Bill Clinton taken to hospital with chest pains

Former US president Bill Clinton has undergone heart surgery in New York after being rushed to hospital with chest pains.

He was said to be in “good spirits” after doctors placed two stents to clear a blockage in his coronary artery in an operation at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.

Mr Clinton, 63, has a history of heart trouble and underwent urgent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the same hospital in 2004 to free four blocked arteries. He had another operation six months later after developing complications.

Aides said that the former president, who has just returned from an aid mission to Haiti  and had been working at the offices of his charitable foundation in New York, had felt “discomfort” in his chest.

He was on a conference call about Haiti as he was wheeled into surgery and the phone had to be removed from him, according to his friend Terry McAuliffe.