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THE REMAINS OF former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be exhumed on Tuesday as part of a renewed investigation into his death.
Arafat died in November 2004 in a French military hospital, a month after suddenly falling ill.
Palestinian officials claim he was poisoned by Israel, but have not presented evidence. Israel has denied such allegations.
Earlier this year, the detection of a lethal radioactive substance in biological traces on Arafat’s clothing sparked a new investigation. Tests were inconclusive, and experts said they need to check his remains to learn more.
On Tuesday, Swiss, French and Russian experts will take samples from Arafat’s bones, said Tawfik Tirawi, who heads the Palestinian team investigating the death. They will examine the samples in their home countries.
Arafat will be reburied the same day with military honors, but the ceremony will be closed to the public, .
He did not specify when results would be announced but said the probe could take months.
Earlier this month, workers began prying open the concrete-encased tomb in Arafat’s former government headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government in the West Bank, had hesitated before agreeing to exhume the remains, in part because of cultural and religious sensitivities.
Since mid-November, the gravesite has been surrounded with a blue tarpaulin and roads leading to the Arafat mausoleum were closed. Arafat is still widely revered in the Palestinian territories, and Palestinian officials said they don’t want the process observed by media and others.
The new probe into his death began this summer, after a Swiss lab discovered traces of polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope, on clothes said to be Arafat’s. The clothes were provided by Arafat’s widow, Suha, and given to the lab by the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera. Separately, Mrs. Arafat asked the French government to investigate, while the Palestinian Authority called in Russian experts.
Arafat’s death has remained a mystery for many. While the immediate cause of death was a stroke, the underlying source of an illness he suffered in his final weeks has never been clear, leading to persistent conspiracy theories that he had cancer, AIDS or was poisoned.
Many in the Arab world believe Arafat, the face of the Palestinian independence struggle for four decades, was killed by Israel. Israel, which saw Arafat as an obstacle to peace, vehemently denies the charge.
There is no guarantee the exhumation will solve the mystery. Polonium-210 is known to rapidly decompose, and experts are divided over whether any remaining samples will be sufficient for testing.
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Barrack Obama inherited an 8 year failed legacy from Bush. Obama connects with the ordinary man in the street and for that he is a git. If Americans vote in Mitt Romney then it will push them back another 8 years. His response to Sandy. Try and seek shelter in your second home. He is totally out of sync with the majority of US people. Unless you have a few million in your current account.
Do you live in the states ?? Or get all your information from CNN??
As opposed to Mit ! Cop on woman !
The Storm has caused terrible damage and loss of life and my thoughts go out to all the families that have lost a loved one… just to note though, the last dead count I read in Haiti was over 80… do Haitians not count?? I haven’t heard one report about the loss outside of the U.S.
of course if I had read the full report…. OK Well, I’ve heard nothing of the toll outside the U.S. here in the U.S.
Hi Keith, just to note that though this piece is about America, it does say: “Sandy’s overall toll to 135 including Canada and the Caribbean, where Haiti and Cuba were hit particularly hard.” We also covered the hurricane when it hit those areas.
Thanks
Aoife
Aoife, you guys have done OK on this point, but for the rest of the mainstream media the storm didn’t happen until it hit USA.
To them, damage and deaths in the Caribbean, Canada, etc are just ‘collateral damage’, to use an Americanism.
if they evacuated like they were supposed to the death toll would have been less.One 13 year old girl swept away in her house with her mother,they shouldn’t have been in the house in the first place
What an insincere git he cares nothing for “his fellow Americans” only getting 4 more years of destroying a great nation
A great nation?
Don’t be silly Celly.
have your say