Chinese Women Flock to the U.S. to Give Birth

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Photo Credit: Wang Zhao/ AFP/Getty Jiang Wenjun was getting ready to go to America. His wife, due to give birth to their son any day, was already there. Like any expectant parents, the Shanghai couple agonized over how best to prepare for the arrival — and upbringing — of their firstborn child. American citizenship, they decided, was one of the finest gifts they could bestow. “America is the strongest country in the world,” says Jiang, whose son was born just days after he eventually arrived in California this month. “We want our child to have the best future.”

The U.S. is one of the few nations where simply being born on its soil confers citizenship on a newborn. That policy has spawned a birth-tourism industry, in which pregnant foreigners flock to American hospitals to secure U.S. passports for their babies. Although the foreign couple can’t acquire U.S. nationality themselves, once their American-born offspring turn 21 they can theoretically sponsor their parents for future U.S. citizenship. Another perk: these American-born kids can take advantage of the U.S. education system, even paying lower in-state fees for public universities, depending on where they were delivered. (California is a popular birth-tourism destination because of its well-known university system.)

More rich Chinese than ever are sending their families and money abroad. One study of Chinese millionaires found that half had either emigrated or were thinking of doing so. Boston Consulting Group estimates that Chinese have some $450 billion stockpiled overseas. What’s driving the exodus? Some wealthy citizens are spooked about the impact of an anticorruption campaign on their murkily sourced income. Others worry about the long-term risks of raising their kids in a polluted environment with dirty air, water and food. The pressure-cooker atmosphere of Chinese schools makes overseas schooling attractive. And even though China’s draconian one-child policy is being loosened, some couples feel it’s easier to give birth overseas and circumvent meddling by Chinese family-planning bureaucrats.

All of which has led to a proliferation of so-called anchor babies. At least 10,000 such Chinese babies were born in America last year, according to an estimate by an online platform dedicated to monitoring and rating confinement centers for Chinese women giving birth in the States. Naturally, a thriving business catering to these tiny foreign passport holders has developed. The Jia Mei Canadian and American Baby Counseling Services Center, with offices across China, charges between $30,000 and $40,000 to women who want to deliver babies in the States. The fee includes a plane ticket, accommodation in Los Angeles or Chicago in a two- or three-bedroom apartment or house, plus all the citizenship paperwork for the newborn. Women spend two months in the U.S. before delivery and one month postpartum. Nannies, drivers and a chef will be shared among three women, promises Jia Mei. Of course, Chinese-speaking doctors will be on call.

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Report: London is Mediating Indirect Secret Talks Between US and Hezbollah

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Photo Credit: REUTERSThe US and Hezbollah are in secret indirect talks managed by London dealing with the fight against Al-Qaida, regional stability and other Lebanese political issues.

Senior British diplomatic sources, quoted in a report in Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai on Wednesday, said British diplomats are holding discussions with leaders of the Lebanese organization and transferring the information to the Americans.

The discussions “are aimed at keeping tabs on the changes in the region and the world, and prepare for the upcoming return of Iran to the international community,” according to diplomatic sources in Washington.

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Lawmaker: Benghazi Operatives Likely Communicated with Al Qaeda Leaders Before, After Attack

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Photo Credit: REUTERSSome of the main operatives in the Benghazi terror attack were part of the Al Qaeda network and likely sought to communicate with Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan leading up to and after the strike that killed four Americans, according to the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

“I can tell you we know the participants of the event were clearly Al Qaeda affiliates, had strong interest and desire to communicate with Al Qaeda core and others, in the process — we believe before and after the event,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who has access to classified information and receives regular briefings, told Fox News in an exclusive interview.

Last month, Fox News was first to report that at least two of the key suspects in the Benghazi terror attack were at one point working with Al Qaeda senior leadership. Sources familiar with the investigation said one suspect was believed to be a courier for the network, and the other a bodyguard in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 terror attacks.

The direct ties to Al Qaeda senior leadership undercut early characterizations by the Obama administration that the attackers in Benghazi were isolated “extremists” with no organizational structure or affiliation. After the attack, the former bodyguard — Faraj al Chalabi — traveled to Pakistan, where he was detained, returned to Libya and eventually released before the FBI was granted access.

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Bachmann: Israel ‘May Have to Save World’ From Armageddon

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Photo Credit: WND It was a warning on the perils of appeasement reminiscent of Churchill.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., cut straight to the heart of the matter when WND asked her what the nuclear deal with Iran will mean.

“The major nations of the world have chosen to fail to thwart Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. It is a blunder of such great proportion, history will record it’s folly,” she ruefully predicted.

The congresswoman had an equally dire assessment when asked: Did the deal mean Israel would now have no option but to launch a preemptive strike on Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Israel may have ‘to save the world’

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4-Year-Old Girl Hit with Rock Thrown by Pro-Abortion Demonstrators at Pro-Life Rally

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Photo Credit: LifeSiteNews A four-year-old girl received a gash on her temple from a stone that was hurled by pro-abortion counter-demonstrators during a prayerful demonstration against abortion in Nancy, a town in the North-East of France earlier this month. The demonstration took place on Nov. 16 under heavy police protection in one of the city’s main squares while an “antifascist” counter-protest gathered several hundred feet and attempted to disturb the group’s recitation of the Rosary.

A few dozen pro-lifers had come together, answering the call of “SOS Tout-petits” (SOS Tiny ones), which held over thirty demonstrations in as many towns in France that Saturday for its 27th anniversary.

While most of the pro-life protests were unmolested, a group of extreme-leftist revolutionaries in Nancy organized a picnic on “Place Alliance,” calling on their supporters to prevent the “fundamentalist Catholics” from “reciting their disgusting prayers.”

According to the “antifacist” group La Horde, about 100 activists assembled there for a vegan meal. When the anti-abortion prayers began in early afternoon they started shouting insults, blasphemous slogans and revolutionary chants, and throwing condoms.

They also threw stones and other projectiles at the peaceful prolifers over the heads of the riot police.

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European Crisis: Half of HIV Infections in Greece Are Self-Inflicted

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Photo Credit: REUTERSA recent World Health Organization report paints an alarming picture regarding the health implications of Europe’s economic crisis, including how some Greek citizens are infecting themselves with HIV in order to receive 700 euros in government benefits.

The findings highlight how startling levels of unemployment and severe, mandated government cutbacks are trickling down to European citizens.

The September WHO report concludes that the economic crisis that began in 2008 has “exacerbated” health problems in Europe and “exposed stark social and economic inequities within and between countries.”

Greece has been among Europe’s hardest-hit, with its debt crisis causing the country’s economy to shrink and nearly knocking it out of the euro zone entirely.

According to the WHO report, suicides soared by 17% in Greece between 2007 and 2009 and then another 25% in 2010. As the crisis deepened in the first half of 2011, suicide attempts surged 40%.

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Illegals March Across Classified Military Base (+video)

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Photo Credit: WND An investigative report from an Arizona television station reveals illegal aliens routinely are marching across a classified military base in order to enter the U.S., and the military’s perspective is that it’s not the Department of Defense’s responsibility to chase down invaders.

The report comes from KVOA-TV in Tucson, which reported that the fort, which is the home to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, is having hundreds, perhaps thousands, of illegal aliens come across its 73,000 acres.

The site is located in the Huachuca Mountains only a few miles from the border with Mexico, and its location and uses should be a concern to Americans, according to a former Border Patrol agent.

“I think the average American should be petrified,” Dave Stoddard, a former supervisor of the federal border agency, told the station.

“That smuggling operation going through there is very, very sophisticated. They’ve been getting by with it for years. They know the formula. They know the routine,” he said. The military is unconcerned.

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Officials: Adulterers May be Stoned Under New Afghan Law

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Photo Credit: Aleatoric ConsonanceDeath by stoning for convicted adulterers is being written into Afghan law, a senior official said on Monday, the latest sign that human rights won at great cost since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 are rolling back as foreign troops withdraw.

“We are working on the draft of a sharia penal code where the punishment for adultery, if there are four eyewitnesses, is stoning,” said Rohullah Qarizada, who is part of the sharia Islamic law committee working on the draft and head of the Afghan Independent Bar Association.

Billions have been invested on promoting human rights in Afghanistan over more than 12 years of war and donors fear that hard won progress, particularly for women, may be eroding.

During the Taliban’s 1996-2001 time in power, convicted adulterers were routinely shot or stoned in executions held mostly on Fridays. Women were not permitted to go out on their own, girls were barred from schools and men were obliged to grow long beards.

Providing fresh evidence popular support for the brutal punishment has endured, two lovers narrowly escaped being stoned in Baghlan province north of Kabul, but were publicly shot over the weekend instead, officials said.

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Netanyahu: Iranian Nuclear Accord a False Peace

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Photo Credit: Hayim Tzah/GPOBy Herb Keinon.

“What was agreed last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement, it is a historic mistake,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “Today the world has become a much more dangerous place, because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.”

For the first time, he said, the leading powers of the world agreed to uranium enrichment in Iran, while removing sanctions that it has taken years to build up in exchange for “cosmetic Iranian concessions that are possible to do away with in a matter of weeks.”

Netanyahu said the consequences of this deal threaten many countries including Israel. He reiterated what he has said in the past, that Israel is not obligated by the agreement.

“Iran is committed to Israel’s destruction, and Israel has the right and the obligation to defend itself by itself against any threat,” he said.

“I want to make clear as the prime minister of Israel, Israel will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability.”

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Israel vows ‘whatever is necessary’ to stop Iran

By WND.

Israel will do “whatever is necessary” to stop Iran from going nuclear, declared Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon in a radio interview Sunday.

Speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio, Danon warned all options are on the table after Iran and six world powers reached what is being described as an historic deal.

“We were not part of the negotiations,” he said. “We have not signed this agreement. And we will do whatever is necessary to protect Israel.”

Danon said, “We cannot allow ourselves to make a mistake. If it is a bad agreement and Iran is playing with the world, maybe the Western superpowers can afford to make such a mistake. It is not the case for Israel.”

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‘Great Satan’ Meets ‘Axis of Evil’ and Strikes a Deal

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/CAROLYN KASTER/POOLBy LOUIS CHARBONNEAU, PARISA HAFEZI AND ARSHAD MOHAMMED.

Saturday night had turned into Sunday morning and four days of talks over Iran’s nuclear program had already gone so far over schedule that the Geneva Intercontinental Hotel had been given over to another event.

A black tie charity ball was finishing up and singers with an after party band at a bar above the lobby were crooning out the words to a Johnny Cash song – “I fell into a burning ring of fire” – while weary diplomats in nearby conference rooms were trying to polish off the last touches of an accord. Negotiators emerged complaining that the hotel lobby smelled like beer.

At around 2:00 a.m., U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia were brought to a conference room to approve a final text of the agreement which would provide limited relief of sanctions on Iran in return for curbs to its nuclear programme.

At the last minute, with the ministers already gathered in the room, an Iranian official called seeking changes. Negotiators for the global powers refused. Finally the ministers were given the all clear. The deal, a decade in the making, would be done at last.

Now that the interim deal is signed, talks are far from over as the parties work towards a final accord that would lay to rest all doubts about Iran’s nuclear program.

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Obama: Deal Opens Path to ‘Peaceful’ Iranian Nuclear Program

By CNSNews.com Staff.

President Barack Obama announced at the White House late Saturday that the U.S. government, working with the British, French, Germans, Russians and Chinese, had gotten the government of Iran to agree to curtail parts of its nuclear program in exchange for easing some of the sanctions being imposed on it.

The endgame of the negotiations with Iran, Obama explained, was to allow Iran to have a “peaceful” nuclear program…

Here is the full text of Obama’s statement:

President Barack Obama: Good evening. Today, the United States — together with our close allies and partners — took an important first step toward a comprehensive solution that addresses our concerns with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program.

Since I took office, I’ve made clear my determination to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. As I’ve said many times, my strong preference is to resolve this issue peacefully, and we’ve extended the hand of diplomacy. Yet for many years, Iran has been unwilling to meet its obligations to the international community. So my administration worked with Congress, the United Nations Security Council and countries around the world to impose unprecedented sanctions on the Iranian government.

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