign policy.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro saluted a man whose “dedication to peace left an indelible mark on the world.” The US ex-president opposed attempts to discredit Venezuelan elections, saying the “Venezuelan election system is the best in the world” in 2012, adding pointedly that the United States had one of the worst.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said his nation would remember Carter’s efforts to better relations — declassified State Department files showed Carter had planned to end the US embargo on Cuba had he won a second term. Mr Diaz-Canel recalled his public support for the campaign to release the Miami Five.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning pointed to Carter’s agreement to recognise Taiwan’s status as Chinese territory as a cornerstone of constructive US-China relations. Carter also publicly opposed the US-British invasion of Iraq in 2003.

US space agency Nasa administrator Bill Nelson pointed to Carter’s words on Voyager 1, the human-made object now farthest from Earth, in which he offered any alien civilisation encountering the craft “a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings,” saying the late president understood “we find common ground when we look to the stars.”

However, despite having worked with the Soviet Union on joint space projects such as the Apollo-Soyuz programme, the United States currently vetoes any participation of its newer space race rival China in projects involving the International Space Station.

US President Joe Biden set Carter’s state funeral for January 9.

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