Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opened his eyes yesterday for the first time since suffering a massive stroke on Jan. 4, but hospital officials said the reports were generated by the Sharon family's "impression of eyelid movement, whose medical significance is unclear."
The Web site of the Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported that Sharon opened his eyes twice yesterday. On one occasion, after a recording of a grandson's voice was played, the prime minister's eyes teared, he blinked, and then quickly opened his eyes, the site said. But they closed before doctors reached his room, the site added.
Dr Anthony Rudd, a stroke specialist at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, said eye movement -- including eye opening -- is "not a dramatic breakthrough."
"A coma is not an absolute all-or-nothing state. There are various stages," Rudd said.
Sharon underwent a successful tracheotomy on Sunday evening to help wean him off a respirator that has been helping him breathe hospital officials said, but Sharon's failure to regain consciousness was drawing increasing concern.
The surgery took less than an hour and followed a CT scan that showed no changes in his brain. Though Sharon was taken off sedatives on Saturday, he had not regained consciousness more than a day later. The hospital continued to describe his condition as critical but stable.
His stand-in, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, will remain in his post until Israel's election on March 28, according to a ruling on Sunday by Attorney-General Meni Mazuz. He sidestepped a ruling that Sharon would be permanently incapacitated, requiring the Cabinet to name a replacement.
Sharon had to undergo the tracheotomy procedure to insert a plastic tube in his windpipe because the former tube to a respirator would have started to cause damage if it remained in place, said Doctor Philip Stieg, chair of neurosurgery at the Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York.
Sharon's comatose state and the fact that he was undergoing the tracheotomy do not bode well for the prime minister's future, Stieg said. It is becoming more probable as time passes that Sharon will either remain in a vegetative state or have low cognitive abilities, he said.
``It suggests that the brain damage is as serious as we thought it was based on earlier reports and now its all playing out,'' Stieg said.
``He's not turning the corner, he's not waking up ... they're having to do more things to keep him alive,'' Steig added.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and