Arafat in coma

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6717061


Palestinian President Yasser Arafat went into a coma overnight and was lying unconscious in a French military hospital on Thursday while back home Palestinian security chiefs were called to an emergency meeting.

Doctors carrying out tests on the 75-year-old leader since he was airlifted to France last Friday still did not know what was wrong with him, despite ruling out leukemia, they said.

Arafat's immune system appeared quite weak as his health, which had at first stabilized after he arrived at the hospital, suddenly deteriorated on Wednesday, they said.

"Arafat is in a coma and in a critical condition," a senior Palestinian official told Reuters. He was transferred to the intensive care unit on Wednesday at around 5 p.m. (1600 GMT).

"He has no immunity whatsoever," said another aide, adding he slipped into the coma around 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Thursday.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, the heads of all Palestinian security services were due to hold an emergency meeting, security sources said.

The meeting was to be held in the evening at Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, the sources told Reuters.

Senior Palestinian officials had earlier denied Arafat was in a coma. "No coma," Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie told reporters. "His condition is not getting better, nor is it worsening."

Arafat's slide into illness has raised fears of chaos among Palestinians locked in a 4-year-old uprising.

Arafat, loved by most Palestinians and reviled by many Israelis, has named no successor since emerging from exile under interim peace accords with Israel in the early 1990s.

The death of a leader Israel and Washington see as an obstacle to peace could also shuffle the cards in the Middle East conflict.

Who's goign to step in when he goes?

The worrying thing is that in situations like this, in most cases the person coming in is alot more hardline than the one goign out so to speak.

This is a historic week. Bush has won, Kerry has lost and Arafat is almost dead. And people is discussing about songs of a boxset. Mass, mass, mass....

There's not much we can do about any of those situations, so we might as well enjoy ourselves

hmm, i fear it's gonna be a bloody friday tomorrow, or a bloody week next week. there are usually a lot of demonstrations on the last friday of ramadan (which will be tomorrow) and now that we know that Arafat is dead, it will be a lot worse...

there will also be a lot of discussions about his burial, because he wanted to be buried in jerusalem, but sharon is against that. i think the palestine people will want the last wish of their hero come true, no matter what. so the situation there won't be nice in the near future.

He's not dead yet.

No, it won't. I don't think the Palestinians have much hope though. There isn't anyone strong enough to step into Arafats shoes and stay alive. The Israelis will have their way.

Ice

for me brain death is death. but you may have a different opinion on this.

(keeping his other organs "alive" on some machines has nothing to do with being dead or not, that's only because muslims have to be burried 24 hours after their death. so they keep "the body alive" to get more time.)

He's not brain dead either. It was a mistake made by a Luxemburg news agency. Read this:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...lth/index.html

Ice

In our news 1 1/2 hours ago they said that they just confirmed that he is brain dead.

Well according to the BBC he's still in a coma but nothign about being brain dead.

I'm goign with the Beeb on this one.