Former US president George H.W. Bush dead at 94

WASHINGTON (Update 2, 1:27 p.m.) — Former US president George H.W. Bush, who helped steer America through the end of the Cold War, died Saturday (Manila time) at age 94, his family announced.

"Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died," his son, former president George W. Bush, said in a statement released on Twitter by a family spokesman.

"George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for."

Bush's passing comes just months after the death in April of his wife and revered first lady Barbara Bush -- his "most beloved woman in the world" -- to whom he was married for 73 years.

He is survived by his five children and 17 grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements will be announced in due course, a family spokesman said.

The US leader was a foreign policy stalwart who declared a "new world order" in 1990 and drove Iraq from Kuwait but saw his military intervention in the Middle East serve as a harbinger of chaos to come.

The decorated war pilot and former CIA chief suffered the ignominy of being a one-term president, denied a second term over a weak economy when he lost the 1992 election to upstart Democrat Bill Clinton.