Free Republic

This reporter has been told that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that has "entered the end stage". The information and the quote come from a highly respected source close to Chavez and who is in a position to know his medical condition and history. This source says the prognosis is dire and that Chavez is now not expected to live "more than a couple of months at most." Chavez is running for re-elec tion in Venezuela but several sources--including the one who revealed the exact kind of cancer-- have told me that they believe it...

KOKOMO, Ind. -- A man was arrested Monday on two counts of child molesting after the victim's father caught the man in the act with his 5-year-old daughter, police said. Larry Joe Nester, 46, of Kokomo, was taken into custody in the 3100 block of North Washington Street. Police said their investigation began on Nov. 28 when the girl's father reported the incident. Investigators said they found that Nester had also molested the girl on several occasions prior to the Nov. 28 incident.

<p>SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The reappearance of a man who was officially dead has shaken and outraged some in Chile, a nation that mourns 1,196 other political prisoners who vanished in the hands of a military dictatorship.</p> <p>Human rights judge Carlos Gajardo said Tuesday he was questioning German Cofre, who turned up alive this month — and with a second family in Argentina.</p>

EL PASO — Customs agents found nearly $1.9 million hidden in the doors of a sport utility vehicle at an El Paso port of entry, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced on Tuesday. Agents found the cash, wrapped in bundles and hidden in the doors of a 1992 Ford Expedition, after using a density meter to inspect the vehicle Monday morning, CBP spokesman Roger Maier said. "The driver was a little bit nervous, a little bit shaky," Maier said. "So the agents used ... a density meter. It registered higher than normal, consistent with contraband. They started looking closer at...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican presidential hopeful and former Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee linked gay sex to bestiality and abortion to slavery in an interview Thursday, explaining why, if elected, he would try to amend the constitution. "Marriage has ... as long as there's been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there?" he asked in an interview with online "Beliefnet" magazine. "Well, I don't think that's a radical view, to say we're going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to...

Fugitive political fundraiser Norman Hsu was behaving erratically as he fled the Bay Area on Amtrak's California Zephyr, at one point stripping off his shirt and shoes, before paramedics were called to take him off the train in western Colorado, passengers said Friday. Hsu, 56, on the run for the second time from a 1992 grand theft conviction in San Mateo County, was arrested Thursday after the paramedics took him to a hospital from the train station in Grand Junction, Colo. A spokesman at St. Mary's Hospital said Friday night that Hsu was in fair condition but would not say...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama drew a contrast with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton over the Iraq war on Sunday and said he was "not clear" how she planned to end the conflict. On the day after he formally launched his 2008 White House bid, Obama said on a campaign swing through Iowa that even before the war began it was possible to see the dangerous consequences of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. "Even at the time, it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well," the Illinois senator told reporters in Ames, indirectly contrasting his stance...

OUSTED Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein said today he would go to the gallows as a "sacrifice" and called on his former Iraqi subjects to unite against their enemies. Saddam, in a letter written to the Iraqi people from his cell and confirmed as genuine by his defence lawyer, said: "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs." Yesterday, a panel of appeals court judges confirmed Saddam's conviction for crimes against humanity and ordered that he be hanged within 30 days. In what might therefore be his final message, Saddam blamed his...

SUPPORTERS of Saddam Hussein have warned of a “firestorm” of violence if he is found guilty of crimes against humanity today and sentenced to death. Iraqi officials ordered the closure of Baghdad’s international airport in a massive security clampdown ahead of the verdict. If convicted, Saddam could face hanging.

Open dialogue on Islam is in everyone's best interests ISLAMIC scholar Ameer Ali has shown great courage and done Australia a big favour in opening debate on how best to interpret Muslim faith in the modern world. The immediate reaction of Australia's Islamic leaders to Dr Ali's controversial comments is as predictable as it is disappointing. But the fact that it has been framed as a debate, as opposed to mindless violence, says a lot about Australia and its 300,000-strong Muslim community that is to be celebrated. As chairman of Prime Minister John Howard's Muslim advisory board, Dr Ali has...

Excerpt - An Israeli Cabinet minister has threatened to eliminate Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. "Nasrallah decided his own fate," Interior Minister Roni Bar-On announced on public radio. "We will settle our accounts with him when the time comes." ~ snip ~

In al-Jazeera interview, senior wanted Palestinian terror suspect presents academy which prepares thousands of activists to fight against Israel; 'Jew that came to lands of Palestine is a murderer, occupier and he is the one we fight, but we have no connection to Jew living in his synagogue in Britain or America,' group official says Muhammad Deif, head of Hamas' military wing and the senior Palestinian terror suspect wanted by Israel, said Sunday night that "all the land conquered in 1948 is Palestine's land. Every Muslim in the world has the right and duty to fight in order to liberate...

Updated: 14:59, Monday June 12, 2006 Al Qaeda has named a successor to Iraqi terror leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was killed in an American air strike last week.A militant called Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajer has been named on a website used by the Islamist terrorists.More follows...

Venezuela is tightening its squeeze on the oil industry, telling oil companies to give the state a greater share of profits — or get out... After snubbing Exxon Mobil, Ramirez said Venezuela has other eager partners, including state companies from Russia, Iran, China, India, as well as traditional oil companies... Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil has often been the lone challenger to the government...  

Sunni insurgents 'have al-Zarqawi running for cover' By Oliver Poole in Baghdad (Filed: 11/03/2006) Insurgent groups in one of Iraq's most violent provinces claim that they have purged the region of three quarters of al-Qa'eda's supporters after forming an alliance to force out the foreign fighters. If true, it would mark a significant victory in the fight against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'eda in Iraq, and could partly explain the considerable drop in suicide bombings in Iraq recently. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "We have killed a number of the Arabs, including Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians, Kuwaitis and Jordanians," said an...

Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27, 2004 audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, as Al Qaeda’s leader in the war-torn country HE has not issued any public statement all year. Speculation has grown over his influence, health and even possible death. Where is the Western world’s most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden? The Al Qaeda leader’s period of silence is the longest since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, offering no clues to the whereabouts or fate of a man who this year appears to have...

With the scheduled execution of Stanley Tookie Williams approaching and no word from the governor on Williams' clemency request, prominent death penalty opponents gathered in San Francisco on Sunday to make final appeals for the gang co-founder's life. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Sister Helen Prejean, whose work against the death penalty inspired her book and a movie, both called "Dead Man Walking," spoke during an American Civil Liberties Union event at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel. They said that executing Williams would destroy one of California's most effective advocates for keeping children out of gangs.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The California state Supreme Court has declined to block the execution of a co-founder of the Crips gang, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, set for Dec. 13. It's now up to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to decide whether to spare Williams, who was convicted of killing four people, by commuting his sentence to life in prison without parole. The governor has a clemency petition in hand and plans a hearing on the matter. Before the high court ruling, Schwarzenegger told reporters he wants to hear from both prosecutors and defense attorneys before making his decision because "a life is at...

LIES SO pervade the campaign waged to "save" convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams that Williams and company don't even bother to cover their tracks when they say things they know aren't true. So, as Williams' Dec. 13 execution date looms and supporters are pressing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant him clemency, the Death Row inmate claimed in an interview Monday with MSNBC's fatuous Rita Cosby that he was convicted by an "all-white jury." That's not true, and Williams knows it. In fact, Williams' own clemency lawyers have stipulated that the jury that convicted him in the 1979 murders of Albert...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams moved one step closer to the death chamber Wednesday when the California Supreme Court refused to reopen his case and halt the state's highest profile execution since the death penalty was reinstated. Williams, in a last-ditch legal move, alleged that shoddy forensic testing and other errors may have wrongly sent him to San Quentin State Prison, where he is scheduled to die by lethal injection Dec. 13. His lawyers asked that justices allow the re-examination of evidence that showed a shotgun registered to Williams was used to kill three people during a...