Israel: The extent of any brain damage sustained by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon following a massive stroke will be assessed after doctors start rousing him from a medically-induced coma, a procedure planned to begin today.
While the stricken leader remained clinging to his life in a Jerusalem hospital yesterday, the acting prime minister Ehud Olmert projected a message of "business as usual" at the weekly cabinet meeting ahead of parliamentary elections in March.
Four days after he was admitted to hospital following a stroke and brain haemorrhaging, a new scan of Mr Sharon's brain yesterday showed improvement, with swelling reduced and pressure in his skull normal, according to medics treating the 77-year-old leader.
"As a result of all these indicators, the team of experts has decided to start the process of reducing the prime minister's sedation tomorrow morning, on condition there are no significant events between now and the morning," said Dr Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital.
Sharon remained in a critical but stable condition last night after he suffered two strokes in three weeks.
Sharon was given blood thinners following a mini-stroke on December 18th, a medication which experts say may paradoxically have contributed to the far more devastating "bleeding" stroke he suffered last Wednesday.
Surgeons at the hospital have said there is a good chance he will survive. However, the medical consensus is that Mr Sharon is likely to have sustained significant brain damage and will not be able to return to the Israeli political scene, which he has dominated for the past five years.
Doctors also said there was no guarantee he would regain consciousness.
Before his collapse, Mr Sharon appeared certain to win a third term in office at the head of Kadima, a new centrist party he formed to build on the momentum created by his seminal summer withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation.
He had been campaigning on a platform of readiness to give up some occupied land in the West Bank while retaining major West Bank and East Jerusalem settlement blocs, a prospect Palestinians say would deny them a viable state.
Acting prime minister Ehud Olmert, also Israel's finance minister, promised economic stability in televised remarks at the weekly cabinet meeting and at a separate news conference. Mr Olmert pledged to "run matters as he [ Sharon] would have wished".
While Kadima members rallied around their interim leader, the veteran former Labor Party leader Shimon Peres said he would offer Mr Olmert all the help he needed. Mr Peres, recently poached by Mr Sharon after being ousted as Labor leader, had earlier been criticised for his lack of solidarity with Mr Olmert amid speculation that he might defect back to Labor.