Church bombing threatens Pakistan's push for Taliban talks

A pair of suicide bombers?killed at least 80 and wounded some 120?at a Christian church in the northern city of Peshawar, Pakistan on Sunday. It's being called the largest attack of its kind against Christians in Pakistan.

This is the latest in a series of bombings and assassinations emerging from (and feeding) the political and sectarian discord in this volatile nation situated between Afghanistan, Iran, and India.

Bloomberg notes that an attack of this size is only a portion of the terrorism toll overall in Pakistan:

As many 1,222 people, including 425 police and security officials and 797 civilians, have been killed in 858 terrorist attacks across Pakistan from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, according to statistics presented to parliament by the Interior Ministry this month. That included 25 suicide attacks and 60 bomb blasts.

As the BBC reports, it is unclear who was behind the attack, but two militant groups linked to the Pakistani Taliban have claimed credit.

Jandullah and the Junood ul-Hifsa - both with past links to the Pakistani Taliban - said they ordered the double bombing in retaliation for US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal north-west. The Pakistani Taliban, however, condemned the attack. Correspondents say the group frequently denies responsibility for attacks which take a heavy civilian toll.

The attack resonated worldwide. The News of Pakistan reports that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack in a statement that also reiterated the UN's solidarity with the Pakistani government's struggle against terrorism and extremism.

The bombing has cast a shadow across recent government attempts to start a peace process with the Pakistani Taliban. The three-month-old government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made peace with the Taliban a priority earlier this month, but the bombing makes talk of a dialogue with militants difficult for the Pakistani public to support. From an Associated Press account of the bombing's aftermath:

"What dialogue are we talking about? Peace with those who are killing innocent people," asked the head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, Paul Bhatti, whose brother, a federal minister, was gunned down by an Islamic extremist in 2011. "They don't want dialogue," said Bhatti. "They don't want peace."

Politician and former cricket star Imran Khan was on the scene in Peshawar, and despite the bloodshed he said he was still hopeful that some sort of long-term solution could be found.

?Those who did this were not humans,? Imran Khan, whose party runs Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters outside the hospital in Peshawar. ?I don?t think we should give up efforts to find those groups who want to talk. We need to know who wants to talk.?

In the wake of the attack, the government has decreed a three-day period of national mourning, reports The Express Tribune. While announcing the mourning period, Pakistan's federal minister of interior suggested that the government would go to greater lengths to protect Christians from future attacks.

?On a federal level, we have decided to review the protection of the Christian community in the country, who are perhaps considered by the terrorists as soft targets. We have decided to chalk out a bigger plan to brush up security preparations for their houses, community areas and churches.?

The mourning period comes amid widespread protests against the attack and the Pakistani government by members of the country's Christians, who make up less than 2 percent of the country's population. In Peshawar, Bloomberg reports, protesters blocked roads using coffins containing the bodies of those who lost their lives in the attack.

The troubles of Pakistan's Christians in this instance echo but do not precisely parallel the violence waged by Islamists against Coptic Christians in Egypt. In Egypt, the Monitor reported, Christians were blamed for protests that led to the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi; in Pakistan, they have been nominally blamed for the ongoing US drone campaign in the country's tribal areas.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/church-bombing-threatens-pakistans-push-taliban-talks-132607445.html

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'Prisoners' tops box office with $21.4 million

NEW YORK (AP) ? The Hugh Jackman kidnapping drama "Prisoners" opened with a box office-leading $21.4 million, a good start to Hollywood's fall season.

The Warner Bros. thriller, starring Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, is among the first fall films with Oscar aspirations to open in theaters. For a serious, adult-oriented drama that cost $30 million to make, it was a strong debut.

Last week's top film, "Insidious: Chapter 2," slid to second place for FilmDistrict. The horror film made $14.5 million in its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. It has made $60.9 million in two weeks domestically.

The Chris Brown dance film "Battle of the Year" opened poorly for Sony Pictures' Screen Gems, taking in only $5 million.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/prisoners-tops-box-office-21-4-million-154332739.html

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Wealthy Chinese seek U.S. surrogates for second child, green card

By Alexandra Harney

(Reuters) - Wealthy Chinese are hiring American women to serve as surrogates for their children, creating a small but growing business in $120,000 "designer" American babies for China's elite.

Surrogacy agencies in China and the United States are catering to wealthy Chinese who want a baby outside the country's restrictive family planning policies, who are unable to conceive themselves, or who are seeking U.S. citizenship for their children.

Emigration as a family is another draw - U.S. citizens may apply for Green Cards for their parents when they turn 21.

While there is no data on the total number of Chinese who have sought or used U.S. surrogates, agencies in both countries say demand has risen rapidly in the last two years.

U.S. fertility clinics and surrogacy agencies are creating Chinese-language websites and hiring Mandarin speakers.

Boston-based Circle Surrogacy has handled half a dozen Chinese surrogacy cases over the last five years, said president John Weltman.

"I would be surprised if you called me back in four months and that number hadn't doubled," he said. "That's the level of interest we've seen this year from China and the very serious conversations we've had with people who I think will be joining us in the next three or four months."

The agency, which handles about 140 surrogacy cases a year, 65 percent of them for clients outside the United States, is opening an office in California to better serve clients from Asia which has easier flight connections with the West Coast. Weltman said he hopes to hire a representative in Shanghai next year.

The increased interest from Chinese parents has created some cultural tensions.

U.S. agency staff who ask that surrogates and intended parents develop a personal relationship have been surprised by potential Chinese clients who treat surrogacy as a strictly commercial transaction.

In China, where surrogacy is illegal, some clients keep the fact that their baby was born to a surrogate a secret, going so far as to fake a pregnancy, agents say.

CITIZENSHIP DRAW

Chinese interest in obtaining U.S. citizenship is not new. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. constitution gives anyone born in the United States the right to citizenship.

A growing number of pregnant Chinese women travel to America to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children by delivering there, often staying in special homes designed to cater to their needs.

While the numbers are unclear, giving birth in America is now so commonplace that it was the subject of a hit romantic comedy movie, "Finding Mr Right", released in China in March.

Overall, the number of Chinese visitors to the United States nearly doubled in recent years, from 1 million in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2012, U.S. immigration statistics show.

Weltman said that prospective Chinese clients almost always want to chose U.S. citizenship for their babies, while other agencies pointed to a desire to have children educated in the United States.

Some wealthy Chinese say they want a bolt-hole overseas because they fear they will the targets of public or government anger if there were more social unrest in China. There is also a perception that their wealth will be better protected in countries with a stronger rule of law.

At least one Chinese agent promotes surrogacy as a cheaper alternative to America's EB-5 visa, which requires a minimum investment in a job creating business of $500,000.

While the basic surrogacy package Chinese agencies offer costs between $120,000 and $200,000, "if you add in plane tickets and other expenses, for only $300,000, you get two children and the entire family can emigrate to the U.S.," said a Shanghai-based agent.

That cost still means the surrogacy alternative is available only to the wealthiest Chinese.

Intended parents typically pay the surrogate between $22,000 and $30,000, an agency fee of about $17,000 to $20,000 and legal fees of up to $13,000. If egg donation is required, that can cost an additional $15,000 and pre-natal care and delivery fees can run between $9,000 and $16,000.

Indeed, surrogacy in the United States is so expensive that in recent years hundreds of American parents have reportedly turned to surrogates in India.

CHINESE BABIES, AMERICAN WOMBS

Often it is infertility that sends Chinese couples to U.S. surrogacy agencies. More than 40 million Chinese are now considered infertile, according to the Chinese Population Association. The incidence of infertility has quadrupled in the last two decades to 12.5 percent of people of childbearing age.

Shanghai businessman Tony Jiang and his wife Cherry were among them. They turned twice to domestic surrogates after struggling and failing to conceive on their own. Both attempts were unsuccessful, and left them unimpressed with the impersonal nature of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment in China.

Jiang researched surrogacy in Thailand, India and the Ukraine before settling on the United States, in part because of its superior healthcare system.

In December 2010, he and his wife welcomed a daughter, born in California to an American surrogate he calls "my Amanda". The same surrogate later carried twins for the couple.

Friends began to ask him to help them do the same thing and in 2012, he set up his own agency, DiYi Consulting. He has handled 75 surrogacy cases for Chinese parents so far.

Agents said that while many of their clients struggle with infertility, a substantial portion already have one child - some in their teens - and are looking to have a second outside China's 1979 family planning policy that restricts couples, in most cases, to one child.

They count among their clients government officials and employees of state-owned enterprises, for whom a second child would be a fireable offence. Members of the Chinese Communist Party would also face disciplinary action if a second child were reported.

Families who violate the one-child policy face the prospect of forced abortions, sterilizations and fines, policies that have been most brutally enforced in poor, rural areas.

Technically, Chinese who deliver their second child overseas still violate family planning policies, but in practice the government has little way to enforce this, says Zhong Tao, a Shanghai-based lawyer who has handled similar cases.

Obtaining a Chinese household registration, which is necessary to enjoy subsidized health care and enroll for lower tuition as a local student in state schools, is more complicated, if not impossible for second children.

For children who are foreign citizens, parents must apply for visas and residence permits.

BESPOKE BABIES

Seeking surrogacy overseas is not in itself illegal, and Chinese surrogacy agency websites, often adorned with pictures of chubby infants, highlight the possibility of bespoke babies.

Chinese surrogacy clients typically want to use their own eggs and sperm, which allows them to have a child who is fully biologically theirs, agents said.

A growing number, though, are open to egg donation. Often Chinese donors will seek ethnically Chinese or Asian egg donors, commonly with Ivy League degrees.

But others want tall, Eurasian children, agents said. "Lots of clients that are Chinese do use tall blond donors," said Jennifer Garcia, case coordinator at Extraordinary Conceptions, a Carlsbad, California-based agency where 40 percent of clients are Chinese.

Agents said that clients believe these taller, bi-racial children will be smarter and better looking.

Chinese clients also often request boys, a consequence of a cultural preference for boy children. While sex-selective abortion is illegal - though still common - in China, gender selection is technically straightforward through IVF in the United States, where it is used in surrogacy cases.

Genetic screening also allows intended parents to rule out inherited conditions. "You can basically make a designer baby nowadays," said Garcia.

(Additional reporting by Christine Chan in Singapore; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wealthy-chinese-seek-u-surrogates-second-child-green-211028190--sector.html

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Gigi I Am A Fool Without A Mind at Phoodie.info: The New Food And ...

Shari Brodsky watches teevee sos you don?t have to.

So funny story. I was watching the latest episode of Mystery Diners, 10:00 PM Wednesdays (Yes, I DVR Mystery Diners don?t judge me.) And then there are pictures of the Love statue and it turns out that Gigi,?a tappas place on Market St. that boasts of the largest outdoor eating area in Old City is having a problem.

The customers are leaving and the owner kinda thinks he might know why but he?s not sure so Charles Stiles, the guy who runs Mystery Diners listens and it turns out it?s not some chucklehead bartender giving pretty girls free drinks. It?s not the assistant manager punishing a waitress that her boyfriend looked at once and now refuses to assign more than two tables. Nope, he is hoping it?s not but is pretty sure the reason he?s losing customers is that his mother, whom he brought on to be a hostess, is nice to the older people but not so nice to the younger patrons.

They load the place up with cameras and at first it looks like he?s right, but then the head waitress who?s being shadowed by a Mystery Diner takes the order of a young couple. They order one appetizer and one entree and are going to split it. She will have none of that. She calls him cheap, then she turns to his date and says ?he?s cheap, why are you with him.? She ignores their table, lets their food get cold before she delivers it and is generally a shitty waitress to these undercover diners while she?s gracious and friendly with customers who?ve got some milage on them. She is no spring chicken but probably in her mid thirties.

When confronted she copped to it. ?Of course I want them out of the restaurant the lawyers and doctors in suits spend more money and tip better. The young guys don?t hardly tip at all!?

Momma fired her, with her son standing behind her. Then she slapped her son ?Don?t you ever do that again.?

So Momma?s alright, and Gigi has gotten great reviews. If your in Old City stop by and then tell us about the service, or just have some delicious food.

Shari Brodsky is not a food critic. She?s not even a picky eater. She is a writer and has a fuckton of fan fiction porn that you can find here. (It?s mostly QAF and SPN and it?s all slash) She?s also the younger sister of Adam Brodsky and lived with him for the first 21 years of his dorkiness, which means she knows some wicked cool embarrassing stories and where a few of the bodies are buried.

She hates facebook and long walks on the beach, but does have a twitter account that she rarely uses @sharibrodsky

If you feel the need to contact her directly email her: here or you know, comment below.

Source: http://www.phoodie.info/2013/09/23/gigi-i-am-a-fool-without-a-mind/

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Several events planned for 50th anniversary of 16th Street Baptist Church bombing tops morning news

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52945495/ns/local_news-birmingham_al/

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The Woz: Steve Jobs Picked Tim Cook, He?s the Right Man for Apple

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One Direction fans flock to London film premiere

Music

Randee Dawn TODAY contributor

12 hours ago

For 3,000 fans in London Tuesday, there was only one place to be: Screaming just outside the red carpet for One Direction's premiere of "This is Us," their 3-D concert film. And TODAY's Michelle Kosinski was on hand to capture some of the fan frenzy ? and risk both their enthusiasm and ire.

"So if I tweeted that I didn't like One Direction, would you come and, like beat me up?" she asked one "Directioner."

Fortunately, the fan could keep things in perspective: "Nah, I'm not that kind of fan."

But not every fan seems quite so much in control. The band was unknown three years ago, having been cobbled together on "X Factor" into a group. They lost the show, but creator/judge Simon Cowell signed them anyway and the fivesome of Zayin Malik, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan have gone on to sell millions of records and draw screams from a wide demographic of fans. Now, they have their own documentary, directed by "Super Size Me's" Morgan Spurlock.

"They're just really sweet, cute," said one fan.

"They just changed my life," said another.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond the One Direction crowd has already started to assemble on the TODAY plaza in anticipation of their Friday concert. As TODAY's Al Roker pointed out, there are already around 80 people camped out, including some infants, eagerly awaiting the band's triumphant return to the show.?

"One Direction: This is Us" opens in the U.S. Aug. 30.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/one-direction-take-london-storm-us-movie-premiere-6C10963178

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