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A horrifying investigative film, shot undercover in Zimbabwe, has exposed how prisons under President Mugabe have become death camps for thousands of inmates who are deprived of food and medical care. The documentary, shown last night on South Africa's state broadcaster SABC, documented the “living hell” for prisoners across 55 state institutions. The result, Hell Hole, was a grim account of a crisis in which dozens of inmates die each day.

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases...

NIXZALIZ SANTIAGO failed to stop beatings......convicted of first-degree manslaughter in the 7-year-old girl's death at the hands of her abusive stepfather....Cesar Rodriguez Jan. 11, 2006...... jurors saw gut-wrenching photos of the little girl's emaciated and bruised body and heard that Rodriguez regularly bound her to a chair overnight, forcing her to use a litter box as a toilet. Rodriguez, convicted last spring, was sentenced to 29 years. Prosecutors said Santiago failed to stop the final beating after a famished Nixzmary took a yogurt from the fridge and accidentally broke a computer printer.

A Delaware woman has become the next Terri Schiavo as her parents engage in a massive legal and philosophical debate about whether to subject her to euthanasia. Richardson is a 23-year-old woman who overdosed on heroin in August 2006 while she was three months pregnant with a baby girl. Doctors kept Lauren on life support until she delivered her baby in February 2007. Shortly thereafter, her parents began a fight that is reminiscent of the battle over Terri's life and death. As in the Terri Schiavo case, physicians have been quick to label Lauren as having a persistent vegetative state...

A convicted Nazi war criminal arrived in Italy yesterday to start a life sentence imposed in his absence for the murder and torture of prisoners in the final year of the Second World War. Michael Seifert, 83, a Ukraine-born Canadian citizen dubbed the "Beast of Bolzano", has lived in Canada since 1951. He had been fighting extradition for eight years. The former SS corporal was a guard at a prison camp in Bolzano, northern Italy - used as a transit point for Jews, Italian resistance fighters and others - in 1944 and 1945. An Italian military tribunal convicted him in...

Liza Biggers blinked back tears and gently patted her brother Ethan's hand as he lay in his hospital bed, finally wearing the Purple Heart he earned in Iraq. Ethan's family had held off on the medal ceremony, hoping he would emerge from his year-long coma. When that didn't happen, his 22-year-old twin, Matt, made a phone call to make sure he received the award before he died. Last Sunday's private ceremony was a poignant moment in a tumultuous journey that began the day Army Spc. Ethan Biggers was critically wounded in Iraq. Biggers' family stopped trying to keep him alive...

Fred Thompson will pick up the support of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) tomorrow, according to two Republicans familar with the decision. For a candidate who came up empty-handed last week when three prominent Christian conservatives endorsed GOP hopefuls and is falling in both national and early state polls, the move comes at a critical time. NRLC is the most prominent anti-abortion group in the country, with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters. A spokesperson for the organization declined to comment on their endorsement decision, but Thompson was likely rewarded for his strong pro-life...

Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- An Italian court has denied a request by a disabled woman's father to remove her feeding tube and authorize her death by starvation and dehydration. Eluana Englaro has been a coma for 15 years after an automobile accident seriously injured her and, this year, her father asked a Milan court for permission to remove her feeding tube. This isn't the first time Englaro's case had been in court. In April 2005, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed a lower court ruling to keep her feeding tube in place. That case had also been brought by Englaro's father,...

PHILADELPHIA, PA, September 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As is the custom in the United States, the first Sunday of October will be honored by US Catholics as Respect Life Sunday.  In honor of this, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States' Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has issued a statement to be made available at all parishes nationwide.  The statement calls for US Catholics to "again pray for - and renew their resolve to bring about - a culture of life and an end to the killing of innocent human beings, especially...

Pope Rules Patients in Permanent Vegetative State May Not be Denied Artificial Nutrition and Hydration Response to certain questions raised by US Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning artificial nutrition and hydration By John-Henry Westen VATICAN CITY, September 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In most hospitals in North America, families of patients in permanent vegetative state are asked if they wish their family member to have their artificial feeding tube removed. According to a definitive ruling by the Vatican made public today, the withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration from such patients is immoral. The ruling from the Vatican's Congregation for the...

Brain-Damaged Man "Awakened" After Six Years of Semi-Consciousness By Elizabeth O'Brien NEW YORK, August 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A severely brain-damaged man who was in a minimally conscious state for six years has recently regained new levels of awareness and physical capabilities after receiving electrical brain implants. The unnamed 38-year old man had his head repeatedly kicked during a mugging in 1999 and was left unable to talk or move properly. In addition, he was kept alive on a feeding tube.In a study led by Dr. Nicholas Schiff of Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in New York, researchers...

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...

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...

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...

A wilderness-survival school is allowing campers to carry a 32-ounce water bottle instead of a smaller cup during a grueling course in southern Utah, a change from last year when a New Jersey man died of dehydration. "They're allowed to carry them and drink as they go," said Andrew Wright, an attorney for the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, known as BOSS. Dave Buschow, 29, collapsed and died on the second day of a 28-day expedition in the searing heat of the Utah desert in July 2006. Participants were given a 24-ounce cup and told to drink water only from natural...

Family sues survival school after death of fit 29-year-old on wilderness course"Dave is dead." The words came at the end of the second day of what was supposed to be a character-forming experience, a chance for 12 people to "experience the wilderness to the fullest". Instead, the trek through the mountains and desert of Utah in the mid-western US left David Buschow, a fit 29-year-old US air force veteran and security guard from New York dehydrated and hallucinating, his eyes bulging and tongue swollen. Less than 10 hours after setting off from the group's overnight camp on the second day,...

BOULDER, Utah - By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person. After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water. But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various...

TORONTO, September 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At last week’s Toronto conference of the international Right to Die movement, speakers laid out the course of the movement’s strategy for legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide around the world. Of particular note is the emphasis on the “right” to be starved and dehydrated to death, especially for patients suffering from dementia or cognitive disabilities. Seeing a “catch-22” in the dementia and euthanasia problem, the Right to Die movement says the problem is that some, while unwilling “to end life prematurely,” know that “it requires mental competence to take personal responsibility for choosing...

***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...

  NORFOLK, U.K., August 8, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At the same time that the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital is being investigated for allegedly starving and dehydrating a woman to death in 2003, the wife of a former patient treated on the same ward is calling for another investigation into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of her husband. Kate Speed claims that although her husband’s death certificate states that he died from pneumonia, that in fact he died because of a hospital-ordered dehydration, an ultimately fatal measure that neither she nor her husband approved. “The whole of my husband’s...