Posted on 07/04/2012 4:20:59 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Palestinians leaders agreed Wednesday to exhume the body of Yasser Arafat after a television documentary suggested that he had been assassinated while being treated in a Paris hospital.
Arafat was 75 and had long been ill when he slipped into a coma and died on Nov. 11, 2004. He had been suffering from a mysterious illness. The cause of the death was never determined and French medical officials would not release details of his illness because of privacy laws. The medical report was given to his family.
The television network al Jazeera broadcast a documentary this week in which a Swiss institute examined clothing provided by Arafat's widow, Suha, and determined there were high levels of polonium-210, the same substance found to have killed a former Russian spy in London in 2006.
Suha Arafat has since called for her husband's body to be exhumed from its mausoleum in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Presidential adviser Nabil Abu Rdeineh said Wednesday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has given instructions to launch an investigation with international experts to look into the findings of the al Jazeera report.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
". . . a Swiss institute examined clothing provided by Arafat's widow, Suha, and determined there were high levels of polonium-210 the same substance found to have killed a former Russian spy in London in 2006. "
Wouldn't high levels of polonium-210 affect Suha or the Swiss Institute too?
From an earlier Freep thread discussing the 2006 poisoning of the Russian spy:
"Polonium occurs naturally in very low concentrations in the Earth's crust, and experts said small amounts -- but not enough to kill someone -- are used legitimately in Britain and elsewhere for industrial purposes. Polonium-210 was a critical component in early nuclear weapons, and the former Soviet Union used polonium in power supply systems for spacecraft in the 1970s."@ theglobeandmail.com ...Also from the 2006 article: Comment #10 RadioAstronomer stated:
"Polonium 210 has a really short half-life (138 days). This means it is also extremely dangerous during that timeframe. Fortunately it is an alpha emitter, thusly, the primary worry is thru ingestion. It also decays to a stable form of lead (Pb-210). Actually, Po-210 has been sold and used in household products. Spark plugs, vinyl record brushes etc. If someone was poisoned with Po, a good Alpha scintillator should detect it upon measuring excretions from the body. Also most spacecraft use Pu-238 as it alpha decay source. Much longer half-life.I'm sure there's more but I'm signing off for the night. Will check back for more on this 'oh-so-obvious' attempt to rewrite Arafat's history.
He was so ugly when he was alive that he can only look better now.
The autopsy will show what ever they want it to show.
Coming soon to the big screen: “Weekend at Yasser’s!”
“Lead” poisoning is very hard to recover from.
Umm, I’m no physics major so: If they suspect Polonium-210, would’t a geiger counter at the mausoleum indicate high radiation?
Death by bunga bunga!
Arafat Zombie...
They can do what they want with the remains, Arafat is burning in Hell and warming up a spot for Jerry Sandusky, shouting “c’mon in Jerry, the lava’s fine!”
Remember the Palestinians think of Arafat as their George Washington And would have a highly poisonous reaction that he was murdered....
So to claim he was poisoned would automatically fall to the Jews did it...
....Even without any evidence they did it...
Arafat was in charge of billions of dollars and one could surmise Hamas or any otter Pali entity would love to rub the dirtbag out to acquire control of the finances
Which pair of Hilary’s lips? SNAP!!!
This documentary is absolute crap and simply another political propaganda piece to drum up hatred against Israel.
The article does not say when they did the analysis on Arafat’s clothing but unless it was done within three years of Arafats death the chances of finding any residual Po-210 is just about ZERO.
The general fule of thumb I was tought in college was that three half-lives of an isotope typically takes the contamination of the isotope below detestability.
Granted that instrumentation today is much more sensitive but even if you stretch it out to 6 half-lives we are long past even that length of time. Even if the were to look for decay daughters Po-210 decays to Pb-206 (not 210) a stable isotope of lead by emission of a alpha particle.
But the simple fact is that Po-210 having a half-life of 138 days by December of 2011 would have gone through 18.5 half-lives and would be factually none existent in Arafat’s clothing and by 2009 would have been undetectable.
As far as an autopsy of Arafat goes Po-210 would undetectable there as well. Unless the dose that Arafat received was truly massive and left a huge amount of lead in his system an autopsy of his body would be indeterminate for Po-210 poisoning.
Yup.
He died from bad crack.
We have a winner!
Is the whitehouse leaker going to let tell the world that the CIA poisoned Arafat?
He’s AIDS jerky by now.
Umm, I’m no physics major so: If they suspect Polonium-210, would’t a geiger counter at the mausoleum indicate high radiation?
Arafat died eight years ago, if he were poisoned with 210Po the LD50 (lethal dose for 50% of those exposed) for 210Po is less than 1 microgram (1.0 × 10-6 grams) for an average adult. We can assume 1 microgram to be on the safe side. 210Po has a half life of 138.376 days, after eight years there would be (1.0 × 10-6 grams) x (2-(8x365.25/138.376)), that's 0.000000000000439 or 4.39/10,000,000,000,000) grams remaining, I doubt the ability to reliably detect one ten thousand billionth of a gram when 210Po is a naturally occurring element in the earth's crust.
Regards,
GtG
I like the way you think.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.