Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said yesterday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse.

Monique Walsh’s (Oct 15) recent letter had no basis in fact.

President Hugo Chavez, the fiery populist who declared a socialist revolution in Venezuela and crusaded against US influence, died on Tuesday at the age of 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer.

On a visit to Ireland this week Ben-Dror Yemini, a former political adviser turned Israeli journalist, agreed to a questions and answers session with the Irish Examiner on Israeli/Arab relations and events in the the wider middle east.

The remains of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were exhumed from his grave today so international forensic experts could search for additional clues to his death, Palestinian officials said.

The remains of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be exhumed on Tuesday, to enable foreign experts to take samples as part of a probe into his death, a Palestinian official said today.

The Palestinian president has said Russian experts will join a team of Swiss and French investigators in exhuming the remains of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat later this month.

Lifting a nearly 25-year veil of secrecy, Israel acknowledged today that it killed the deputy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a 1988 seaborne raid in Tunisia.

A former Israeli official has denied suspicions that the country poisoned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as France began an investigation into his possible murder.

French prosecutors have opened a murder investigation into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

French prosecutors have opened a murder inquiry into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat near Paris eight years ago, according to AFP News Agency.

The widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has formally asked for an investigation into his death, claiming he was assassinated amid new suspicions he was poisoned before he died in a French military hospital.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has given his permission to exhume the remains of his predecessor Yasser Arafat, a top aide said.

The body of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could be exhumed after it emerged that he may have been poisoned.

The body of former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat may be exhumed after the discovery of traces of a radioactive agent on clothing he reportedly wore in his final days reignited a cauldron of conspiracy theories.

The body of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may be exhumed after new evidence emerged that he might have been killed with radioactive poison.

Romanian police fired tear gas and clashed with protesters during an anti-government rally, the third consecutive day of demonstrations against austerity cuts and falling living standards.

MIDEAST peace prospects have been plunged into unknown territory as no prospective leaders emerged publicly yesterday in the aftermath of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement that he doesn’t want another term.

Arab doctors will meet in Jordan to probe rumours that former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat was poisoned, nearly five years after he died of what French medics called a massive brain haemorrhage.

Nearly five years after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat died by what French doctors called a massive brain haemorrhage, Arab doctors will meet in Jordan to probe rumours Arafat was poisoned – a suspicion that has lingered years after his death.

IF NICENESS had anything to do with it, George Mitchell will pull off Middle Eastern peace by Easter.

THE article by Palestinian Delegate-General Dr Hikmat Ajjuri (Irish Examiner, November 12) regarding the origin of Israel and the current state of Israeli-Palestinian relations was not only bitterly partisan and inflammatory, it was riddled with untruths and historical inaccuracies.

George Habash, a long-time rival of Yasser Arafat who led the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s second-largest faction which pioneered aeroplane hijackings, died today in Jordan. He was 81.

PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas used a rally commemorating the deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat yesterday to lash out at his rivals from the Islamic group Hamas.

Palestinians unveiled a stone mausoleum for their late leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah today.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Israel is ready to discuss “fundamental issues” with Palestinians who are now governed by leaders accepted by the Jewish state and the West.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at the Islamic militants of Hamas, accusing them of trying to build an “empire of darkness” in the Gaza Strip and pledging he would not negotiate with the “murderous terrorists”.

A crowd looted the home of long-time Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat today destroying one of the strongest symbols of the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip, witnesses and Fatah officials said.

THE internal fighting between Palestinian factions in Gaza is the latest stumbling block to attempts to secure a peace that has been elusive since the formation of the state of Israel.

WITH Gaza under the control of Hamas, pity poor Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah, who took over as president of the Palestinian Authority two-and-a-half years ago, after the death of Yasser Arafat.

The rival Fatah and Hamas movements have agreed on a candidate for prime minister of their emerging coalition government, turning to a US-educated professor to end months of infighting and help lift a painful international aid boycott.

The rival Fatah and Hamas movements today agreed on a candidate for prime minister of their emerging coalition government in Palestine, turning to a US-educated professor to end months of infighting and help lift a painful international aid boycott.

I THINK there’s a large hole in Gordon Kennedy’s argument (Irish Examiner letters, May 22) that an IRA hunger striker was not a criminal just because he got 30,000 votes in an election.

Security forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a new militia run by the Hamas-led government paraded through the streets with assault rifles and stared each other down today, competing for control of the Gaza Strip.

Israel today claimed a captured former Palestinian finance official admitted using foreign donor money to finance millions of dollars in arms purchases, on the direct orders from then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday toured the devastated Jericho prison where Israel spirited away six prisoners, denouncing the raid as an ”unforgivable crime".

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today that six Palestinians grabbed from a West Bank prison will be charged and tried by Israel, despite Palestinian claims that the arrests were illegal.

THE list of uncertainties bedeviling the Middle East has grown longer and deeper: Palestinian factions fighting each other in the streets, the relentless insurgency in Iraq, the rising political clout of Islamist militants in Egypt, political uncertainty in Syria and Lebanon.

Several thousand people joined a rally of the ruling Fatah movement to mark the first anniversary of the death of long-time Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The official investigation into the death of Yasser Arafat turned up inconclusive, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said today.

The Palestinian parliament today decided to appoint a committee of politicians to investigate what killed long-time leader Yasser Arafat, alleging Israel involvement.

Powerful explosions ripped apart headquarters and sent water and communication towers crashing to the ground today as Israel destroyed the last of its military facilities in the Gaza Strip and prepared to hand over the territory to the Palestinians early next week.

A MASSIVE stroke caused by an infection killed longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last year, though it remains unclear what led to the rapid deterioration of his health.

Yasser Arafat’s medical records do not give conclusive results on what led to the former Palestinian leader’s death, it is reported today.