Arafat's clinical situation becomes complex: French official

French Defense Ministry declared Thursday Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is still alive,but said that "his clinical situation has become more complex".

"Mr. Arafat is not dead," announced in a brief statement General Christian Estripeau, top medical official for the French defense forces, outside the Percy military hospital at the southwest Paris suburb of Clamart, where Arafat has been hospitalized since last Friday.

"President Arafat remains in the Percy Military Training Hospital," he said, reading from a brief statement.

"The patient's condition needs appropriate treatment which required his being transferred to a unit suited to his pathology on the afternoon of Wednesday November 3," he said.

"His clinical situation has become more complex," Estripeau noted.

He made the statement after earlier reports saying Arafat was dead.

The latest reports quoted a French medical source as announcingArafat is "brain dead", but added that he is prolonged in a "very deep coma of stage IV", French RFI television reported.

Such artificial care can be "extended for several days or several weeks thanks to the machines," the source said.

Source: Xinhua