Acting as special envoy of President Hu Jintao, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu arrived in Cairo late on Thursday to attend the funeral of Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian president.

 

The ceremony is due to be held on Friday morning, and heads of state, ministers and other representatives from over 50 countries will pay their last respects to the 75-year-old veteran leader.

 

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the UN special representative for the Middle East peace process Terje Roed-Larsen and US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns are among the attendees.

  

Following the funeral, Arafat's body will be airlifted to his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah for burial, where he had been confined by Israeli forces for nearly three years.

 

Egypt has tightened security in and around Cairo International Airport and blocked nearby main roads.

 

Arafat died at 3:30 AM (0230 GMT) on Thursday at a French military hospital, where he had been receiving treatment for the past two weeks.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 12, 2004)