CLAMART, France, (Reuters):
PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT Yasser Arafat was fighting for his life in a French hospital yesterday after slipping into a coma.
A senior official said some of his powers had been handed to his prime minister.
The 75-year-old leader, who embodies the Palestinian struggle for statehood, went into a coma overnight at the military hospital where he has been treated since last week.
Aides said he was in a critical condition but they and a French hospital spokesman denied he was dead. They also dismissed reports that he was brain dead, but said they were becoming increasingly pessimistic about his health.
"President Arafat does not have cardiac arrest or heart failure," Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's Jordanian doctor said.
"He is still alive. He is not clinically dead. There is no brain death, but his condition is deteriorating. Because there has been no diagnosis, we don't know what's wrong with him."
A senior Palestinian official said: "President Arafat is in a very serious condition. He is still in a coma. The sense people are getting is that they are increasingly pessimistic."
NO NAMED SUCCESOR
In the West Bank city of Ramallah a senior Palestinian official said Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, a leading moderate, had taken over some of Arafat's powers for security and financing.
Arafat has not named a successor and had earlier been reluctant to cede any powers.
Palestinian security services were due to hold an emergency meeting in the evening at Arafat's shell-battered headquarters in Ramallah, security sources said.
The slide into illness of the former guerrilla leader who has dominated the Palestinian scene for four decades has raised fears of chaos among Palestinians waging a four year-old uprising.
The death of a leader Israel and Washington see as an obstacle to peace could also shuffle the cards in the Middle East conflict.
