It appears that the PLO leader has died. My condolences to his family and I hope this opens a new era in Israeli - Palestinian relations.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/N...616207,00.html

 

good, glad to see him go. no if only Castro would kick the bucket.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...lth/index.html

"...The spokesman told reporters that Arafat is not dead."

 

No not dead yet.

 

Well it looks like there are a lot of conflicting reports on this.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/200...ARAFAT-DC.html

 

Reuters and BBC are (IMHO) more reliable than anybody else. They are both saying he is physically still breathing and his heart is pumping, but he is in a deep coma at this moment.

 

Great. Thanks to his own unwillingness to leave his compound for medical attention, I do believe that he will be martyrable by extremists.

 

I think he will go out with a bang, or a boom.

 

I was listening to some news report the other day about doctor's not being able to figure out what's wrong with him... I found that slightly curious....

 

Curious isn't the word for it. Insulting to the intelligence is more like it. He's been in a French hospital for almost a week, and it's simply not believable that they don't know what's wrong with him yet.

But, the French are apparently famous for that. When Charles DeGaulle was in his final illness, the hospital he was in issued a public statement saying that he had an attack of "piles" (which I believe is a polite way of saying he had the runs). I remember hearing a BBC report at the time, which reported the hospital's statement, along with "Since virtually no one believes this is all that is wrong with him, a further statement is eagerly awaited" (the perfect upper-class-British way of calling someone a liar).