Free Republic

CLEARWATER, FL, July 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A North Country Gazette exclusive alleges, with evidence, that Michael Schiavo, who ordered the starvation of his wife Terry Schiavo in 2005, has a history of hostility towards co-workers, stalking women, vindictiveness and general unprofessional behavior. Last year, the Gazetter reports, Schiavo was involved in a complex tangle of accusations against co-workers at the Pinellas County Jail. The first alleged incident occurred on July 31, when co-worker Diane Cross illegally gave prescription medication, a muscle relaxant called Robaxin, to nursing supervisor David Richardson in order to alleviate his extreme back pain. Schiavo did...

Kevorkian speech protested Bobby Schindler, brother of the late Terri Schiavo, has launched a petition drive to persuade the University of Florida (Gainesville) to rescind its invitation to convicted killer Jack Kevorkian to speak on campus Oct. 11. “It is unacceptable for the University of Florida to give a platform to Jack Kevorkian, a man who willfully helped take people’s lives, some of whose only ailment was depression, and pay him $50,000 to spread his violent message of ‘mercy killing’ to the students of the University of Florida,” Schindler’s petition states.Schindler heads a nonprofit group called the Terri Schindler Schiavo...

Cedar Rapids, IA (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's brother Bobby Schindler appeared at a campaign stop over the weekend for Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback. Schindler said he supports the Kansas senator's presidential bid because he respects the life of both the born and unborn -- something all politicians should embrace. Schindler had endorsed Brownback previously (http://www.lifenews.com/nat2983.html) but promised to campaign for him over the weekend as he emphasized his pro-life views and opposition to human rights abuses. Terri's brother told the audience that the need for him to campaign with Brownback or support one political candidate when all should embrace...

FEW people in Africa would get to see Al Gore and his troupe of rock-star ecologists strutting their stuff last weekend - because most have neither television nor electricity. That's just as well, because they would be aghast at LiveEarth's bizarre message. In Africa, we have much more serious things to worry about than climate change. Indeed, if they achieve their objective, the concerts will have done harm to the people of Africa. Britain's former Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, recently said that the rest of the world cannot aspire to the UK's standard of living because:...

PEACHTREE CITY, Georgia, July 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Marine candidate who nearly drowned four years ago in boot-camp met his death after his family agreed to let doctors remove his feeding tube. "He smiled all week [since the tube was removed]. It was the first time. He seemed so happy, not in pain," his mother, Melia Isaac said of her son, who had been reduced to a comatose or minimal conscious state. "I'm going to wonder for the rest of my life if I did the right thing. But I believe I did. He didn't have much of a...

LifeNews.com Note: Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems. I was reading ABC News', "Pulling the Plug: Ethicists Debate Ramirez Case," by Dan Childs, ABC News Medical Unit (June 28, 2007) and found it interesting how the defense is still up. No case is ever like Terri Schiavo's. There is always an alleged difference, with similarities downplayed or outright denied. Might that be because people are starting to realize that an innocent woman was wrongly...

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS -- A North Richland Hills woman accused of letting her 78-year-old husband die of malnutrition and dehydration surrendered to Tarrant County authorities Thursday night, police said.Lowesta Ann Halliburton, 43, was free Friday after posting $50,000 bail. She is expected to be charged with injury to the elderly by omission, a first-degree felony. If convicted, she faces life in prison and a $10,000 fine.Her common-law husband, Richard Hoye, died May 21 at their home.Halliburton has said that police targeted her because of the couple's 35-year age difference and the fact she is black and Hoye was white.

Canberra, Australia (LifeNews.com) -- New draft guidelines in Australia put together by a national health committee say that comatose and incapacitated patients like Terri Schiavo should not be denied food and water. The new guidelines are voluntary and are aimed at helping health care workers and families. A committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council published the guidelines which say that medical personnel should presume that a patient wants food and water when their decision is unknown. That was the problem in the Terri Schiavo case -- her family and former husband Michael disagreed about whether she would...

Phoenix, AZ (LifeNews.com) -- Arizona resident Jesse Ramirez was severely injured in a car crash in a May 30 car accident and a legal battle ensued over the man's life. It pitted his wife and family against each other over whether his life support should be maintained but now Ramirez has awaken from the coma appears to be on the road to recovery. Ramirez, 36, suffered traumatic brain injury in the accident and he had been in a minimally conscious state for just over a week when doctors told his family he may never recover. His wife made the decision...

Springfield, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The family of Terri Schiavo could have called it a day after Terri was starved and dehydrated to death by her former husband over a two week period. They endured constant international news coverage and waged a discouraging battle in the courts that left their daughter and sister with no hope. Instead, Terri's parents Bob and Mary, brother Bobby and sister Suzanne pressed on. Not wanting the same fate to befall other disabled patients, they reworked the foundation they created to help Terri and organized it to assist other incapacitated or minimally conscious patients. Since they...

I suppose I shouldn't be shocked by the decisions made by the judicial establishment in matters related to the case of Terri Schiavo. Yet, it's hard to believe that the judges who sealed her fate continue to receive accoloades: Florida honors judges who advocate killing the disabled, elderly and vulnerable. The alma mater of Michael Schiavo, the estranged husband who battled in the courts for years in order to secure a court order to kill his wife, is honoring retired Circuit Court Judge Susan F. Schaeffer, the judge who assigned Probate Court Judge George W. Greer to be the executioner...

UNITED STATES, May 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The three front-runners in the Republican presidential primary repudiated Congress’ intervention to save the life of Terri Schiavo, the Florida brain-injured woman who died of court-ordered dehydration and starvation in 2005 at the behest of her husband who was then living with another woman. Front runners Rudy Giuliani, Sen. John McCain, and former Gov. Mitt Romney were all asked in the debate moderated by MSNBC: “Terri Schiavo: Should Congress have acted or let the family make the decision, the husband?”Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who is campaigning on his pro-life conversion responded...

The UN’s Tyrant-Friendly Bureaucracy By Roger Bate Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Saturday’s vote putting Zimbabwe in charge of a human rights body doesn’t make it any easier to take the body seriously. Over the weekend, the 53 member countries of the UN’s Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) elected their new chair. The head of such commissions is rotated on a regional basis, and it was Africa’s turn. Against objections from the U.S. and Europe, the nations voted 26-21 (with three abstentions) in favor of Zimbabwe. According to the BBC, “Zimbabwe's Environment Minister Francis Nheme will now become chairman of the...

Seoul - A North Korean general cracked a joke about US President George W Bush at the start of military talks on Tuesday with South Korea that takes aim at president's unpopularity for being mired in the Iraq war and other issues. "I read a political joke, called 'Saving the President,' on a US internet site a while ago," Lieutenant General Kim Yong Chol told his South Korean counterpart as they opened three days of meetings at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas, according to pool reports. "US President Bush, distressed by the Iraq...

The parents of a baby that died of starvation after being fed a vegan diet have been found guilty of malice murder, felony murder and first degree cruelty to children. Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, will get an automatic life sentence for the death of their 6-week-old infant, Crown. After being fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice, he weighed only 3 1/2 pounds when he died. The Fulton County jury deliberated the case for about seven hours. Prosecutors said it was a chilling case of murder by starvation, a painful and prolonged death....

LA PAZ, Bolivia: President Evo Morales said Thursday his government would not pay Swiss mining giant Glencore International AG for nationalizing its Bolivian tin smelter earlier this month because the company illegally purchased the plant and failed to invest in its upkeep. Glencore has threatened to seek international arbitration to recover its investment in the Vinto smelter, located on a high Andean plain 180 kilometers (110 miles) southeast of the capital of La Paz. Morales nationalized the plant Feb. 9 and has refused to reimburse its former owners, saying Glencore should instead pay Bolivia for failing to upgrade the smelter's...

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Those who were born in Year One of the Russian Revolution are now entering their 10th decade. Of the intellectual class that got its vintage laid down in 1917, a class which includes Eric Hobsbawm, Conor Cruise O'Brien and precious few others, the pre-eminent Anglo-American veteran must be Robert Conquest. He must also be the one who takes the greatest satisfaction in having outlived the Soviet "experiment." Over the years, I have very often knocked respectfully at the door of his modest apartment ("book-lined" would be the other standard word for it) on the outskirts of Stanford University,...

A Crest Hill man and his daughter admitted in court Monday that they starved their dog to death in plea deals that sent the father to prison and led to probation for the young woman. Mark Obidowicz, 44, pleaded guilty to aggravated animal cruelty, a felony that carried a maximum 3-year sentence. He was sentenced to a year in prison. Nicole Obidowicz, 19, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor animal cruelty. She was sentenced to 24 months of conditional discharge, a type of probation, during which she cannot own an animal. She also was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service....

The Government has admitted it is allowing elderly people to battle against starvation in care homes and hospitals, years after being alerted to the scandal by charities. Ivan Lewis, the health minister, conceded that some elderly people were given a single scoop of mashed potato or served meals with plastic cutlery "best suited to picnics". His remarks, made to a local Birmingham newspaper, went on to admit that a single scoop of mashed potato "masquerades as lunch every day". "Plastic cutlery has its place at a summer picnic but not for everyday use. Yet some older people are still being...

Neandertals' tough Stone Age lives Bruce Bower Neandertals that 43,000 years ago inhabited what's now northern Spain faced periodic food shortages and possibly resorted to cannibalism to survive, according to a new investigation. CAVE FINDS. A block of sand and clay from El Sidrón cave in Spain holds Neandertal foot bones (left) and ribs and a backbone (right). Rosas These Neandertals evolved shorter, broader faces with a less pronounced slope than northern European Neandertals did, say Antonio Rosas of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and his colleagues. Since 2000, the researchers have recovered more than 1,300 Neandertal...

Africa, a continent usually synonymous with hunger, is falling prey to obesity. It's a trend driven by new lifestyles and old beliefs that big is beautiful. More than one-third of African women and a quarter of African men are estimated to be overweight, and the World Health Organization predicts that will rise to 41 percent and 30 percent respectively in the next 10 years. Some 56 percent of South African women are now either obese or overweight, compared to fewer than 10 percent who are underweight. More than 17 percent of adolescents here are overweight _ for teenage girls, it's...

Growing up in North Korea, Hyok Kang was surrounded by desperate people who ate grass and bark before they died. Yet pervasive propaganda made them feel lucky to be there. The first time I ate chocolate was when I was five years old. My grandfather had relatives in Japan who were given exceptional permission to visit us. They came like extraterrestrials with their arms full of presents and food. I remember waving tins of condensed milk and chocolate bars under my friends’ noses. I was a horrid little boy. It was 1990 and I didn’t yet know what famine was....

Any dictator who can allow a million or two of his 20 million countrymen to die of starvation, rather than open up his country to allow the adequate provision of proffered aid, must be pretty well invulnerable. Death by starvation is visible, prolonged, painful, and heart-wrenching for the survivors. Anyone dominant enough to compel mass acceptance of starvation must have an iron grip on the reins of power. Or so one might assume. Thus most foreign observers consider Kim Jong-il to be acting to achieve foreign policy goals of some sort by provocatively launching missiles and detonating nuclear devices. Perhaps...

Hunger stalks North Korea as food aid slows By Guy Dinmore in Washington Published: September 26 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 26 2006 03:00 North Korea, which suffered mass starvation in the 1990s, risks facing widespread hunger again because of a smaller grain harvest and sharp cuts in international aid imposed in response to Pyongyang's July missile tests. The politics of food is taking centre-stage once more as pressure mounts on North Korea to return to the nuclear negotiating table after more than a year's absence. Analysts said North Korea's leadership might have miscalculated if it thought it could...

***This is a story about a baby born at 23 weeks*** Today Emmie-Rose’s Hospital has hit a major blow against us. I believe some of the staff believe we are not providing the correct care for her and had us meet with the “Ethics” committee. At most hospitals the Ethics committee is usually made up of staff, social workers, clergy, and parents of other children. We had a room full of the staff, 1 surgeon, 2 social workers, and Stephanie and I. Let’s just stack all the cards against us. After wasting 2 hours going over the issues, it is...

A poor Iowa farm boy became one of humanity's greatest benefactors. --- Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970? You may be forgiven for not remembering, given some of the prize's dubious recipients over the years (e.g., Yasser Arafat). Well, then: Who has saved perhaps more lives than anyone else in history? The answer to both questions is, of course, Norman Borlaug. Who? Norman Borlaug, 92, is the father of the "Green Revolution," the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s. He is now the subject of an admiring biography by Leon Hesser... "The...

Fat is not a feminist issue, as Susie Orbach once claimed. Fat is a class issue. Rich, educated people are not fat; you see almost no children in private schools who are overweight. Fatness and obesity are directly related to lower education and lower incomes. What is sad is that at a time when this country is richer than ever and ought to have better schools than ever, we have far more fat people than ever — a dangerous explosion of flab. Last week the Department of Health issued a report grimly called Forecasting Obesity to 2010 and its findings...

A registered nurse who discussed Terri Schiavo's treatment at the Largo convalescent center where she treated her in the 1990s will not lose her nursing license, according to a ruling by Florida Board of Nursing. In a March 2005 interview on CNN, Carla Sauer-Iyer, 42, discussed what she said was inadequate treatment that Schiavo got as a result of her husband's orders. In May, the Health Department filed an administrative complaint against Sauer-Iyer for disclosing confidential information about Schiavo, as NewsMax.com reported. But the department changed its position after Gov. Jeb Bush sided with Sauer-Iyer Sauer-Iyer had raised concerns in...

Charlie Crist Let My Daughter Die by Robert Schindler, Sr. Posted Jul 31, 2006 As most Americans know, on March 31, 2005, my daughter, Terri Schindler Schiavo died of starvation and thirst after having her feeding tube removed by court order. The sad chain of events that concluded with Terri’s death ignited a media firestorm nationally and internationally. What few saw or heard was the callous inaction of aspiring governor Charlie Crist. Florida Atty. Gen. Charlie Crist let my daughter die. He had it within his authority to save her life, but he turned a blind eye to her suffering....

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has taken his former secretary as his new wife, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, citing sources familiar with the country. His wife Ko Yong-hi, the mother of two of Kim's three sons, died of breast cancer in August 2004, the agency said. "I heard Kim has been living together with a woman named Kim Ok, who was his secretary, since Ko Yong-hi died two years ago," Yonhap quoted a South Korean government source as saying.

Footage smuggled out of North Korea focuses on the shocking plight of North Korean children. 45 minutes

LANCASTER, England, May 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 45-year-old man who fears his doctors may refuse him food and water has taken his case to the European Court of Human Rights, reported the BBC today.Les Burke suffers from a brain illness, cerebella ataxia, which may result in his eventual paralysis. He faces a likely future of being unable to move or speak, but with full mental capacity. Under General Medical Council guidelines, his doctors would be permitted to withdraw food and water from him once his condition deteriorates. Mr. Burke is trying to ensure that does not happen.A British...

THE explosive story of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who became caught in the middle of a US battle over the right to die, could become a Hollywood movie, industry reports said. A year after Schiavo died following the removal of her feeding tube, Hollywood has bought the rights to make a movie from husband Michael Schiavo's book Terri: The Truth, Daily Variety said. Schiavo died in March last year after a bitter and divisive years-long battle between Michael Schiavo and Terri Schiavo's parents over whether she should be removed her from life support. The family feud exploded into a...

Mugabe refuses to seek food aidTHE first time Knowledge Mbanda found a dead baby in the drains of Harare, he was horrified. “It is completely against our culture to abandon children,� he said. “I thought it must be of a woman who had been raped or a prostitute.� But now he and fellow council workers find at least 20 corpses of newborn babies each week, thrown away or even flushed down the lavatories of Zimbabwe’s capital. The dumping of babies, along with what doctors describe as a “dramatic� increase in malnourished children in city hospitals, is the most shocking illustration...

The New York Times had some terrible news recently from the West Bank and Gaza. It reported on a World Bank study which showed that if Israel continues to withhold revenues from the Palestinian Authority, and donors reduce international aid, the Palestinian economy would shrink 27 percent this year. Unemployment would rise to 40%, and 67% of the population would be living beneath the poverty level. By 2007, unemployment would hit 44%, with 72% living beneath the poverty level. These numbers are hard to fathom until one realizes how the average American's standard of living would be affected if suddenly...

Quote: "Grace Hunt, 22, cried as a court magistrate read the charges at her arraignment today in Montcalm County. She faces two counts of murder – open murder and felony murder -- for the death of three-month-old Jadelyne Schenden from starvation. According to the court records, the baby died on or around January 4 at Hunt’s Greenville apartment. Hunt’s next-door neighbor, David Jeanette, said he knew her from high school. He said he often heard loud commotion coming from her apartment. “She had a few children, sometimes you would hear stuff going on over there. It got quite crazy sometimes.”...

Are foreign countries and companies using the "Wal-Mart model" to undermine American industry? US economic incentives and trade policies encourage foreign producers to invest in this country. While the nation may be experiencing short-term benefits from foreign investment, the long-term harm may far exceed expectations, as is the case when Wal-Mart has invested in some local communities. Undermining American Industry The result of these US economic incentive and trade policies seems to be dramatic erosion of American industry through predatory competition and utilization of cheap overseas suppliers, analogous to the displacement of many local merchants that sometimes follows the introduction...

The Great American Job Sellout Free trade policies that force US companies to outsource or import foreign labors are dramatically affecting opportunity for American middle class. Paul Craig Roberts examined this in March 2005. Americans are being sold out on the jobs front. Americans' employment opportunities are declining as a result of corporate outsourcing of US jobs, H-1B visas that import foreigners to displace Americans in their own country, and federal guest worker programs. President Bush and his Republican majority intend to legalize the aliens who hold down wages for construction companies and cleaning services. In order to stretch...

Pool Photograph by Robert Sciarrino Bruce Jackson, now 21, at a sentencing hearing in court Friday, angrily described the starvation and beatings that he and his three brothers suffered at the hands of their adoptive parents. Associated Press Bruce Jackson, the way he looked at 19, when he weighed just 45 pounds. CAMDEN, N.J., Feb. 10 — Bruce Jackson rose in a packed courtroom here on Friday, 95 pounds heavier and 15 inches taller than he was 27 months ago when he was found rummaging through a neighbor's garbage can looking for food. He looked directly at his adoptive...

Published: February 06, 2006 10:00 AM ET NEW YORK Gannett Co. appears to have dropped out as an independent bidder for all of Knight Ridder Inc. and may instead try to join a group seeking to buy the San Jose-based newspaper company, Reuters has reported, citing sources close to the sale process. They say that Gannett skipped a meeting with Knight Ridder this week to go over the company's financial data, a sign it will not bid independently. Instead, Reuters reported, Gannett may try to forge an agreement with Denver-based publisher MediaNews Group Inc. and its partners. MediaNews has been...

After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the ensuing Civil War produced acute food shortages in southwestern Russia. Wartime devastation was compounded by two successive seasons of drought, and by 1920 it was clear that a full-scale famine was under way in the Volga River Valley, Crimea, Ukraine, and Armenia. Conditions were so desperate that in early 1920 the Soviet government sent out a worldwide appeal for food aid to avert the starvation of millions of people. Several volunteer groups in the United States and Europe had by then organized relief programs, but it became clear that help was needed on...

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Kofi Annan lashed out at the media after a year of unrelenting attacks on the United Nations and criticism of his management of the $64 billion Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, calling one critic "an overgrown schoolboy." He criticized reporters Wednesday for what he said was unfair coverage of his role in the Oil-for-Food program and insisted reporters missed the big story. That, he said, was the more than 2,200 companies and invididuals from some 40 countries that paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government to get contracts. An 18-month investigation led by former U.S....

Article Last Updated: 12/19/2005 08:18 AM a denver post special report Letting go: Dylan's last days Two parents face an agonizing test of faith and love for their son By Kevin Simpson Denver Post Staff Writer DenverPost.com Dave Walborn lifted his son upright, all 32 pounds of him, slipped one hand behind his lolling head and gazed into the open but vacant blue eyes. He spoke out loud the words that would move him and the boy's mother, Kerri Bruning, one step closer to an excruciating decision. "Dylan, it's OK if you want to go," he said. "I don't want...

A self verifying man sits astride the world, surveys all he can see, and pronounces it good. This is a terrifying thing because the man doing it is none other than Judge George Greer of Florida and the thing he was pronouncing good was the excruciatingly legal murder of one Terri Schindler, formerly Terri Schiavo. We have to grasp this. A tin-pot, swamp water embarrassment from the brackish backwater of former jurisprudence pronounced to both houses of the Congress of the United States of America that their subpoenas weren't worth a damned thing and that he, the new godhead, had...

The earthquake victims in the mountain villages, especially the believers in Jesus Christ are suffering a lot, even starvation. Everything is too much expensive after the devastation. The village people get nothing and they are surviving. The relief items are coming to the main cities and everything is finished from there itself. Most of the relief organisations also centralising in the main cities only. You might have heard that the relief works in the villages started after a week of devastation only by the defence services. The villagers do not get needed food, medications, woollen clothes, treatments and shelter. But...

Family members are investigating what they consider to be suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a nursing home patient at the center of a life and death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo tragedy. Seventy-nine-year-old Jimmy Chambers died in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 after the tracheotomy tubes that deliver oxygen from a ventilator to a hole in his neck became unhooked. Family members were told Chambers, a resident of the Anne Maria Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in North Augusta, S.C., apparently pulled the interlocking tubes apart. "We're having it investigated. We're just incredulous," Chambers' daughter, Deanna Potter,...

He says he wants to live. But his wife, caregivers and South Carolina state officials are so focused on carrying out a decade-old, out-of-state living will that 79-year-old Jimmy Chambers can't get a word in edgewise. That's the account of 10 of Chambers's children and their spouses who signed sworn affidavits in an attempt to block their mother from removing his life-sustaining ventilator, which would cause his death. It's a case that's reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo controversy which captured the attention of millions around the world, in which a fault line opened up in the middle of a formerly...

A Zimbabwean minister has said that many of those given land since 2000 know little about farming and this has led to shortages....In a secretly filmed report for the BBC villagers said they had been eating one meal of porridge a day since May. A woman said her two children had died after eating poisionous roots because they were so hungry....

MIAMI -- Jury selection began Monday in the case of two parents accused of manslaughter and neglect in the death of their 6-month-old daughter, who prosecutors say starved after being fed only wheat grass, coconut water and milk made from almonds. Defense lawyers for 36-year-old Joseph Andressohn and Lamoy Andressohn, 30, of Homestead contend that complications from a rare genetic disorder caused the death of their daughter Woyah in May 2003. The Andressohns maintain a strict raw food diet, which adherents believe is healthier and more natural. "She did not die from malnutrition," said Ellis Rubin, attorney for the Andressohns....

Starvation disaster grips Malawi By David Blair, Africa Correspondent (Filed: 17/10/2005) A national disaster has been declared in Malawi where five million people - almost half of the population - are threatened by starvation. Poor rains have produced the worst harvest in more than a decade. President Bingu wa Mutharika broadcast to the country saying: "We are facing a national disaster affecting the lives of our people." He added that the "food crisis has escalated and we need more assistance". The crisis is exacerbated by the Aids epidemic. About 16 per cent of adult Malawians are infected with HIV or...