Free Republic

As much as half of North Korea's army is starving as food shortages that were previously affecting only the civilian population worsen and begin to affect institutions tasked with protecting Kim Jong-Il's regime. Disaffected North Koreans working secretly as journalists within the country for the Japan-based Asiapress International news agency have smuggled out video footage of interviews with soldiers in different parts of the isolated country, with many complaining of malnutrition.

High-salaried Palestinian Authority officials are the smugglers' clientele. So in other words, they are paying for these cars with your UN relief money. "Smuggling in North Sinai Surges as the Police Vanish," by David D. Kirkpatrick in the New York Times, August 14 (thanks to Bill): RAFAH, Egypt — The smuggler’s car lot is so brazenly out in the open, it is hard to tell that the business is actually illegal. A Bedouin car smuggler in Rafah, Egypt, can expect to make at least $2,000 per vehicle, after paying suppliers and bribes. Cars are driven from the chaos in Libya...

De Soto mother gets 8 1/2 years for keeping starving boy in atticBy JOE LAMBE Friday, May. 27, 2011 A Johnson County judge sentenced a De Soto woman to more than eight years in prison Thursday for starving her 6-year-old son and confining him in her attic. Rachel Perez, 27, pleaded guilty previously to child abuse and child endangerment and no contest to attempted second-degree murder. Judge Peter Ruddick quickly sentenced her to the maximum possible — 8 1/2 years — after hearing arguments from the lawyers on Thursday. It “is not a terribly long sentence for what happened to...

Dear FReepers & Patriots,Merry Christmas Everyone, Its now past time we acted with the only bloodless and violence free form of protest we can't afford to undertake. I suggest you follow the lead of the patriotic Founders and refuse to voluntarily pay taxes of any sort.Starving the Beast of financial wherewithall of runaway Federal spending is the only possible way to stop the Obama Regime dead in its tracks

Food bank use across Canada is at the highest level since 1997, with nearly 900,000 people turning to them in March 2010, says a survey released Tuesday. Food bank use across Canada is at its highest level since 1997. (CBC) The HungerCount 2010 survey found that 867,948 people used food banks in March 2010, an increase of 9.2 per cent or more than 73,000 people compared with the previous year. The figure was 28 per cent higher than in 2008. "This is a reality check. Food banks are seeing first-hand that the recession is not over for a large number...

Violence in N.Korea as hunger woes mount: reports AFP February 3, 2010, 1:15 am SEOUL (AFP) - Angry North Koreans have attacked security agents as hunger woes mount following a crackdown on free-market trade, according to reports on Tuesday from groups in Seoul with contacts in the communist state. Social unrest and riots have flared since a shock currency revaluation by Pyongyang last November worsened shortages of food and other goods for an increasingly desperate population, they said. /snip "Therefore, people are taking revenge on agents, since they feel so desperate that regardless of their actions, they will die," the...

More than 36.2 million Americans – 11 percent of U.S. households – suffer from food insecurity. That is, their access to enough food is limited by a lack of money and other resources. -- More than 35 million Americans – one out of nine – are receiving food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. -- 17.5 percent of rural households with children are food insecure.

Susan Schmidt, director of Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, said parents can "scapegoat" a child, wrongfully blaming one or two of them for the rest of the family's problems. Scapegoats are punished or neglected, while the others aren't harmed at all. "They're the bad kid," Schmidt said. "They're the reason everything is going wrong." Typically, however, neglect is unintentional, said Frederic G. Reamer, a professor at Rhode Island College's school of social work. Drug abuse and mental-health problems lie at the root of most cases. Poverty, unemployment and lack of support from friends and family can make it worse.

Former US president defends meetings with Hamas terrorists, tells university students in Egypt sanctions imposed on Gaza Strip are 'criminal atrocity' after meeting in private with Hamas leaders. 'For every Israeli killed,' says Carter, 'between 30 to 40 Palestinians are killed because of the extreme military capability of Israel' News agencies Published: 04.18.08, 00:27 / Israel News Former US President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said US attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive. Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from,...

Hamas ’spent months cutting through Gaza wall in secret operation …As tens of thousands of Palestinians clambered back and forth between the … were not “starving” as they mostly bought cell phones, TVs, and cigarettes… http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3238615.ece

Starving in Zimbabwe 'amounts to genocide' By Sebastien Berger in Bulawayo Last Updated: 3:58am BST 21/08/2007 Democracy takes a beating as police assault demonstrators seeking a new constitution Zimbabweans are starving to death on a scale equivalent to genocide, a top opposition MP claimed yesterday. Four million people will need food aid by the end of the year, the World Food Programme said earlier this month, as President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF government oversees the fastest-shrinking economy in the world. David Coltart, a senior member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said there was "no doubt" Zimbabweans were already starving...

PORT ST. LUCIE -- A 10-year-old boy reportedly weighing only 35 pounds was taken for medical treatment after being found knocking on doors Saturday evening asking for food. The boy's mother, 37-year-old Kelleen Deon Murray Auguste, of the 900 block of Southwest Versailles Avenue, was arrested on a charge of felony child neglect. The state Department of Children and Families took custody of the six other minor children in the home, according to Port St. Lucie police.

Starving Afghans sell girls of eight as brides Villagers whose crops have failed after a second devastating drought are giving their young daughters in marriage to raise money for food Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor Sunday January 7, 2007 The Observer (UK) Azizgul is 10 years old, from the village of Houscha in western Afghanistan. This year the wheat crop failed again following a devastating drought. Her family was hungry. So, a little before Christmas, Azizgul's mother 'sold' her to be married to a 13-year-old boy. 'I need to sell my daughters because of the drought,' said her mother Sahatgul,...

Did starving Neanderthals eat each other? 22:00 04 December 2006 NewScientist.com news service Rowan Hooper Neanderthals lived a desperately tough life, sometimes so close to starvation that when one of them died their compatriots would fall upon the body and devour it, according to new research. Scorned as clumsy, idiotic brutes with little in the way of developed culture, our pitiless modern view of Neanderthals may be tempered by new findings that provide insight into the terrible life our evolutionary cousins faced. Antonio Rosas, of the National Museum for Natural Sciences in Madrid, Spain, and colleagues studied 43,000-year-old Neanderthal remains...

LYMAN, S.C. - A couple was jailed on felony charges after police discovered their three adopted sons were severely malnourished, including a 5-year-old boy who weighed less than 20 pounds. An 8-year-old brother weighed less than 40 pounds and a 7-year-old brother weighed about 32 pounds when police found them Thursday. The boys also were treated for bruises, scratches, burns and head lice. Two of the boys told officers they were tied up to be kept from food in the mobile home. Dennis McCurry, 30, and Molly McCurry, 29, were each charged with three counts of intentional infliction of great...

Riverhead, N.Y. -- A man who let his dog starve to death in a basement closet while he took his 7-year-old daughter to Disney World was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Starving -- officially known as caloric restriction -- may make worms and mice live up to 50 percent longer but it will not help humans live super-long lives, two biologists argued on Sunday. They said their mathematical model showed that a lifetime of low-calorie dieting would only extend human life span by about 7 percent, unlike smaller animals, whose life spans are affected more by the effects of starvation. This is because restricting calories only indirectly affects life span, said John Phelan of the University of California Los Angeles and Michael Rose of the University of California...

U.N.: N. Koreans Scavenging for Food By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago North Korea's government and international aid agencies are running short of food, forcing hungry people to scavenge for acorns, grass and seaweed, the U.N. food agency said Tuesday as talks on the North's nuclear program began in China's capital. The United States has promised to send 50,000 metric tons of cereals to help feed millions of malnourished North Koreas, but that aid is not expected to arrive for three months, said Gerald Bourke, a Beijing-based spokesman for the World Food Program. There is "very little"...

I am convinced God uses trials like the Terri Schiavo case to test men. Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer was tested – and found wanting. He had seven years to consider this case and got it wrong every time. I don't know Greer personally, but I know many people like him. They go to church on Sunday and then between Monday and Friday lead lives with no seeming connection to what they hear preached in the pulpit, what they read in the Bible, what they claim to believe of the Christian faith. This may be the biggest single...

So... with torture disseminating specialist judges like Gerge Greer... wimpy on-the-take legislators and a gutless wonder executive like Jeb Bush... why would anyone in Florida ever be concerned about Islamofascist head chopping terrorists ??? The evil Muzzle-em chops your head off ... ZiP ... you're dead in just a few seconds !!! Now... satanic Judge Greer refuses to allow all the factual evidence, then, upon the false testimony of ONE wife beating and philandering scum bag, the satanic judge orders you to be starved and hydrated to death !!! ... ZiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiP ... Your eyes bleed as they slowly sink into...

The case of Terri Schiavo has been riveting public opinion for some time now. However, recent events have forced the issue into the foreground. Terri’s time may be running out. If her husband, Michael, has things his way, Terri’s feeding tube will be wrenched from her on Friday, February 25 at 5:00 pm, resulting in her starvation and death. Right now, Terri’s parents are praying and fighting in court to keep her alive. The American TFP is part of a groundswell of reaction and is petitioning Gov. Jeb Bush and others to intervene. Catholic teaching is very clear on the...

UPTON — An Upton woman rescued an orphaned baby bear after she saw the cub weak and alone in the western Maine woods following a fierce snowstorm that dumped more than 2 feet of snow on the area. Cyndy Scribner said she spotted the animal Dec. 7 and ended up taking it home three days later after it climbed down from a tree, squealing in pain with porcupine quills stuck in its face and leg. After bringing the bear home, Scribner fed it maple syrup, milk and a bucket of dog food. It spent the night in her pickup truck...

Oh, sure, Jerry Falwell might complain, but how was he to know? And who else was there besides Jerry? Well, the school found out in a hurry. There were 150 to 500 'who-elsers' -- depending on who did the counting. The school said 150; the protest organizers said 500....

This is such a tough issue. I would not want to live my life in a vegetative state. Yet, there is video showing Terri responding. She did not leave her wishes in writing, so we must take the word of a husband who may have an agenda. Her parents have cared for her and want to care for her. I've avoided writing a song about Terri, but I guess it was about time. With heavy heart -- CANDLE IN THE WIND Some say she should die...as if they know what's really best But Terri's parents fight for her...for that she's...

Starving North Korea kills 'foreign' babies (Filed: 23/10/2003) Refugees returning to North Korea face forced abortions in Kim Jong-il's prison camps in a drive by the dictator to keep his people 'ethnically pure', reports Richard Spencer in Beijing Pregnant North Korean refugees repatriated after being rounded up in China have their babies forcibly aborted or killed after birth, according to a report that adds more horror to what is known of the Stalinist state's gulags. Kim Jong-il Evidence from a number of women who have escaped from the prison camps of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, reveals a pattern...

There is no starvation here, and charity organizations raising money abroad should not say there is, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at Sunday's cabinet meeting. While praising the organizations for the work they are doing, he said that in the last few months some of them have mentioned hunger in literature used to raise overseas contributions. "There is no starvation," Sharon said. "There is poverty, but no starvation." Sharon's comment was backed by Social Affairs Minister Zevulun Orlev. Sharon directed the ministers to instruct the fund-raising organizations they work with to stop marketing the country to overseas donors as a...

40 million starving 'as world watches Iraq' UN agency accuses west of pledging to feed victims of Gulf war while concern for plight of hungry Africans fades Rory Carroll in Kanywambizi, Zimbabwe Wednesday April 9, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Forty million Africans are at risk of starving but are not getting enough aid because the world is distracted by Iraq, the World Food Programme has warned. In an impassioned appeal to the United Nations security council, James Morris, the UN agency's executive director, accused the west of double standards."How is it we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness...

Relief agency says Iraqis will be starving within a month By Peter Popham in Rome 05 April 2003 The World Food Programme believes that the poorest Iraqis will begin to run out of food by the end of the month, the agency said yesterday. The WFP, the world's largest humanitarian agency, announced that five days after launching its emergency food aid appeal for Iraq, it had received pledges of more than $270m (£170m). Describing the response as "the best possible start", the executive director of the programme, James T Morris, revealed America had committed "a mammoth" $260m, Germany $6.46m and...

<p>Proposals that have leaked from inside the U.S. Forest Service reveal that the Bush administration is contemplating ways to increase logging throughout the Sierra. This shouldn't come as a surprise. The only mystery has been how much more logging compared to the small amount envisioned under a plan advanced in the final days of the Clinton administration. What's abundantly clear at this point is how the Sierra stacks up in the funding priorities of this administration.</p>

Our culture is littered with perverse examples of the way that politically-correct dogma hinders rational thought and produces monumental inefficiencies. However, many people are able to profit because these inefficiencies exist, thus they become a built-in constituency arguing for them to continue - or worsen. This is why federal agencies never admit to out-living their usefulness, and why charities that have obviously achieved their goals never, ever admit to doing so. Further, it is why an "activist group" founded with a particular mission always seems to find new dragons to slay - and reasons to keep raising funds. Such...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A mother and her boyfriend were arrested for allegedly locking the woman's 7-year-old daughter in a room for four months and giving her so little food she looked like "a walking skeleton." The girl weighed just 25 pounds, less than half the normal weight for a child her age, when police found her this month, according to a police report. Connie Warrington, 23, and David LaPointe, 36, were arrested Friday on multiple counts of abuse, including caging, food deprivation and medical neglect, police said. "She looked like a walking skeleton," police spokesman Joe Durkin said. The...

Citizens for Tax Justice , 202-626-3780 June 18, 2001 Post-2001 Tax Cuts Offer Little to Most AmericansClick here to see this analysis in PDF format.Click here for a related analysis. The vast majority of American taxpayers will see the bulk of their Bush tax cuts take effect this year, leaving only a minority of taxpayers with a significant stake in the Effects of the final Bush tax plan in 2001 & thereafter Income Group Average tax cut in 2001 Average tax cut still to come 2001 cut as % of fully-phased-in tax cut Lowest 20% $ –56 $ –10 85% Second...

Phibada Opera Troupe Pyongyang, June 19 (KCNA) -- The Phibada Opera Troupe is the famous opera troupe, which adapted "the sea of blood", an immortal classic masterpiece created by President Kim Il Sung in the period of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, for a revolutionary opera. The troupe is based on the picturesque bank of the River Taedong. Its predecessor North Korean Opera Troupe was founded in Juche 35 (1946). The troupe was the first art organization to start creating the five revolutionary operas "the sea of blood," "the flower girl", "tell the story, forest," "a true daughter of the party"...

Once again, African children are dying of hunger. But why is famine afflicting places of such natural wealth? By Karen MacGregor in Durban and Katherine Butler 07 June 2002 Hunger stalks southern Africa. In Malawi, the men risk their lives to dive for water-lily bulbs in crocodile-infested rivers and kill mice to eat and sell. The women gather wild grasses and boil up weeds to feed their children. Nearly 13 million people are on the brink of starvation as the worst food crisis in a decade spreads across six countries: Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. A meeting in...

Starving children scavenge for berries as famine sweeps Zimbabwe (Filed: 26/05/2002) Robert Mugabe's calamitous land grab policy is turning a drought into disaster for much of southern Africa, reports Jane Flanagan from Zimbabwe. Matsapi Nyathi had spent two days queuing for food aid on an empty stomach and was finding it difficult to keep herself standing upright. Her haggard features were creased not just with hunger and age, but with embarrassment at having to wait in line for charity handouts. "We have plenty of our own fields, you know, and it should not be like this," said the 67-year-old peasant....