03/05/2013 22:18kruijs

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela died Tuesday afternoon after a long battle with cancer, the government announced, leaving behind a bitterly divided nation in the grip of a political crisis that grew more acute as he languished for weeks, silent and out of sight in hospitals in Havana and Caracas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/americas/as-chavez-worsens-venezuela-expels-two-us-diplomats.html?_r=0

   12/27/2012 02:55Kentoine Johnson

Former President George H.W. Bush is in the intensive care unit of a Houston hospital and is in "guarded condition," family spokesman Jim McGrath said Wednesday.

"The president is alert and conversing with medical staff, and is surrounded by family," McGrath said in a statement.

"Following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever, President Bush was admitted to the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital on Sunday where he remains in guarded condition," McGrath said. "Doctors at Methodist continue to be cautiously optimistic about the current course of treatment."

The 88-year-old was admitted to the hospital November 23 for bronchitis.

A hospital spokesman said in mid-December that the former president was expected to be home from the hospital in time for Christmas, but that spokesman later said doctors felt that the former president should build up his energy before going home.

Bush has lower body parkinsonism, which causes a loss of balance, and has used wheelchairs for more than a year, McGrath said in an email on Wednesday.

Bush, the 41st U.S. president and a Republican, took office in 1989 and served one term in the White House. The father of former President George W. Bush, he also served as a congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, envoy to China, CIA director and vice president for two terms under Ronald Reagan.
http://news.yahoo.com/ex-u-president-george-h-w-bush-intensive-001249362.html

   12/23/2012 17:52Stephen Tilley

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20825708

The 87-year-old former Conservative prime minister is in hospital after undergoing a minor operation.

Lady Thatcher is understood to have had a growth removed from her bladder.

Baroness Thatcher's spokeswoman said she is doing "absolutely fine" following what was described as "minimally invasive" surgery.

Lady Thatcher, who has suffered from ill health in recent years, was admitted on Thursday and was kept in hospital overnight.

Friends of the former PM told the BBC they expect her to remain in hospital for a number of days.

   08/15/2011 22:39bernardo

Ok, let's continue with some actual background:

Kohl: in a wheelchair after suffering a craniocerebral injury in '08
"But Kohl himself, wheelchair-bound and in unmistakably frail health, preferred to focus on the present. Despite an unsteady voice, his message was clear: "We have reached the future" for which we spent years fighting. "We want to say 'yes' to this life." http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,763094,00.html

Thatcher: several small strokes in '02, progressing dementia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher#Since_2003

Bush: Parkinsonsism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush#Post-Presidency

Castro: maybe Parkinsonism, intestinal bleeding in '06, but his health reportdely improved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#Speculation_on_illness_1998.E2.80.932005

   08/15/2011 12:46hfl13

Birth years and some comments on the junger participants:
Castro 1926
Noriega 1938 first 20 years in US prison now French prison and starting September up to 54 years / new trial in Panama
Habre 1942 still in Senegal but was sentenced to death in Chad in absentia
Thatcher 1925
Bush 1924
Kohl 1930

   08/15/2011 11:40hfl13

A tasteful death market without being gross - I like it and everyone offendet can skip this market.

   08/14/2011 19:53bernardo

I lost my appendix like 4.5 years ago on christmas eve and I'm only 24, but my belly never hurt since then! Currently carrying no serious diseases that I know of, though. Mental ones left aside.

   08/14/2011 19:25cici

Listen Bernardo, I join your fascination, especially since I can inject myself in with former world leaders. I'll be 79 y.o. this week, lost appendix and tonsils decades ago, in recent decades tho, lost gall bladder, half of right breast, then all of left breast. I'm going by bits and pieces but, I have so many bits & pieces left, I might make it to 150.!

   08/14/2011 19:17cici

How old is Bernardo?, and which diseases is he carrying?

   08/14/2011 16:47bernardo

I wonder whether someone around here thinks of this kind of market as offensive, since in the course of this discussion Hubdub banned it from what I thought was a "bad for business" point of view.

My "excuse" for my morbid fascination for these relies on the "satire/mockery" argument. The imaginative world could look like this:
You are an executive employee at the "Eternal Bank of the Course of Nature" (or sth. similar), which is of course an investment bank. Therefore you buy long-term assets of Maggy Thatcher and her "aging to death" business model but at the same time invest in high-risk bets on Hissene Habre being extradited to Chad and tortured to death, which you hastily sell after it becomes clear that Belgium bought the majority of his future fate. Instead you jump on shares of Noriega, who is outsourced to house arrest in Panama and therefore has an increased likelihood of being assasinated, which for insurance reasons you put in a package with shares of George Bush's possible cancer. Then the long term rating of Cancer Inc. gets downgraded due to new treatment options etc. etc.