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My mother-in-law passed away last week, and I attended the funeral in Tokyo. The five-day wake was a mind-blower in so many ways. It made me think of just how different Japan is than the United States and how, in so many ways, it is so far superior, both culturally and technologically. We have much to learn. First, the treatment of death is much different. My mother-in-law's body went directly from the hospital, where she passed away, to the home of her husband. There, the body was placed on the floor in the home's tatami room, a traditional chamber, lined...

Wife of Kim Jong-il Gravely Ill: Sankei Quoting an intelligence source in Seoul, Japan's Sankei Shimbun reported Wednesday that rumors are circulating that 51-year-old Ko Yong-hi, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, has slipped into critical condition. South Korean intelligence is rushing to confirm the rumors, the report said. According to the source, following Ko's return to North Korea from Paris, where she received treatment for breast cancer, North Korea purchased an extremely expensive coffin from France and transported it back to Pyongyang aboard a specially chartered flight. Ko gave birth to Kim Jong-il's second and third...

LONDON, April 1 — The dowager Viscountess Dilhorne, who trained pigeons to carry secret communications from Europe in World War II, died on March 25. She was 93. Her son, John, Viscount Dilhorne, told of her death, at her home in Northamptonshire, in central England. In World War II, Mary Manningham-Buller — as she was known before her husband was given a title — trained carrier pigeons in a small village in Oxfordshire, west of London. Secret agents and resistance fighters in Europe used them to communicate with London. The birds flew back to Mrs. Manningham-Buller with coded messages strapped...

Not long ago, in the oncology clinic where I work, my patient Anna Angelo asked me to pray to God. At the time, prayer was far from the forefront of my mind. Anna (her name has been changed to maintain confidentiality) is a 71-year-old woman from Boston's North End with long-standing cardiac and hepatobiliary disease. Six years ago, breast cancer developed. The tumor was incurable from the time of diagnosis, since it had already spread to bone. The cancer cells tested positive for estrogen and progesterone receptors, and Anna was treated with a series of hormonal agents, which, over the...

Is Pakistan's nuclear programme dying? By Paul Anderson BBC correspondent in Islamabad In all the heat generated by Pakistan's leading nuclear scientist, AQ Khan, confessing to nuclear proliferation, relatively little attention has been paid to the future of the country's nuclear weapons programme. AQ Khan dramatically confessed to leaking nuclear secrets in February. In the 1970s Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto famously declared that Pakistanis would go to any sacrifice to match India's nuclear weapons programme, even if it meant the people being reduced to eating grass. Now they have a nuclear programme, they are discovering that weapons technology is...

Hubby might be dying....need your prayers Dear friends, My sweet husband might be dying in the next few days. They're planning on moving him out of the hospital and into a long care facility. The Doctor said there is nothing they can do for him, and he might die during transport to the facility. The kids are on their way in case it's goodbye. Norman is everything to us. We all love him so dearly. Please keep me and the three kids in your prayers. We'll soon know if his dream was a Near Death Experience or if it was...

A Dying Democrat An old man was critically ill. Feeling that death was near, he called his lawyer. "I want to become a Democrat. Get me a change of registration form." "You can do it", the lawyer said, "But why? You'll be dead soon, why do you want to become a Democrat?" "That's my business! Get me the form!" Four days later, the old man got his registration changed. His lawyer was at his bedside making sure his bill would be paid. Suddenly the old man was racked with fits of coughing, and it was clear that this would be...

PRINCETON, NJ -- The American public generally endorses the concept of what can loosely be called the "right to die" if a terminally ill patient wants to end his or her life, or if a spouse makes a decision to end his or her marriage partner's life if that person is in a persistent vegetative state. These considerations have become particularly relevant in recent weeks with the publicity surrounding the case of Terri Schiavo in Florida. In 1990, Schiavo fell into a persistent vegetative state, and has remained in that condition since, her life supported by a feeding tube. Her...

August 27, 2003    Florida Bishops Urge Safer Course For Terri Schiavo   We continue our fervent prayers for Terri Schiavo, for her family, and all involved in this most difficult and heart wrenching situation. After a fourth consideration of her case, the 2nd District Court of Appeals has upheld the latest order of the trial court judge to withdraw her hydration and nutrition tube. An emergency appeal to the Florida Supreme Court was denied. Barring unforeseen legal intervention, the trial court will soon re-schedule the removal of Mrs. Schiavo’s feeding tube.  It is most unfortunate that family members have...

Four ambulances that were seen entering Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah on Monday afternoon triggered off rumors that he was seriously ill. Within minutes, senior officials in the compound were bombarded with phone calls from curious journalists. Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, dismissed reports that Arafat had been taken to a local hospital. He said Arafat suffered from exhaustion and was recovering. But another senior official said Arafat's health has rapidly deteriorated over the past two weeks. "I don't think it's the flu as some people say," he said. "The president hasn't been feeling well for some...

The Dead Sea is dying as its dark salty waters retreat (Filed: 04/10/2003) Human exploitation is forcing the surface level down by three feet each year, reports David Blair The jagged cliffs of the Judaean desert mountains, where John the Baptist wandered and Jewish fighters made their last stand at Masada, once sloped directly into the Dead Sea. Today, many of those cliffs descend into ugly mudflats covering much of the basin marking the lowest point on Earth. For the Dead Sea is in retreat as human intervention forces the water level downwards by more than three feet per year....

PORTLAND - A woman whose car was hit by a train gave birth by Caesarean section over the weekend hours before dying from her injuries. Dawn King, 31, died early Saturday after her son was delivered two months prematurely. The child is listed in serious condition. She had been taken by LifeFlight to OHSU Hospital after the accident near her home. The woman's husband, David King, said Sunday that the baby likely will remain hospitalized for at least two months until he can gain weight and take nourishment without assistance. Dawn King was a Sweet Home Junior High School math...

It’s always near. We never go long without hearing or thinking about it. It’s as central to the human condition as breathing or anxiety or love. We mere creatures sometimes assume we’ve accomplished a great deal. We’ve ostensibly made so many strides in so many areas in a relatively short span of time. Yet on the subject of what is death is about, we have no more certain knowledge than our ancestors did millennia ago. Recent tragedies at just two nightclubs claimed almost 120 lives. At one club they were black young people, at the other white. All gone much...

A part of the AIDS virus that was considered vulnerable to attack can camouflage itself by changing shapes, says a study that helps show why HIV is so hard to target and kill. HIV cripples the immune system by infecting and killing T-cells. It uses a protein structure on its surface called gp120 to gain entry to the cells. In 1998, scientists announced that they had figured out much about the structure of gp120 and hoped that finding a vulnerability in it could lead to vaccines against HIV. But finding gp120's weakness has remained elusive, in part because the protein...

Faced with an ailing financial condition and the prospect of a nurses strike that could begin Monday, the St. Francis Medical Center in Liliha has stopped admitting patients, is canceling in-patient surgeries and will move all patients into one of its two wings on Sunday, the hospital said. St. Francis, one of the state's largest hospitals, asked Emergency Medical Services yesterday to reroute ambulances to other Oahu hospitals, though its Liliha emergency room will remain open. Emergency surgeries will be done in order of urgency. Outpatient surgeries will be suspended Saturday, though other outpatient services will be available. Most of...

<p>The Hawai'i Democratic Party said U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink's condition has worsened today and prospects for recovery are poor. The party released a statement this afternoon saying Mink "will not make promises to voters that she may not be able to keep. She will remain on the ballot, but her family wants voters to know that she will not assume office in the 108th Congress if she is not able to represent the 2nd district with her customary vigor."</p>

This is true ...Bill Clinton says he would 'fight and die' for Israel Sat Aug 3, 1:22 AM ET NEW YORK (AP) - Former President Clinton ( news - web sites), who avoided the Vietnam War, told Jewish supporters in Toronto that he would fight and die to protect Israel if Iraq or Iran ever invaded. "The Israelis know that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan River, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die," Clinton said to cheers at a Hadassah children's charity fund-raising dinner this week. This...

Canadians or Americans are not allowed euthanasia. The Dutch are allowed. It means that seniors who want to die, do not have the option, though they may be dying a horible slow lingering death. It is time that the laws were changed to allow seniors who are close to death the choice to get on with it.

Dying for Dubious JihadInside the suicide strategy.A video released by the militant Islamist group Hamas shows a proud Naima al-Obeid holding a rifle beside her favorite son, Mahmoud, a 23-year-old college student. Mrs. al-Obeid is saying good-bye to her son as he heads out to kill some Jews. The video starts with a warm embrace between mother and son, their final embrace as it turns out, and then a nice kiss. “God willing, you will succeed,” says the mother. “May every bullet hit the target, and may God give you martyrdom. This is the best day of my life.”Mahmoud says:...