US loses 'true friend': Obama on Thatcher

US President Barack Obama says after the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher that America has lost a "true friend" and the world a champion of freedom and liberty.

"As an unapologetic supporter of our transatlantic alliance, she knew that with strength and resolve we could win the Cold War and extend freedom's promise," Obama said in a written statement.

Obama - who turned 29 and was elected editor of the Harvard Law Review in 1990, the year Thatcher lost power - said Britain's first woman leader was an example to girls that "there is no glass ceiling that can't be shattered".

"With the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend," Obama said.

"As prime minister, she helped restore the confidence and pride that has always been the hallmark of Britain at its best."

The US leader noted Americans would never forget Thatcher standing shoulder to shoulder with president Ronald Reagan to end the Cold War, and she was a reminder that the currents of history can be shaped with "moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will".

"Michelle and I send our thoughts to the Thatcher family and all the British people as we carry on the work to which she dedicated her life - free peoples standing together, determined to write our own destiny."

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Thatcher's battle with dementia

IT is a sad irony that, during her time in power, Margaret Thatcher was renowned for her razor-like intellect and power-house memory.

No one at that time could have foreseen her later mental decline, least of all her daughter Carol.

In her memoir, A Swim-On Part in a Goldfish Bowl, Carol Thatcher told of her mother's "blotting paper brain" that effortlessly absorbed information.

But in a cruel twist of fate, Thatcher was destined to become one of the more than 820,000 people in the UK whose lives are blighted by dementia.

Although it has often been reported that she suffered from Alzheimer's disease, this has never been confirmed.

Alzheimer's is the most common of four principal kinds of dementia, affecting about two thirds of all those with the condition.

The second most common is vascular dementia, caused by reduced blood flow to the brain, followed by dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia.

All forms of dementia result in symptoms of memory loss, confusion, and mood changes that can be devastating not only for those affected but also the loved ones around them. In some cases, dementia can also lead to altered personality and hallucinations.

For more than a decade, Thatcher struggled with the cruel draining away of her mental faculties.

Carol broke the news that her mother had been suffering from dementia in 2008.

She first noticed her mother's memory failing over lunch in 2000, relating in her book how she "almost fell off her chair" with surprise.

As dementia tightened its grip, Thatcher frequently forgot that her husband, Denis, had died.

Thatcher's descent into dementia was dramatically - and some say, unfairly - depicted in the film The Iron Lady, with Meryl Streep playing the former British PM.

In her book, Carol Thatcher describes how the tell-tale signs of dementia slowly began to emerge.

"Whereas previously you would never had had to say anything to her twice, because she'd already filed it away in her formidable memory bank, Mum started asking the same questions over and over again, unaware she was doing so," she wrote.

After Denis Thatcher died from cancer in 2003, her mother continually had to be reminded that her husband had gone.

"I had to keep giving the bad news over and over again," said Carol Thatcher. "Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her husband of more than 50 years, she'd look at me sadly and say 'oh', as I struggled to compose myself."

On bad days her mother could "hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end," she recalled.

Thatcher became patron of Alzheimer's Research UK, Britain's leading charity dedicated to dementia research, in 2001.

Rebecca Wood, the charity's chief executive, said: "The loss of Baroness Thatcher will resonate across the world, but in particular with the 820,000 people living with dementia in the UK. Irrespective of personal politics, few would dispute Lady Thatcher's profound influence, the power of her presentation and strength of her convictions.

"That dementia could affect such a forceful personality is a lesson that this cruel condition does not discriminate. As patron to Alzheimer's Research UK, her support of our research could not have been more important, helping draw attention to a condition so frequently swept under the carpet.

"Thanks to Lady Thatcher, we have made inroads with our research to defeat dementia. The answers will come too late for her, but they will come, and this will be another important part of our collective memory of her life and work."

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Climate change blamed for bumpier flights

FLIGHTS will become bumpier as global warming destabilises air currents at altitudes used by commercial airliners, climate scientists warn.

Already, atmospheric turbulence injures hundreds of airline passengers each year, sometimes fatally, damaging aircraft and costing the industry an estimated $US150 million ($A145 million), scientists say.

"Climate change is not just warming the Earth's surface, it is also changing the atmospheric winds 10 kilometres high, where planes fly," said study co-author Paul Williams of the University of Reading's National Centre for Atmospheric Science in southeastern England.

"That is making the atmosphere more vulnerable to the instability that creates clear-air turbulence.

"Our research suggests that we'll be seeing the 'fasten seatbelts' sign turned on more often in the decades ahead."

Turbulence is mainly caused by vertical airflow - up-draughts and down-draughts near clouds and thunderstorms.

Clear-air turbulence, which is not visible to the naked eye and cannot be picked up by satellite or traditional radar, is linked to atmospheric jet streams, which are projected to strengthen with climate change.

"Turbulence strong enough to make walking difficult and to dislodge unsecured objects is likely to become twice as common in transatlantic airspace by the middle of this century," said Williams.

Williams said CO2 caused non-uniform warming, which increased the jet stream winds.

"A stronger jet stream means the atmosphere is less stable, which creates more turbulence," he explained.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said planes already spent about one per cent of their cruise time in strong clear-air turbulence.

Frequent flyers had reported bumpiness to be on the rise, but this was the first study to actually measure the projected impact of climate change, said the authors.

"Flight paths may need to become more convoluted to avoid patches of turbulence that are stronger and more frequent, in which journey times will lengthen and fuel consumption and emissions will increase," they wrote.

"Aviation is partly responsible for changing the climate in the first place," added Williams.

"It is ironic that the climate looks set to exact its revenge by creating a more turbulent atmosphere for flying."

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Thatcher triggered cultural revolution

AS well as overhauling Britain's economy, Margaret Thatcher triggered a cultural revolution by igniting a creative burst of anger at her policies, including slashing arts funding.

Thatcher "had a phenomenal impact on the cultural landscape of Britain by creating an ideological backlash", said David Khabaz of the London School of Economics, author of a book on the former prime minister's cultural legacy.

"It was kind of a paradoxical movement: if (Thatcher) hadn't provided that sort of attack on art, the critical edge of intellectual art would never have come about," he said.

Thatcher swept to power in 1979, and among her many controversial reforms was a decision to progressively cut funding for the Arts Council, a public body set up after World War II to help bring culture to the masses.

In line with her fierce free market economic principles, she argued that artists - many seen as broadly leftwing and anti-government - should sink or swim on their own merits, like the rest of the population.

But more than withdrawing funds it was her wider policies - including cutting jobs in mines and elsewhere, while cosying up to the US against the Soviet threat and waging war in the Falklands - which fuelled anger.

"Thatcher polarised society far more than ever before ... What you read, what you watched and listened to indicated whether you were pro or anti-Thatcher," said David Christopher of the European Business School.

"Thatcher affected people's attitudes in their everyday life, her hegemony seems to permeate all aspects of life," including fashion, cinema and music, added Christopher, author of British Culture, an Introduction.

The music world saw the most visible, and sometimes violent, reaction to Thatcher's policies.

Red Wedge, an anti-Thatcher movement formed in the run-up to the 1987 election, brought together a grouping of musicians including The Clash, Paul Weller, The Communards, Madness, Billy Bragg, The Smiths and Elvis Costello.

They played benefit gigs to raise money for striking miners and urging people to vote Labour, while underground events sprung up with concerts and exhibitions in warehouses, or home-made CDs to bypass music corporations.

In 1988 Morrissey penned Margaret on the Guillotine, saying that was his "wonderful dream". Dozens of other songs call for her removal, notably over her friendship with Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The same year students from Goldsmiths College in London organised the famous Freeze "happening" in a dingy Docklands warehouse. They were led by Damien Hirst, who later became one of the world's wealthiest artists.

Other galleries, like that of Charles Saatchi, also served as a breeding ground for the counter-culture new British art.

Meanwhile, one thorn in Thatcher's side came from the heart of the British establishment: the internationally respected and fiercely independent BBC.

The Tory leader was not slow to try to clamp down on the BBC, which broadcast damaging news investigation programs like Panorama.

Thatcher "hated the BBC. She became increasingly worried about the BBC until she managed to appoint chairmen who were sympathetic to the government," said Christopher.

Channel Four, a public TV station created in 1982, nurtured a new generation of directors whose edgy social films started on the small screen, but then became cinema hits.

My Beautiful Launderette, a powerful satire on race and class directed by Stephen Frears with the writer Hanif Kureishi, was among the most successful products of that collaboration.

Other openly anti-Thatcher filmmakers included Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, while playwright and later Nobel Literature prize laureate Harold Pinter also joined the cultural onslaught on her government.

The creative burst continued well beyond her departure in 1990, which presaged the demise of Tory government in 1997.

In December 2011, Meryl Streep portrayed her in the film The Iron Lady, although it was criticised in some parts for focusing on her dementia.

"She has become a British icon ... Thatcher is not Thatcherism: Thatcher started the project, but Thatcherism became much, much bigger than her," said Khabaz.

"Half of the country still despise her. It has not gone away."

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Friends and foes pay tribute to Thatcher

FORMER friends and foes alike from across the world have paid tribute to the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, remembering an "extraordinary leader" who stamped her authority everywhere.

The "Iron Lady" was a polarising figure in Britain and beyond during her time in office, but foreign leaders were unanimous in acknowledging her place in 20th century history, with Barack Obama mourning a "true friend of America".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed Thatcher as "an extraordinary leader in the global politics of her time".

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who held frequent meetings with Thatcher in the 1980s as the Cold War drew to a close, said Thatcher would go down in history.

"Margaret Thatcher was a great politician and a bright individual. She will do down in our memory and in history," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in a statement released by his foundation.

"Thatcher was a politician whose words carried great weight," he added, calling her death "sad news".

Thatcher, who once famously said of Gorbachev that "this is a man I can do business with", died of stroke on Monday at the age of 87.

Gorbachev admitted their first meetings were tense because the Soviet Union was still a few years from falling apart, and his own commitment to the Communist Party made their relations sometimes rocky.

But he said the two leaders always treated each other with the utmost respect, listening to what the other had to say closely.

"Our first meeting in 1984 gave the start to relations that were at times difficult, not always smooth, but which were serious and responsible for us both," he noted.

Fellow Cold War hero Lech Walesa, the Polish dockyard worker whose pro-democracy Solidarity movement helped create the first cracks in the Soviet system in the 1980s, said Thatcher helped Communism fall in his own country.

"She was a great personality who has done many things for the world that contributed to the fall of Communism in Poland and Eastern Europe," Walesa told AFP.

But even those with reason to remember a sometimes divisive figure less fondly were quick to pay tribute to her huge personality.

In South Africa, a spokesman for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) recalled the differences between Thatcher and those fighting against Apartheid in the 1980s.

"She failed to acknowledge the ANC as the rightful party of governance, but was out of touch with the British people on that issue. It's water under the bridge," said spokesman Keith Khoza.

But he added: "Margaret Thatcher was a leader of note, despite disagreements in policy between her and the ANC."

In Brussels, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso paid tribute to Thatcher's "contributions" to the growth of the European Union, despite her reservations about continental European integration.

Expressing his "deepest regrets" to the UK government, Barroso said she had been "a circumspect yet engaged player in the European Union" who "will be remembered for both her contributions to and her reserves about our common project".

Outside Europe, Israel's conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first world leaders to speak publicly of Thatcher's passing, saying that "she was truly a great leader".

In Spain, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Thatcher's "firm determination to make reforms" was an inspiration to European leaders who were currently "facing very complex challenges that require great efforts and political courage".

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Reports of star's demise premature

MARGARET Thatcher's death caused paroxysms of confusion on Twitter where some users were apparently left with the impression that the singer Cher had died.

Members began posting comments on the microblogging site with the hashtag #nowthatchersdead soon after the news was announced.

But it was apparently misinterpreted and led to a flurry of Tweets suggesting it had upset the pop star's fans.

Comedian Ricky Gervais attempted to set the record straight, writing: "Some people are in a frenzy over the hashtag #nowthatchersdead.

"It's 'Now Thatcher's dead'.

"Not, 'Now that Cher's dead'".

Other Twitter users sought to reassure followers. One wrote: "It's OK people, @cher is still very much alive".

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Thatcher's beliefs 'half-baked': Robertson

AUSTRALIAN human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson says it is wrong to eulogise Margaret Thatcher as a conviction politician because her beliefs have since proven to be "half-baked".

Instead, the London-based barrister, who lived through the Thatcher era, says her real legacy is that she was Britain's first female prime minister.

"In retrospect the greatest thing about her was that she was a woman," Mr Robertson told AAP.

"The lady is not for turning will be remembered for the fact she was a lady and not the fact she was a conviction politician."

Lady Thatcher died on Monday aged 87.

Mr Robertson said her political beliefs had proven to be "half-baked and hand-rammed".

She believed letting the market rip could produce happiness for all, he said.

"And it hasn't. Her idea of light-touch regulation led to the banking crisis and so many other crises."

The Australian lawyer said the 1980s were a period of "unalloyed greed" and Lady Thatcher had been incapable of empathising with the poor and disadvantaged.

Mr Robertson on Monday also criticised Lady Thatcher for drinking whiskey with former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet when he visited the UK in the 1990s.

But she did do some good on the international stage, he admitted.

She rightly took Mikhail Gorbachev seriously while the Falklands war led to the overthrow of the "barbaric" military government in Argentina.

Mr Robertson also acknowledged she was right to take on the union power and arrogance that had destroyed the previous Labour government.

Australian Liberals Abroad UK president Jason Groves on Monday described Lady Thatcher as "one of the great transformative leaders of our time".

Mr Groves said the former British PM influenced the conservative side of politics in Australia and around the world.

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard was similar to Lady Thatcher in that both were conviction politicians, he told AAP.

"They both changed profoundly the countries they governed," he said.

"The UK changed out of sight under Margaret Thatcher and likewise John Howard took what was an economy with good fundamentals and put it in the position where it was able to ride out the greatest global financial crisis since the great depression."

Durham Miners' Association general secretary David Hopper, 70, on Monday said the death of Lady Thatcher was a "great day" for coal miners.

"There's no sympathy from me for what she did to our community," he said.

"She destroyed our community, our villages and our people."

But Mr Groves said while some miners suffered under Lady Thatcher's 11-year rule, many of the communities had been transformed because of the way she'd revitalised the British economy.

Australian Peter Tatchell, a leading gay rights activist in the UK, said Lady Thatcher was an extraordinary woman "but mostly for the wrong reasons".

"Thatcher legislated UK's first new anti-gay law in 100 years: section 28," the activist Tweeted on Monday.

"She mocked the right to be gay."

Section 28, since repealed, banned local authorities from promoting homosexuality in any way.

Mr Tatchell said while Lady Thatcher shattered the sexist glass ceiling in politics she did little for the rights of women.

"A macho right-winger," he said in another Tweet.

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