World leaders are gathering in Egypt for Yasser Arafat's funeral on Friday, a day after the Palestinian leader died of a lengthy and unknown illness at a Paris hospital.  A military funeral is scheduled to take place near Cairo's airport at 11 a.m. (4 a.m. ET), amid three days of official mourning in Egypt, according to a spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Arafat was born in Cairo in 1929.  Arafat's body is then expected to be taken for burial Friday to the West Bank city of Ramallah aboard an Egyptian military helicopter, the spokesman said.  On Thursday, Arafat's body was flown from a French military air base to Cairo. One of the first people off the plane was his widow, Suha Tawil.   She was dressed in all black and made her way slowly down a red carpet accompanied by other relatives. She wept as her late husband's body was brought off the plane and a military band played a solemn tune.

Eight soldiers marched slowly carrying Arafat's coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, to a nearby hearse, while three other soldiers bearing swords led the group.  News of the Cairo memorial service prompted national leaders and representatives from around the world to travel to Egypt.  The 75-year-old Arafat had spent his life seeking a homeland for his people but was seen by Israelis as a terrorist and roadblock to peace.

Arafat died at 3:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. Wednesday ET), days after suffering a brain hemorrhage and coma. He was admitted to the hospital October 29 with a blood ailment and digestive problems that were never clearly described.  As word spread of Arafat's death, Palestinians gathered in the streets in the West Bank and Gaza and at his former headquarters in Ramallah

Although his death leaves no clear successor in the often fractious world of Palestinian politics, Palestinian parliament speaker Rawhi Fattuh has been sworn in as interim president of the Palestinian Authority.  The question on everyone's lips is, is there finally going to be peace in the Middle East?  No one knows for sure, and as evidenced by another term with Bush, it is everyone's best guess...