Official 'categorically' denies Arafat brain death

Yasser Arafat is in a “reversible coma” but not brain dead, his spokeswoman said today amid reports about the 75-year-old Palestinian leader’s condition.

“I can assure that there is no brain death,” Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, told French RTL radio. “He is in a coma. We don’t know the type but it’s a reversible coma.”