Arafat death watch

The latest rumours that have been flying over the weekend include:

• He’s still in a coma
• He’s not in a coma
• He opened his eyes and spoke to doctors – this rumour was quickly dismissed
• Speculation that he’s dying of AIDS – again, completely unfounded
• His condition is unchanged, whatever that means
• Arafat is dead but French officials have been asked to withhold announcing it for 36 hours to provide time to make arrangements (that last one coming from a less-than-credible “news source”)
• France is kicking Arafat out because its hospital no longer wants to compromise its credibility by continuing to claim he’s alive (via Lynn)
• The latest is that he has liver failure and might be transferred to Cairo

The only thing that seems clear, amidst all the foggy evidence, is that Arafat wanted to achieve myth-like status by deliberately clouding the circumstances of his death.