Obama: Wiesel was 'the conscience of the world'

President Barack Obama on Saturday night expressed his condolences over the passing of Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, who was a close friend of Obama's and who died earlier in the day at the age of 87.

Wiesel, said Obama in a statement, “was one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world. Tonight, Michelle and I join people across the United States, Israel and around the globe in mourning the loss and celebrating the life of a truly remarkable human being.”