A review of the Bollywood film 'Ghanchakkar' starring Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan in lead roles.
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
The Court’s Global Message on DOMA
The Court’s Global Message on DOMA
BALTIMORE â€" LAST week’s Supreme Court decision to strike down the core provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act is a stride toward greater equality in the United States. But it is also a shift that will reverberate far beyond our shores. America has always been a beacon for those unable to live a life of liberty in their homelands, and the ruling sends a strong signal of encouragement to such individuals, and to their governments, about what we consider fair and morally acceptable.
In 1979, as I waited in line to enter the United States for the first time, I was fairly certain I was gay. When I was growing up in Mumbai, homosexuality was invisible â€" I hadn’t met a single person like myself in my 20 years there. America, to me, offered a ray of hope through my despair: I’d detected incontrovertible evidence of gay life in its magazines and films.
Now I stood at the threshold, being asked by the uniformed gatekeeper to state my business. I handed over my I-20 form: proof I’d come to pursue an advanced mathematics degree and nothing else. Then I was through, into the promised land.
Gazing back at my almost three and a half decades here, I see a life filled with opportunity and freedom. Yes, there were years of furtiveness, of sleepless nights wondering if I’d be sent back. But also the time and space I needed to explore and ease into my identity, the ability to live openly with the person I love for 23 years (and counting). And with this ruling comes the affirmation of what first attracted me to this country: its promise of fairness and equality.
How would my life have played out had I stayed in India? Would I have used marriage as a cover, as a sizable majority of Indian homosexuals still do? Or would I have helped usher in the nascent queer scene, more visible since the High Court for the State of Delhi struck down anti-sodomy laws in 2009? The Indian Supreme Court will soon decide on the Delhi ruling â€" the kind of situation where the American ruling could have an international impact. While the Indian judiciary is fiercely independent, the fact remains that America carries enormous moral and cultural clout in the world.
Several nations considering the recognition of same-sex unions (from Bolivia to Vietnam) will receive this amicus curiae signal. Homophobic states like Nigeria will be served a further reminder of how radically they diverge from our principles of fairness.
A number of anti-homosexual statutes that exist today, including those in India, derive from the same source: English common law. This illustrates the tremendous worldwide influence a single legal precept can have.
America is not the first to propose an alternative precept, reversing centuries of such discrimination. But it has worked hard to project its image of supporting freedom, and its voice will carry the strongest. DOMA’s repudiation will burnish this image, and the effects will be felt by sexual minorities growing up alone and in despair all over the globe.
Manil Suri, a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is the author, most recently, of the novel “The City of Devi.â€
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 1, 2013, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Court’s Global Message on DOMA.An Indian Artist Extends Her Reach
An Indian Artist Extends Her Reach
The poetically named Shantala Shivalingappa was born in India, but raised in Paris, where she trained in Kuchipudi, a South Indian classical dance style, with her mother, the well-known dancer and choreographer Savitry Nair. Ms. Shivalingappa, who will perform at Jacob’s Pillow this week, is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest current practitioners of Kuchipudi’s flowing lines, percussive footwork and dramatic narratives.
But she hasn’t had a conventional career. Her onstage magnetism, musicality and vividly expressive power have made her a more cross-disciplinary figure than most Indian dancers. She has worked with the theater director Peter Brook, with Pina Bausch, with the Butoh-influenced choreographer Ushio Amagatsu and with Bartabas, the French master of equestrian theater. At Jacob’s Pillow, she will perform a program of new Kuchipudi work, accompanied by four musicians â€" an intricate part of the rhythmic complexity that distinguishes her riveting dance. (8:15 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 2.15 p.m. Saturday and July 7, Doris Duke Theater, Becket, Mass., 413-243-0745, jacobspillow.org; $22-38.)
A version of this article appeared in print on June 30, 2013, on page AR4 of the New York edition with the headline: An Indian Artist Extends Her Reach.
Video and Images of Anti-Morsi Protests
Video shot by Simon Hanna for Ahram Online, an English-language offshoot of a state-owned Cairo newspaper, showed protesters outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday.
As our colleagues David Kirkpatrick, Kareem Fahim and Ben Hubbard report from Cairo, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians packed the streets of cities across the country on Sunday to demand the resignation of President Mohamed Morsi, exactly one year after his inauguration as the country’s first democratically elected leader. The Islamist president’s supporters held a rival rally in Nasr City, a neighborhood in the capital.
Video reports posted on YouTube by Ahram Online, an Eglish-language offshoot of a state-owned Cairo newspaper, showed protesters outside the presidential palace in Cairo chanting “Leave!†as members of Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood rallied in support of what they called his legitimacy as an elected president.
Video of President Mohamed Morsi’s supporters shot by Mayada Wadnomiry for Ahram Online on Sunday in Cairo.
Participants in the rallies, as well as Egyptian journalists and foreign correspondents who witnessed the protests, uploaded images, video and text accounts of the massive crowds throughout the day and into the night. Once again, views of tens of thousands of protesters streaming into a packed Tahrir Square and swarming around the palace, known locally as the Itihadiya, were emblematic of the popular dissent.
Abassiya march heading to itihadiya #june30 http://t.co/yii1SA3xFC
More people arrive at palace as sun sets, as big a crowd here as I’ve seen. Lots of families. http://t.co/r5FvM9S6js
â€" Kareem Fahim (@kfahim) 30 Jun 13
Bloggers who helped to document the initial phase of the revolution online reported on Sunday that sentiment against the Islamist president and the Muslim Brotherhood was now so strong it had swept up even formerly apolitical family members and the upscale part of the capital around the palace.
The protests took place amidst an atmosphere of deep mistrust and tension between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and opponents â€" last week even the nation’s top Islamic cleric warned of “civil war†between the two sides. Early in the day, protesters shared images of anti-Morsi activists protecting the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party./p>
While the rival rallies remained peaceful throughout most of the day, tensions rose as night fell and local media began reporting clashes in cities outside of Cairo, including! attacks ! on Brotherhood offices. In the days leading up to Sunday’s protests both sides said they feared violence, but would also not shrink from defending themselves in the face of any attack, amid uncertainty about the loyalties of the nation’s police force.
A BBC correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, and Sherine Tadros of Al Jazeera, posted images on Twitter of Morsi supporters wearing martial arts gear and brandishing crude weapons.
Sharif Abdel Koddous, a freelance journalist based in Cairo, captured a similar scene in video showing Brotherhood supporters in improvised armor, brandishing sticks.
Video posted online by Sharif Abdel Koddous, a freelance journalist based in Cairo, shows Morsi supporters clad in martial arts gear and brandishing clubs marching in formation.
The Brotherhood’s preparations were not just for show. Video posted online by Al-Shorouk, an independent ! Egyptian ! newspaper, appeared to show violent clashes at a the Muslim Brotherhood office in the rural province of Gharbiya, in the Nile Delta.
Video posted online by an independent Egyptian newspaper appeared to show men standing on the roof of a Muslim Brotherhood building in a rural province firing shotguns into a crowd of stone-throwing protesters.
In the clip, several men standing on the roof of the local Brotherhood headquarters could be seen firing guns at stone-throwing protesters. As shots rang out, men on the ground could be heard saying, over and over again, “What a dark day! What a dark day!â€
Several correspondents, including our colleague David Kirkpatrick, remarked late Sunday that the police had seemed to withdrawfrom the streets and let events unfold.
Sunday’s protests were not the first sign of official anxiety about the police force and it’s true loyalties.
Egypt’s police force spent decades rounding up and torturing the very Islamist groups who now run the country, and despite widespread anger over police brutality â€" one of the original sparks of the Egyptian revolution â€" Mr. Morsi has not undertaken security sector reform. This past winter, thousands of police staged a nation-wide strike, forcing the military onto the streets in cities along the Suez Canal.
Another video clip from Al-Shorouk appeared to show members of different police force branches participating in anti-Morsi protests. It was not clear where the imags were filmed, and at least one of the men shown in the video, who smiled and cheered for protesters while waving a small Egyptian flag, claimed that he was not against the government. “I’m not against the regime,†he said. “I came because everyone is free,†to express their opinions, he said.
Video posted online by Al-Shorouk, an independent Egyptian newspaper, showed members of the security forces participating in protests against President Morsi.
According to Priyanka Motaparthy, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, and Sherief Gaber, an activist blogger, police off! icers eve! n took part in the demonstrations in Alexandria.
As night fell on Sunday, an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood’s national headquarters in Cairo hinted at the depths of Mr. Morsi’s alienation when one of his official spokesmen accused Egypt’s polie force of participating in attempts to set it ablaze.
Writing on Twitter, the spokesman, Gehad El-Haddad, accused the police force of participating in the attack in the office, located in the upscale Muqattam neighborhood, alongside “thugs.â€
A te! levision ! station linked to the Brotherhood, Misr 25, reported that “hundreds†of assailants were involved in the assault, although video shared by Mr. Haddad that claimed to show the attack depicted a far smaller number of people throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the building.
Video shared on Twitter by a spokesman for Mr. Morsi showed protesters attacking the national heaquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood with Molotov cocktails and stones.
A second video Mr. Haddad drew attention to, which appeared to be taken earlier in the day, shows young men outside the Brotherhood office breaking stones and hurling them at the building.
A second video shared on Twitter by a spokesman for Mr. Morsi shows young people throwing stones at the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Kristen Chick, Cairo correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, reported from the scene of the attack on the Brotherhood headquarters that no police were visible early in the evening.
!No police visible at MB HQ in cAiro as people attack it
Our colleague Kareem Fahim reported on Twitter later that the security forces did eventually appear at the Brotherhood headquarters, but departed half an hour later without intervening.
A Conversation With Assad (No, Not That One)
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Snowden\'s Special Travel Document Is Real but Not Valid, Official in Ecuador Says
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Video of Mandela\'s Daughter Calling Reporters ‘Vultures\'
A South African Broadcasting Corporation interview with Makaziwe Mandela broadcast on Thursday amid rumors of her father's failing health.
As my colleague Declan Walsh reports, Nelson Mandela's oldest daughter compared the press pack waiting outside the hospital in Pretoria where he remains in critical condition to “vultures†in an interview with South African state television broadcast on Thursday.
Speaking to the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Makaziwe Mandela said that her father “doesn't look good, I'm not going to lie,†but added that the family remained hopeful that the former president might recover.
Asked about the news media presence outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital, Ms. Mandela then said:
I don't want to say this, but I'm going to say it: there's sort of a racist element with many of the foreign media where they just cross boundaries. You have no idea what's happening at the hospital. You know in the middle of Park Street, they are standing right there in the aisle - you can't even enter the hospital or you can't even go out of the hospital, because they are making themselves such a nuisance. It's like, truly, vultures, waiting when a lion has devoured the buffalo, waiting there to, you know, for the last carcasses. That's the image that we have as a family. And we don't mind the interest, but I just think it has gone overboard.
She added: “When Margaret Thatcher was sick in hospita l, I didn't see this kind of media frenzy with Margaret Thatcher, where people cross boundaries. Even if they are engaged to say, ‘This is how you behave,' it doesn't matter. Is it because we are an African country that people just feel they can't respect any laws of this country, they can violate everything in the book? I just think it's in bad taste. It's crass.â€
American Declared Blogger Non Grata in Britain for Anti-Islam Crusade
Pamela Geller, the American blogger whose inflammatory campaign to “Stop the Islamization of America†has led her to buy advertising space denigrating Islam and organize protests against mosque-building, was informed this week that she is no longer allowed to travel to Britain.
In a letter from the British government she quickly posted on her blog, Atlas Shrugged, Ms. Geller was notified that she has been added to a list of “extremists†barred from travel to the country, on the grounds that her presence could “foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the U.K.†Although the travel ba n cannot be appealed, the designation “is reviewed every 3 to 5 years.†Ms. Geller's colleague Robert Spencer received a nearly identical letter from the British Home Office noting that his blog, Jihad Watch, was “a site widely criticized for being Islamophobic,†and two organizations he founded with Ms. Geller “have been described as anti-Muslim hate groups.â€
The American activists had been invited to take part in a march through London on Saturday, passing a mosque and ending in Woolwich, where a British soldier was hacked to death last month by two converts to Islam. The planned march was organized by the virulently anti-Islam English Defense League, which rallied in Woolwich after the killing, and sent a contingent of activists to New York in 2010 for a protest in Lower Manhattan led by Ms. Geller and Mr. Spencer on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The two bloggers helped spearhead the campaign that year to block the construction of an Islamic community center and mosque near the site of the World Trade Center.
In a joint message posted on both of their blogs under the headline “Britain Capitulates to Jihad,†Ms. Geller and Mr. Spencer complained that they were branded dangerous extremists while a Saudi preacher “who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.â€
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a leader of the E.D.L. with Irish roots who uses the more English-sounding pseudonym Tommy Robinson, responded to the news by posting a message on Twitter claiming that Win ston Churchill was “a outspoken critic of Islam.â€
The American bloggers also used the social network to alternately boast of and complain about their bans. Mr. Spencer was even drawn into a long dialogue with the British activists who had agitated for him to be added to the list of banned extremists, after he sent them a sarcastic note of congratulations. The activists replied in kind, and also mocked the s mall scale of the rallies staged by the E.D.L.
It is unclear if the English nationalist march will be allowed to proceed on Saturday. Mr. Yaxley-Lennon posted and then removed from Twitter a photograph of a letter he received on Wednesday from London's Metropolitan Police, informing him that he could be arrested if he enters the area around the mosque that he planned to march past.
A letter from London's Metropolitan Police to the English Defense League leader who goes by the name Tommy Robinson.As the British site Political Scrapbook reported, the E.D.L. leader has apparently tried to keep his march through London from being banned by portraying it as a walk to raise money for a young British girl with cancer.
Earlier this week, an E.D.L. group was caught posting a fake endorsement from the British physicist Stephen Hawking. In a fabricated video posted on an E.D.L. Facebook page, a speaker using what sounded like Mr. Hawking's computerized voice said: “Why is the British government to emigrate and have chil dren in such large numbers? These Muslims threaten the British way of life.â€
While the group is seen as marginal in Britain, it has been hailed by American conservatives recently. As Ms. Geller noted on her YouTube channel, Mr. Yaxley-Lennon was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in the wake of the Woolwich attack. Under the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, the anti-Islam activists described the E.D.L.'s struggle as a “fight for Christianity, fight for our children's future, fight for our culture, and fight for our country's identity, which is completely under attack.â€
In a subsequent appearance this month on the radio program of another Fox News host, Bria n Kilmeade told the E.D.L. leader, “Tommy, we got your back and we'll definitely keep in touch and I really think it's great what you're doing.â€
Audio of Brian Kilmeade's radio interview of the English Defense League leader who uses the name Tommy Robinson.
Rick Perry Sounds Off on Texas Lawmaker and Filibuster
Excerpts from a speech that Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican of Texas, delivered on Thursday at the National Right to Life Conference, criticizing the Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis.
Two days after State Senator Wendy Davis of Texas vaulted into the political spotlight for helping defeat a bill restricting abortion rights by staging an 11-hour-long filibuster, Gov. Rick Perry said it was unfortunate she had not learned that “every life matters,†given that she was the child of a single mother who went on to earn a Harvard law degree.
In a speech to nearly 1,000 delegates at the National Right to Life Conference near Dallas, Mr. Perry struck hard at Ms. Davis, 50, asking the crowd, “Who are we to say that the children born in the worst of circumstances can't grow to live successful lives?â€
Then he cited Ms. Davis, as an example, saying she was the daughter of a “single mother.â€
He added: “She was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate. It is just unfortunate that she hasn't learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters.â€
Ms. Davis released a statement that said Mr. Perry's statement was “without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds.â€
“They are small words that reflect a dark and negative point of view,†she said. “Our governor should r eflect our Texas values. Sadly, Governor Perry fails that test.â€
Ms. Davis, whose filibuster helped block the legislation and now has supporters urging her to challenge Mr. Perry in the next election for governor, posted on Twitter.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Mr. Perry added to his remarks about Ms. Davis in an interview with reporters.
“I'm proud that she's been able to take advantage of her intellect and her hard work, but she didn't come from particularly good circumstances,†the governor said. “What if her mom had said, ‘I just can't do this. I don't want to do this.' At that particular point in time I think it becomes very personal for us.â€
Mr. Perry has called a special legislative session for July 1 to consider several bills, including legislation that would limit abortions after 20 weeks and would also impose new regulations on abortion clinics. Republican lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to overcome the filibuster by Ms. Davis on Tuesday night and vote on the bill before the session came to a close at midnight, amid loud jeers from large crowds in the gallery and hundreds of thousands of people watching online.
Opponents of the bill, which would give Texas some of the toughest rules on abortion in the nation, say that the new requirements would lead to the closure of most abortion clinics in the state.
But Mr. Perry said in his speech that a majority of Texas lawmakers “agree that any patient should have the expectation that facilities being used for a procedure are up to standard, and that, when there's an emergency situation, they can receive the care they need.â€
On Monday, when the bill comes up for the vote, opponents are getting ready to fight it. On Twitter, Planned Parenthood promised a battle.
Snowden\'s Father Hints Son Could Return to Stand Trial if Conditions Are Met
Edward J. Snowden's father told NBC News that his son, the former National Security Agency contractor who is holed up in a Moscow airport without valid travel documents, might agree to return to the United States to stand trial on espionage charges if certain conditions are met.
According to Michael Isikoff, the NBC reporter who interviewed him, Lonnie Snowden has written to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to say he is reasonably confident his son would come home “if the Justice Department promises not to detain him before trial, not to subject him to a gag order and lets him choose where his trial will take place.â€
In a portion of Mr. Isikoff's interview broadcast on Friday morning, Lonnie Snowden, who says he has not spoken with his son since April, said that he was “concerned about those who surround him,†specifically advisers from Wikileaks, the antisecrecy organization. “I think Wikileaks, if you've looked at past history, their focus isn't necessarily the Constitution of the United States,†Mr. Snowden said. “It's simply to release as much information as possible.â€
Lonnie Snowden also insisted that his son, who leaked classified information about the scope of the United States' surveillance efforts to The Guardian and The Washington Post, was not a traitor. “At this point, I don't feel that he has committed treason,†he told Mr. Isikoff. “He has, in fact, broken U.S. law in the sense that he has released classified information, and if folks want to classify him as a traitor - he has betrayed his government; I don't believe that he has betrayed the people of the United States.â€
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that there was dissent inside Ecuador's government over the role played in the Snowden affair by the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for the past year.
According to leaked Ecuadorean diplomatic correspondence obtained by Univision, and reviewed by The Journal, Fidel Narvaez, the consul at Ecuador's London embassy, who has said that he is close to Mr. Assange, issued a temporary travel document intended to help Mr. Snowden travel from Hong Kong to Ecuador via Moscow after his United States passport was revoked.
Officials in Ecuador said on Thursday that the document was invalid, because it was issued without clearance from senior officials by a diplomat who had exceeded his authority. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, stressed on Thursday that the “Safepass†provided to Mr. Snowden does not permit him to enter any country. “What is the validity of a safe conduct pass issued by a consul in London for someone to leave from Hong Kong to Moscow?†Mr. Correa said. “None.â€
One of the leaked e-mails obtained by Univision appears to be an apology from Mr. Assange to the foreign minister of Ecuador for “unwittingly causing Ecuador discomfort in the Snowden matter.â€
In another e-mail, a senior diplomat expressed concern that “from outside,†Mr. Assange “appears to be ‘running the show.' â€
Video of Deadly Clashes in Alexandria, Egypt
Video posted online shows violent clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi, as well as the police.
As my colleagues Kareem Fahim and David Kirkpatrick report, violent street battles gripped Egypt on Friday as supporters and opponents of the country's Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, held competing protests that devolved into fierce clashes in several cities. The violence was particularly fierce in the port city of Alexandria, where three people, including one American citizen, were killed and the local headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Mr. Morsi is a leader, was set abla ze.
There was little confirmed information about the identity of those killed on Friday or of their attackers. Security officials said the American was stabbed to death while taking photographs of clashes near the Brotherhood headquarters in the Sidi Gaber neighborhood. In an update posted to Twitter, the United States Embassy in Cairo, the capital, said it was “seeking to confirm†the identity of the American victim.
As Egyptians took to the streets and protests spread across the country, footage of chaotic scenes flooded social media, including a number of videos that showed parts of the deadly clashes in Alexandria.
A video posted to YouTube and Facebook by AlexTV, a media organization based in Alexandria, showed fighting between rival groups of young men in the Sidi Gaber train station, one of the city's two main railroad stations and an important transportation link between Alexandria and Cairo. (It is in the same neighborhood as the burnt Muslim Brotherhood headquarters, outside of which the American citizen was killed, according to officials.) The video shows young men setting off fireworks, shooting firearms and pelting one another with stones inside the enclosed station, while police in riot gear and armored vehicles appear to watch impassively.
Video posted online claims to show the police firing birdshot at protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria.
El Badil, a left-leaning Egyptian newspaper, posted another video from the Sidi Gaber train station that claimed to show the police firing birdshot at protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood. In the video, men in police uniforms walk along train tracks, joined by a small group of men in civilian dress, and fire several types of firearms at protesters. It is not clear if the protesters shown in the video are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and, if so, why the police would be firing on supporters of the president.
Video posted online claims to show protesters attacking the Alexandria headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood. At least one protester appears to be carrying a gun.
AlexTV posted a second video from Alexandria on Friday that claims to show young men attacking the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. At least one of the men is carrying a small firearm. Several gunshots can be heard, and it appears that a rival group not seen on camera - either the police or supporters of Mr. Morsi - is trying to defend the headquarters. Several men appear to discourage the man with the gun from approaching the front line of the clashes, but he does so anyway and fires one shot before retreating. It is not clear what kind of weapon he fired, nor is it clear that this video shows an attack on the Brotherhood headquarters and not a battle elsewhere in the city.
At least seven people have been killed in a string of clashes in the Nile Delta and Alexandria in the last three days. The country is bracing for a day of protests planned for Sunday by opponents of Mr. Morsi, who have called for him to resign. A leader of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Morsi is Egypt's first democratically elected pre sident, but opponents accuse him of governing autocratically and presiding over a period of economic deterioration, political deadlock and worsening sectarianism.
How the Web and an Attitude of Sharing Helped a Law Firm Take Off
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The War on Misguided Youth and Other Indian Euphemisms
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Homelessness and Unemployment Stares Down at Uttarakhand Villages After the Flood
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Image of the Day: June 27
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All the Trappings of Victorious Headhunters
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Kerry Proposes U.S.-India Push on Carbon and Climate
There's a lot of promise in nurturing a partnership between the United States and India on expanding energy choices that work for the long haul, author argues.
Inside Men
A review of Anita Raghavan's ‘The Billionaire's Apprentice,' that revolves around the rise and fall of South Asian immigrants Rajat Gupta and Raj Rajaratnam, charged with insider trading on Wall Street.
Relatives Still Searching for 3,000 Missing Pilgrims
Danish Siddiqui/Reuters Posters of people who went missing during the flash floods, pasted on a gate in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, on Wednesday.UTTARAKHAND - #8212;A big projector screen in the police control room in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, was alive with pictures of the latest batch of rescued pilgrims. Hundreds of relatives of missing pilgrims were making inquiries, checking photographs of the latest arrivals of rescued pilgrims and crosschecking call details and last locations of mobile phones of the missing.
V. Gopalakrishna, a 53-year-old sorting assistant with the pos tal department in Hyderabad in southern India, and his wife, D.V. Janaki, a 52-year-old employee with an adjoining state's telecommunication department, had arrived at the control room to register a report on their children, who went missing in the flood near the Kedarnath shrine on June 16.
The couple had married late by Indian standards and became parents a decade ago, in their early 40s. “We had twins. A daughter and a son, born 15 minutes later,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna.
“My son and daughter were ahead of us with the porters. We thought that they are safe and we are in danger,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna, sobbing. It turned out to be the other way around.
Mr. Gopalakrishna, his wife, sister and two children were part of a 13-member group who were on the pilgrimage to Kedarnath shrine on June 16. They were coming down after visiting the holy shrine. They had hired porters for their children. When the mountainous track was swept away by the flash floods, the parents were separated from the children.
“We ran up on the hills to save us and thought that kids are safe ahead,†recalled Ms. Janaki.
A holy man in the upper hills gave them shelter in his small cave for three days. “My sister died in front of my eyes due to cold and exhaustion. We even could not bring her body back,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna. An army helicopter rescued them on June 21.
Ministry of Defense Indian Army European Pressphoto Agency A rescue operation being carried out by the Indian army in Kedarnath valley, in Uttarakhand, on Wednesday.After the helicopter dropped them off in Dehradun, Mr. Gopalakrishna and his wife searched everywhere, but couldn't find their children or fellow pilgrims. “We are hopeful that they are there somewhere,†Ms. Janaki said in a weak, low voice.
“I never thought that they will die together also,†Mr. Gopalakrishna said.
By Wednesday evening, the police control room had registered reports on 800 missing people, said Jaya Baloni, a police officer. More than 1,000 people have died in the floods. About 3,000 pilgrims are still stranded because of washed-away roads and bridges.
“Disasters and miracles happen side by side,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna, as he held onto the fading hope of finding his children.
Across the state of Uttarakhand, anxious relatives continued to look for their missing kin. In the town of Rishikesh, 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Dehradun, the main bus yard was filled with waiting relatives. The bus yard, now a hub for st randed pilgrims who are being evacuated by road, was choked by tents erected by relief agencies, state governments, political parties and nongovernmental organizations.
As a bus carrying rescued pilgrims coming from the Badrinath shrine entered the depot, anxious relatives rushed to the arriving pilgrims with the pictures of the missing and a question: Have you seen him? Have you seen her? The answers were almost always negative.
Mohan Pethiya, a 49-year-old man from Shivpuri in Uttarakhand, had been hanging around the bus yard for five days, showing a photo of his sister to pilgrims arriving in bus after bus. His sister and her fellow pilgrims had mobile phones, and Mr. Pethiya had last heard from her on June 16, before the floods hit. “I am not able to trace her,†said Mr. Pethiya.
She had been trekking near Kedarnath when the floods came. Around 600 bodies have been found around Kedarnath, and preparations for mass cremations were being made.
T he most recent arrivals were from the pilgrimage center of Badrinath, where around 10,000 pilgrims were stranded after landslides and floods washed away roads and bridges. Shyam Lal, a 28-year-old tailor from Sultanpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, had taken his elderly parents on the pilgrimage and arrived in Badrinath a night before the rains came.
Itbp/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Members of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police rescuing stranded people in Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand on Tuesday.“We had food, water, and shelter in Badrinath, but we couldn't leave,⠀ said Mr. Lal. After waiting for five days in Badrinath, Mr. Lal, his parents and several others walked tens of miles toward a highway, where vehicles were reported to be plying. Along the way, they had to cross a stream. Indian soldiers were helping people cross and took the elderly first, including his parents.
“I crossed around three hours after my parents,†said Mr. Lal. Two days later, he arrived in Rishikesh on a bus but hasn't been able to find his parents.
“They must be in a relief camp somewhere. I do not know where,†said Mr. Lal. “I will keep looking for them.â€
The Scene at Ground Zero of Uttarakhand Floods
Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images A car driving through a damaged section of road between Rudraprayag and Gauchar in Uttarakhand, on Tuesday.RUDRAPRAYAG, Uttarakhand -The flash floods in Uttarakhand have caused damage in all the hilly districts of the state, but no district has experienced as much devastation as Rudraprayag, home to the Kedarnath shrine, which draws thousands of pilgrims every summer.
As of Thursday evening, 582 residents and 2,843 pilgrims were reported missing in Rudraprayag after heavy rains caused flash floods on June 16. The floods have killed an estim ated 1,000 in the entire state.
During the floods, the Rudraprayag district government hospital treated 3,855 patients, mainly pilgrims from Kedar Valley, where Kedarnath is located. The doctors said that 10 pilgrims were brought dead and five died in the hospital. The most critically injured were sent to Dehradun, the state capital.
Indian Army/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Members of the Indian Defence Forces tending to a patient at a field hospital in Uttarakhand, on June 20.During the heavy rains, the last 10 miles to the shrine were accessible only by fo ot, leaving the trekking pilgrims vulnerable to the fast-moving waters.
“This disaster was much more beyond our imagination. It was much more beyond our capacities to handle,†Dilip Jawalkar, chief administrator of the district, said Thursday in the town of Rudraprayag, the district headquarters, 55 miles south of Kedarnath. “We were totally cut off and the only connectivity was by air.â€
Floods and landslides have washed out 41 roads and 28 bridges, both small and large, and damaged 188 state government buildings. “The only lifeline is the main steel bridge connecting the town with the rest of the state, which remained intact,†Mr. Jawalkar said on Thursday. “Normally the bridge is above 20 meters [70 feet] above the water level. On the 17th, the water was touching the bridge.â€
More than two dozen government workers including several policemen have died in the Kedar Valley.
Most of the missing local residents had been working in Kedar Valley during the pilgrim season as shopkeepers, priests, hotel owners and porters.
Prashant Bagwadi, 26, went to Kedarnath to assist his uncle at his general store, which was on the ground floor of a two-story house. On the morning of June 17, he was swept away by the flash floods caused by an overflowing Mandakini River, along with his uncle and two cousins.
Anita Devi, Mr. Bagwadi's mother, said she last spoke to her son at 6:55 a.m. on the day the floods took him. “After one hour, I saw the water level going up in the river. I called up again at 8 a.m., but the phone kept saying it was switched off,†said Mrs. Devi, 45, at her house in front of Mandakini River in the town of Rudraprayag.
One cousin of Mr. Bagwadi's survived the flood with a fracture in both knees, but Mr. Bagwadi and the others have yet to be found.
The grim task of cremating the bodies of victims has been slowed because of the rain. “We could do the cremation of 18 bodies y esterday and 15 bodies today at Kedarnath,†said Mr. Jawalkar on Thursday. “The postmortem is conducted at Kedarnath itself. The team of doctors has been airlifted to Kedarnath.â€
At the district government hospital, a team of doctors was busy planning measures to avoid an outbreak of water-borne diseases. In the village of Rampur, 12 miles south of the Kedarnath shrine, doctors have treated 266 patients for diarrhea and vomiting. “We suspect some water contamination in disrupted water lines,†said Dr. Kaladhar Sharma, chief medical officer of Rudraprayag. “We are advising people to boil the water before drinking and use chlorine tablets.â€
The first phase of rescue operations is almost over, but the district has a long way to go before it can start recovery efforts. “It will take many more months to get back to the comfort level in the district,†said Mr. Jawalkar.
Image of the Day: June 28
European Pressphoto Agency A grey egret flying over the Panbazar area on the banks of Brahmaputra River in Guwahati, Assam.Friday, June 28, 2013
Video of Deadly Clashes in Alexandria, Egypt
Video posted online shows violent clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi, as well as the police.
As my colleagues Kareem Fahim and David Kirkpatrick report, violent street battles gripped Egypt on Friday as supporters and opponents of the country’s Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, held competing protests that devolved into fierce clashes in several cities. The violence was particularly fierce in the port city of Alexandria, where three people, including one American citizen, were killed and the local headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Mr. Morsi is a leader, was set ablaze.
There was little confrmed information about the identity of those killed on Friday or of their attackers. Security officials said the American was stabbed to death while taking photographs of clashes near the Brotherhood headquarters in the Sidi Gaber neighborhood. In an update posted to Twitter, the United States Embassy in Cairo, the capital, said it was “seeking to confirm†the identity of the American victim.
As Egyptians took to the streets and protests spread across the country, footage of chaotic scenes flooded social media, including a number of videos that showed parts of the deadly clashes in Alexandria.
A video posted to YouTube and Facebook by AlexTV, a media organization based in Alexandria, showed fighting between rival groups of young men in the Sidi Gaber train station, one of the city’s two main railroad stations and an imp! ortant transportation link between Alexandria and Cairo. (It is in the same neighborhood as the burnt Muslim Brotherhood headquarters, outside of which the American citizen was killed, according to officials.) The video shows young men setting off fireworks, shooting firearms and pelting one another with stones inside the enclosed station, while police in riot gear and armored vehicles appear to watch impassively.
Video posted online claims to show the police firing birdshot at protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria.
El Badil, a left-leaning Egyptian newspaper, posted another video from the Sidi Gaber train station that claimed to show the police firing birdshot at protestes from the Muslim Brotherhood. In the video, men in police uniforms walk along train tracks, joined by a small group of men in civilian dress, and fire several types of firearms at protesters. It is not clear if the protesters shown in the video are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and, if so, why the police would be firing on supporters of the president.
Video posted online claims to show protesters attacking the Alexandria headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood. At least one protester appears to be carrying a gun.
AlexTV posted a second video from Alexandria on Friday that claims to show young men attacking the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. At least one of the men is carr! ying a sm! all firearm. Several gunshots can be heard, and it appears that a rival group not seen on camera â€" either the police or supporters of Mr. Morsi â€" is trying to defend the headquarters. Several men appear to discourage the man with the gun from approaching the front line of the clashes, but he does so anyway and fires one shot before retreating. It is not clear what kind of weapon he fired, nor is it clear that this video shows an attack on the Brotherhood headquarters and not a battle elsewhere in the city.
At least seven people have been killed in a string of clashes in the Nile Delta and Alexandria in the last three days. The country is bracing for a day of protests planned for Sunday by opponents of Mr. Morsi, who have called for him to resign. A leader of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Morsi is Egypt’s first democratically elected president, but opponents accuse him of governing autocratically and presiding over a period of economic deterioration, political deadlock and worsening secarianism.
Image of the Day: June 28
European Pressphoto Agency A grey egret flying over the Panbazar area on the banks of Brahmaputra River in Guwahati, Assam.Snowden’s Father Hints Son Could Return to Stand Trial if Conditions Are Met
Edward J. Snowden’s father told NBC News that his son, the former National Security Agency contractor who is holed up in a Moscow airport without valid travel documents, might agree to return to the United States to stand trial on espionage charges if certain conditions are met.
According to Michael Isikoff, the NBC reporter who interviewed him, Lonnie Snowden has written to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to say he is reasonably confident his son would come home “if the Justice Department promises not to detain him before trial, not to subject him to a gag order and lets him choose where his trial will take place.â€
In a portion of Mr. Isikoff’s interview broadcast on Friday morning, Lonnie Snowden, who says he has not spoken with his son since April, said that he was “concernedabout those who surround him,†specifically advisers from Wikileaks, the antisecrecy organization. “I think Wikileaks, if you’ve looked at past history, their focus isn’t necessarily the Constitution of the United States,†Mr. Snowden said. “It’s simply to release as much information as possible.â€
Lonnie Snowden also insisted that his son, who leaked classified information about the scope! of the United States’ surveillance efforts to The Guardian and The Washington Post, was not a traitor. “At this point, I don’t feel that he has committed treason,†he told Mr. Isikoff. “He has, in fact, broken U.S. law in the sense that he has released classified information, and if folks want to classify him as a traitor â€" he has betrayed his government; I don’t believe that he has betrayed the people of the United States.â€
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that there was dissent inside Ecuador’s government over the role played in the Snowden affair by the founder of Wikileaks, Julia Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for the past year.
According to leaked Ecuadorean diplomatic correspondence obtained by Univision, and reviewed by The Journal, Fidel Narvaez, the consul at Ecuador’s London embassy, who has said that he is close to Mr. Assange, issued a temporary travel document intended to help Mr. Snowden travel from Hong Kong to Ecuador via Moscow after his United States passport was revoked.
Officials in Ecuador said on Thursday that the document was invalid, because it was issued without clearance from senior officials by a diplomat who had exceeded his authority. Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, stressed on Thursday that the “Safepass†provided to Mr. Snowden does not permit him to enter any country. “What is the validity of a safe conduct pass issued by a consul in London for someone to leave from Hong Kong to Moscow?†Mr. Correa said. “None.â€
One of the leaked e-mails obtained by Univision appears to be an ! apology f! rom Mr. Assange to the foreign minister of Ecuador for “unwittingly causing Ecuador discomfort in the Snowden matter.â€
In another e-mail, a senior diplomat expressed concern that “from outside,†Mr. Assange “appears to be ‘running the show.’ â€
The Scene at Ground Zero of Uttarakhand Floods
Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images A car driving through a damaged section of road between Rudraprayag and Gauchar in Uttarakhand, on Tuesday.RUDRAPRAYAG, Uttarakhand â€"The flash floods in Uttarakhand have caused damage in all the hilly districts of the state, but no district has experienced as much devastation as Rudraprayag, home to the Kedarnath shrine, which draws thousands of pilgrims every summer.
As of Thursday evening, 582 residents and 2,843 pilgrims were reported missing in Rudraprayag after heavy rains caused flash floods on June 16. The floods have killed an estimated 1,000 in the entire stat..
During the floods, the Rudraprayag district government hospital treated 3,855 patients, mainly pilgrims from Kedar Valley, where Kedarnath is located. The doctors said that 10 pilgrims were brought dead and five died in the hospital. The most critically injured were sent to Dehradun, the state capital.
Indian Army/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Members of the Indian Defence Forces tending to a patient at a field hospital in Uttarakhand, on June 20.During the heavy rains, the last 10 miles to the shrine were accessible only by foot, leaving the trekking pilgrims vulnerable to the fa! st-moving waters.
“This disaster was much more beyond our imagination. It was much more beyond our capacities to handle,†Dilip Jawalkar, chief administrator of the district, said Thursday in the town of Rudraprayag, the district headquarters, 55 miles south of Kedarnath. “We were totally cut off and the only connectivity was by air.â€
Floods and landslides have washed out 41 roads and 28 bridges, both small and large, and damaged 188 state government buildings. “The only lifeline is the main steel bridge connecting the town with the rest of the state, which remained intact,†Mr. Jawalkar said on Thursday. “Normally the bridge is above 20 meters [70 feet] above the water level. On the 17th, the water was touching the bridge.â€
More than two dozen government workers including several policemen have died in the Kedar Valley.
Most of the missing local residents had been working in Kedar Valley during the pilgrim season as shopkeepers, priests, hotel owners and porters.
p>Prashant Bagwadi, 26, went to Kedarnath to assist his uncle at his general store, which was on the ground floor of a two-story house. On the morning of June 17, he was swept away by the flash floods caused by an overflowing Mandakini River, along with his uncle and two cousins.Anita Devi, Mr. Bagwadi’s mother, said she last spoke to her son at 6:55 a.m. on the day the floods took him. “After one hour, I saw the water level going up in the river. I called up again at 8 a.m., but the phone kept saying it was switched off,†said Mrs. Devi, 45, at her house in front of Mandakini River in the town of Rudraprayag.
One cousin of Mr. Bagwadi’s survived the flood with a fracture in both knees, but Mr. Bagwadi and the others have yet to be found.
The grim task of cremating the bodies of victims has been slowed because of the rain. “We could do the cremation of 18 bodies yesterday and 15 bodies today at Kedarnath,†said Mr. Jawalkar on Thursday. “The postmortem is conducted at! Kedarnat! h itself. The team of doctors has been airlifted to Kedarnath.â€
At the district government hospital, a team of doctors was busy planning measures to avoid an outbreak of water-borne diseases. In the village of Rampur, 12 miles south of the Kedarnath shrine, doctors have treated 266 patients for diarrhea and vomiting. “We suspect some water contamination in disrupted water lines,†said Dr. Kaladhar Sharma, chief medical officer of Rudraprayag. “We are advising people to boil the water before drinking and use chlorine tablets.â€
The first phase of rescue operations is almost over, but the district has a long way to go before it can start recovery efforts. “It will take many more months to get back to the comfort level in the district,†said Mr. Jawalkar.
Relatives Still Searching for 3,000 Missing Pilgrims
Danish Siddiqui/Reuters Posters of people who went missing during the flash floods, pasted on a gate in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, on Wednesday.UTTARAKHANDâ€"A big projector screen in the police control room in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, was alive with pictures of the latest batch of rescued pilgrims. Hundreds of relatives of missing pilgrims were making inquiries, checking photographs of the latest arrivals of rescued pilgrims and cross-checking call details and last locations of mobile phones of the missing.
V. Gopalakrishna, a 53-year-old sorting assistant with the postal department in Hyderabad in souther India, and his wife, D.V. Janaki, a 52-year-old employee with an adjoining state’s telecommunication department, had arrived at the control room to register a report on their children, who went missing in the flood near the Kedarnath shrine on June 16.
The couple had married late by Indian standards and became parents a decade ago, in their early 40s. “We had twins. A daughter and a son, born 15 minutes later,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna.
“My son and daughter were ahead of us with the porters. We thought that they are safe and we are in danger,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna, sobbing. It turned out to be the other way around.
Mr. Gopalakrishna, his wife, sister and two kids were part of a 13-member group who were on the pilgrimage to Kedarnath shrine on June 16. They were coming down after visiting the holy shrine. They had hired porters for their kids. When the mountainous track was swept away by the flash floods, the parents were separated from the ch! ildren.
“We ran up on the hills to save us and thought that kids are safe ahead,†recalled Ms. Janaki.
A holy man in the upper hills gave them shelter in his small cave for three days. “My sister died in front of my eyes due to cold and exhaustion. We even could not bring her body back,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna. An army helicopter rescued them on June 21.
Ministry of Defense Indian Army European Pressphoto Agency A rescue operation being carried out by the Indian army in Kedarnath valley, in Uttarakhand, on Wednesday.After the helicopter dropped them off in Dehradun, Mr. Gopalakrishna and his wife searched everywhee, but couldn’t find their children or fellow pilgrims. “We are hopeful that they are there somewhere,†Ms. Janaki said in a weak, low voice.
“I never thought that they will die together also,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna.
By Wednesday evening, the police control room had registered reports on 800 missing people, said Jaya Baloni, a police officer. More than 1,000 people have died in the floods. About 3,000 pilgrims are still stranded because of washed-away roads and bridges.
“Disasters and miracles happen side by side,†said Mr. Gopalakrishna, as he held onto the fading hope of finding his children.
Across the state of Uttarakhand, anxious relatives continued to look for their missing kin. In the town of Rishikesh, 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Dehradun, the main bus yard was filled with waiting relatives. The bus yard, now a hub for stranded pilgrims who are being evacuated by road, was choked by tents erected by relief agencies, state governments, political par! ties and ! nongovernmental organizations.
As a bus carrying rescued pilgrims coming from the Badrinath shrine entered the depot, anxious relatives rushed to the arriving pilgrims with the pictures of the missing and a question: Have you seen him? Have you seen her? The answers were almost always negative.
Mohan Pethiya, a 49-year-old man from Shivpuri in Uttarakhand, had been hanging about the bus yard for five days, showing a photo of his sister to pilgrims arriving in bus after bus. His sister and her fellow pilgrims had mobile phones, and Mr. Pethiya had last heard from her on June 16, before the floods hit. “I am not able to trace her,†said Mr. Pethiya.
She had been trekking near Kedarnath when the floods came. Around 600 bodies have been found around Kedarnath, and preparations for mass cremations were being made.
The most recent arrivals were from the pilgrimage center of Badrinath, where around 10,000 pilgrims were stranded after landslides and floods washed away roads and bridges. hyam Lal, a 28-year-old tailor from Sultanpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, had taken his elderly parents on the pilgrimage and arrived in Badrinath a night before the rains came.
Itbp/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Members of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police rescuing stranded people in Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand on Tuesday.“We had food, water, and shelter in Badrinath, but we couldn’t leave,†said Mr. Lal. After waiting for five days in Badrinath, Mr. Lal, his parents and several others walked tens of miles toward a highway, where vehicles were reported to be plying. Along the way,! they had! to cross a stream. Indian soldiers were helping people cross and took the elderly first, including his parents.
“I crossed around three hours after my parents,†said Mr. Lal. Two days later, he arrived in Rishikesh on a bus but hasn’t been able to find his parents.
“They must be in a relief camp somewhere. I do not know where,†said Mr. Lal. “I will keep looking for them.â€
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Inside Men
A review of Anita Raghavan's ‘The Billionaire’s Apprentice,’ that revolves around the rise and fall of South Asian immigrants Rajat Gupta and Raj Rajaratnam, charged with insider trading on Wall Street.
Kerry Proposes U.S.-India Push on Carbon and Climate
There’s a lot of promise in nurturing a partnership between the United States and India on expanding energy choices that work for the long haul, author argues.
All the Trappings of Victorious Headhunters
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York is hosting an exhibition on the Naga warriors from northeastern India, that runs through September 16.
Video of Gov. Rick Perry Criticizing Texas Lawmaker Wendy Davis
Excerpts from a speech that Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican of Texas, delivered on Thursday at the National Right to Life Conference, criticizing Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis.
Two days after Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis vaulted into the political spotlight for helping defeat a bill restricting abortion rights by staging an 11-hour-long filibuster, Gov. Rick Perry said it was unfortunate she had not learned that “every life matters,†given that she was the child of a single mother who went on to earn a Harvard law degree.
In a speech to nearly 1,000 delegates at the conference near Dallas, Mr. Perry struck hard at Ms. Davis, 50, asking the crowd, “Who are we to say that thechildren born in the worst of circumstances can’t grow to live successful lives?â€
Then he cited Ms. Davis, as an example, saying she was the daughter of a “single mother. She was
a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas Senate.
“It is just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters.â€
Ms. Davis released a statement that said Mr. Perry’s statement was “without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds. They are small words that reflect a dark and negative point of view. Our governor should reflect our Texas values. Sadly, Gov. Perry fails that test.â€
Ms. Davis, whose filibuster helped block the legislation and now has supporters urging her to challenge Mr. Perry i! n the next gubernatorial election, posted on Twitter.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Perry added to his remarks about Ms. Davis in an interview with reporters.
“I’m proud that she’s been able to take advantage of her intellect and her hard work, but she didn’t come from particularly good circumstances,†the governor said. “What if her mom had said, ‘I just can’t o this. I don’t want to do this.’ At that particular point in time I think it becomes very personal for us.â€
Mr. Perry has called a special legislative session for July 1 to consider several bills, including legislation that would limit abortions after 20 weeks and would also impose new regulations on abortion clinics. Republican lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to overcome the filibuster by Ms. Davis on Tuesday night and vote on the bill before the session came to a close at midnight, amid loud jeers from large crowds in the gallery and hundreds of thousands of people watching online.
Opponents of the bill, which would give Texas some of the toughest rules on abortion in the nation, say that the new requirements would lead to the closure of most abortion clinics in the state.
But Mr. Perry said in his speech that the majority of Texas lawmakers “agree that any patient should have the expectation that facilities being used for a procedure are up to standard, and that, when the! re’s an! emergency situation, they can receive the care they need.â€
On Monday, when the bill comes up for the vote, opponents are getting ready to fight it. On Twitter, Planned Parenthood promised a battle.
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