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Israel

Was Arafat Poisoned? Palestinian Authorities OK Exhumation Of Remains

AL JAZEERA (Qatar), XINHUA (China)

Worldcrunch

RAMALLAH - The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has given the go ahead to exhume the body of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat this Wednesday after a special investigation by Al Jazeera revealed unusually high levels of deadly polonium on his personal effects. Arafat's widow Suha Arafat asked for the exhumation after the report was published on Tuesday evening.

"There is no religious or political reason preventing the inquest and the exhumation," said Nabil Abu Rdineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, according to Chinese press agency Xinhua. Abu Rdineh also said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had ordered the committee investigating Arafat's death to assess the new information.

A Swiss laboratory in Lausanne that analyzed Arafat's medical files and his personal effects for Al Jazeera found unusually high levels of a radioactive isotope called polonium, which is deadly even in small doses, hinting that he may have been poisoned to death.

"I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids," Dr. Francois Bochud, director of the institute, told Al Jazeera.

Reactions to the news on Twitter showed that Palestinians had been sceptical all along about the official storyline of Arafat's death.

The Al Jazeera documentary was published following a nine-month investigation into the causes of Arafat's death in 2004. He was transfered from the West Bank to a hospital in Paris, France after two years of Israeli siege, but his sudden sickness was unexplained and he was buried without an autopsy in Ramallah.

Polonium was infamously used to poison Russian spy-turned-dissdent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, but scientific research into its effects is scarce because recorded cases are so rare.

Al Jazeera has segmented the documentary into several parts that are gradually being released.

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Society

Sleep Divorce: The Benefits For Couples In Having Separate Beds

Sleeping separately is often thought to be the beginning of the end for a loving couple. But studies show that having permanently separate beds — if you have the space and means — can actually reinforce the bonds of a relationship.

Image of a woman sleeping in a bed.

A woman sleeping in her bed.

BUENOS AIRES — Couples, it is assumed, sleep together — and sleeping apart is easily taken as a sign of a relationship gone cold. But several recent studies are suggesting, people sleep better alone and "sleep divorce," as the habit is being termed, can benefit both a couple's health and intimacy.

That is, if you have the space for it...

While sleeping in separate beds is seen as unaffectionate and the end of sex, psychologist María Gabriela Simone told Clarín this "is not a fashion, but to do with being able to feel free, and to respect yourself and your partner."

She says the marriage bed originated "in the matrimonial duty of sharing a bed with the aim of having sex to procreate." That, she adds, gradually settled the idea that people "who love each other sleep together."

Is it an imposition then, or an overwhelming preference? Simone says intimacy is one thing, sleeping another.

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