McCain: diagnosed with cancer

U.S. Republican Senator John McCain, the Conservative Party’s 2008 Presidential nominee, has halted treatment for brain cancer, 13 months after revealing the illness, his family announced on Friday.

This is a year after the Vietnam War hero announced his prognosis.

McCain, 81, announced in July 2017 that he was suffering aggressive glioblastoma.

“In the year since, John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict,’’ the McCain family said in a statement.

“With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment.’’

The retired Navy fighter pilot, who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and held as a prisoner of war for more than five years, entered Congress in 1983 from Arizona and has served in the Senate since 1987.

The hawkish chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee is a top Republican voice on defence and foreign policy.

He fell short in his 2008 presidential bid, losing to Barack Obama.

McCain has been a leading Republican dissident since Donald Trump was elected president. (dpa/NAN)