Ex-UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher dies

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has died, following a stroke. She was 87.

Ex-spokesman Tim Bell said the woman known to friends and foes as "the Iron Lady" passed away on Monday morning.
"It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning," Lord Tim Bell said.

Britain's only woman prime minister, the tough, outspoken Thatcher led the Conservatives to three election victories,
governing from 1979 to 1990, the longest continuous period in office by a British prime minister since the early 19th century.
Thatcher retired from public engagements in 2002 following a series of small strokes, and was only occasionally seen in public since then.
Queen Elizabeth said she was sad to hear the news of Thatcher's death and sent a message of sympathy to her family.

'Great leader'
Prime Minister David Cameron, who cut short his trip to Europe after hearing of Thatcher's death, also expressed sadness, saying "we have lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton".
The British government said a ceremonial funeral with military honours would be held at London's St Paul's Cathedral for the late leader.
In line with her family's wishes, the ceremony will not be a full state funeral.
"A wide and diverse range of people and groups with connections to Lady Thatcher will be invited," Cameron's office said in a statement.
"The service will be followed by a private cremation. All the arrangements being put in place are in line with wishes of
Lady Thatcher's family."
Reacting to her passing, US President Barack Obama said America had lost a "true friend".
Thatcher struck up a close relationship with US President Ronald Reagan in the Cold War, and shared his belief that free markets would build a better country than reliance on a strong, central government.
Her radical, right-wing polices, credited by some with modernising Britain, alienated many, who saw her as a destroyer of jobs and traditional industries.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who held frequent meetings with Thatcher at the end of the Cold War, said she was a "great politician" who will go down in history.
"Thatcher was a politician whose words carried great weight," he told Interfax news agency, calling her death "sad news".