CAIRO, Nov. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's health has not deteriorated, a French hospital spokesman told reporters Friday.

    Sky News televion station quoted the spokesman as saying that Arafat's condition is "stable."

    General Christian Estripeau, spokesman for French Defense forces' medical service, said that Arafat's condition "is
considered stable since the last health update" given 24 hours earlier on Thursday.

    He, however, refused to answer questions and did not respond to information from a French medical source that Arafat was "brain dead" but being kept technically alive through life support.

     Earlier on Friday, Leila Shahid, spokeswoman for Arafat, said the Palestinian leader was not brain dead but was in a "reversible coma."

    "I can assure (you) that there is no brain death ... He is in a coma, we don't know the type but it's a reversible coma," Shahid told the private French radio station RTL.

    However, she admitted that Arafat "is at a critical juncture between life and death."

    There have been conflicting reports about the fate of the 75-year-old Palestinian leader who was airlifted to a military hospital near Paris a week ago.

    French and Israeli media reported Thursday Arafat had died, but both French medical officials and Palestinian officials have denied the reports. Enditem