Varied Views of a Border

In some spots along the Mexican-American border, a well-fortified fence extends as far as the eye can see, while in others a wall ends abruptly in the ocean. Beyond these images of the United States’ southern border, we are interested in your photos.

An aerial view of the border fence in Tijuana, Mexico, where it meets the Pacific Ocean.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

An aerial view of a Border Patrol vehicle along a section of the border wall south of Mission, Tex., near the Rio Grande. In this case engineers built the wall along an existing levee in the floodplain just north of the river.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

An aerial view of the Rio Grande, which snakes its way through the Rio Grande Valley. Many do not understand the difficulty of building fences or monitoring thick brushland along the river. It is also complicated to block American farmers from accessing the river, which irrigates crops in this agricultural region.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

The rusted old border wall separates Tijuana, Mexico, right, and a Border Patrol-controlled buffer zone, left. Once high volumes of drug trafficking in this impoverished area have diminished significantly.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

The Border Patrol installed an iron fence to keep drug smugglers from using their roads to move drugs. This is an area south of Mission, Tex., where the river is quite narrow and easy to cross or float drugs across.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

A border fence ends in the rugged terrain in East Tijuana. This photograph was taken in the mountains east of San Diego.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

Migrants hoping to arrive in California by boat are traveling more and more northward to elude border patrol. Torrey Pines State Beach (pictured) is more than 30 miles from the border but was once a popular location because of its proximity to the road.
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times.

A woman makes her way back to Mexico at the Nogales Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz.
Joshua Lott for The New York Times.

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IHT Rendezvous: Muslims Seek Dialogue With Next Pope

LONDON — As the Catholic Church’s cardinal electors gather at the Vatican to choose a new pope, Muslim leaders are urging a revival of the often troubled dialogue between the two faiths.

During the papacy of Benedict XVI, relations between the world’s two largest religions were overshadowed by remarks he made in 2006 that were widely condemned as an attack on Islam.

In a speech at Regensburg University in his native Germany, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

In the face of protests from the Muslim world, the Vatican said the pope’s remarks had been misinterpreted and that he “deeply regretted” that the speech “sounded offensive to the sensibility of Muslim believers.”

For many in the Muslim world, however, the damage was done and the perception persisted that Benedict was hostile to Islam.

Juan Cole, a U.S. commentator on the Middle East, has suggested that although the pope backed down on some of his positions, “Pope Benedict roiled those relationships with needlessly provocative and sometimes offensive statements about Islam and Muslims.”

Despite the Vatican’s efforts to renew the interfaith dialogue by hosting a meeting with Muslim scholars, hostilities resumed in 2011 when the pope condemned alleged discrimination against Egypt’s Coptic Christians in the wake of a church bombing in Alexandria.

Al Azhar University in Cairo, the center of Islamic learning, froze relations with the Vatican in protest.

Following the pope’s decision to step down, Mahmud Azab, an adviser on interfaith dialogue to the head of Al Azhar, said, “The resumption of ties with the Vatican hinges on the new atmosphere created by the new pope. The initiative is now in the Vatican’s hands.”

Mahmoud Ashour, a senior Al Azhar cleric, insisted that “the new pope must not attack Islam,” according to remarks quoted by Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, and said the two religions should “complete one another, rather than compete.”

A French Muslim leader, meanwhile, has called for a fresh start in the dialogue with a new pope.

In an interview with Der Spiegel of Germany this week, Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, said of Benedict, “He was not able to understand Muslims. He had no direct experience with Islam, and he found nothing positive to say about our beliefs.”

Reem Nasr, writing at the policy debate Web site, Policymic, this week offered Benedict’s successor a five-point program to bridge the Catholic and Muslim worlds.

These included mutual respect, more papal contacts with Muslim leaders and a greater focus on what the religions had in common.

“There has been a long history of mistrust that can be overcome,” she wrote. “No one should give up just yet.”

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Malaysia Said to Open Fire on Armed Filipinos

MANILA — The Malaysian police opened fire on a group from a Muslim royal clan from the Philippines that has occupied a village in Malaysia and ignored pleas to leave, the group’s leader said Friday.

The group claims the territory in Malaysia’s Sabah State as its own, and has rejected a plea from President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines to leave. The group’s seizure of the coastal village has complicated relations between the Philippines and Malaysia.

The group’s leader, Prince Rajah Mudah Agbimuddin Kiram, told the Philippine radio station DZBB that the Malaysian police had opened fire on members early Friday, according to The Associated Press. He was quoted as saying that the group was fighting back and that there had been Filipino casualties.

The episode began Feb. 12, when the group, which is seeking to revive a historical claim to part of Borneo, arrived by boat from the Philippines and seized the land. The Philippines on Monday sent a navy vessel to the area with medical and diplomatic personnel to pick up the group or escort them back to the Philippines, hoping to resolve the situation.

Mr. Aquino said Tuesday that his government had sent emissaries to meet with Mr. Kiram to resolve the issue.

“These are your people, and it behooves you to recall them,” Mr. Aquino said to the leader in his Tuesday statement. “It must be clear to you that this small group of people will not succeed in addressing your grievances, and that there is no way that force can achieve your aims.”

The Philippines has been coordinating with the Malaysian government to resolve the issue peacefully, but Malaysian police officials in the area where the standoff is taking place had earlier suggested that they were prepared to use force if necessary.

Floyd Whaley reported from Manila, and Gerry Mullany from Hong Kong.

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India Ink: India’s Slowing Economy Forces Budget Decisions

NEW DELHI — Not too long ago, when India’s economy was roaring amid predictions of high growth rates for years to come, the finance minister could be forgiven for strutting during budget week. He got to march into India’s Parliament with the ceremonial briefcase bearing a budget stuffed with goodies.

But on Thursday, when the current finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, arrives in Parliament, his steps will be heavier, and the mood is likely to be, too. Faced with slowing growth, persistent inflation and sagging investor confidence, India’s government is pinned between conflicting pressures: economists warn that tough steps are needed to avoid long-term fiscal problems, even as political leaders are leery of introducing unpopular measures before important elections this year.

On Wednesday, the government sought to change the pessimistic narrative, as the Finance Ministry released its annual economic survey and projected that economic growth would jump somewhere above 6 percent during the next fiscal year, predicting that the downturn was “more or less over and the economy is looking up.” Some economists were skeptical, given that similar rosy predictions in recent budgets have proved wrong.

“Let me remind you that last year the economic survey spoke of about 7.6 percent projected growth — and what we had was 5 percent growth,” said Ajay Bodke, head of investment strategy and advisory at Prabhudas Lilladher, a Mumbai brokerage. “That is not just a miss but a humongous miss.”

The consequences of the budget plans are especially high because India, once a darling of global investors and an anointed power-in-waiting, is struggling to regain its lost luster.

India’s estimated 5 percent growth rate for the current fiscal year compares with 8 percent in 2010. Ratings agencies have threatened to downgrade the country’s investment rating to “junk” status. Meanwhile, India’s political class has spent more than three years enmeshed in scandals, as a bickering Parliament has accomplished almost nothing.

“It’s a supercritical moment, actually,” said Rajiv Kumar, an economist with the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “If you get it right, and this is a budget that can shore up the government’s credibility, they can turn it around.”

For investors and business leaders, the question is whether the government will make tough calls to address the country’s large fiscal and account deficits, curb huge subsidies for diesel fuel and petroleum products, unclog bureaucratic bottlenecks on stalled manufacturing, energy and infrastructure projects and create incentives to entice new investment.

Only a year ago, Pranab Mukherjee, then finance minister, unveiled a budget now regarded by many analysts as a major mistake. Desperate to increase revenues, the government spooked investors by giving broad latitude for tax collectors to pursue multinationals for billions of dollars in new, unexpected taxes. Investment slowed markedly, while investors and political opponents complained that India’s coalition government, led by the Indian National Congress Party, was endangering one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

“The economy is in a deep crisis at the moment,” said Yashwant Sinha of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, a former finance minister, “and I only hope the crisis doesn’t become any deeper with more pre-election sops.”

Mr. Sinha and many independent economists warn that the economy cannot afford a repeat of 2008, when the government was preparing for national elections the following year. Then, the pre-election budget was filled with big spending measures, including pay raises for government workers and the forgiveness of billions of dollars in loans to farmers. The government was easily re-elected in 2009, but the new spending contributed to a fiscal deficit that rose to roughly 6 percent, from about 2 percent the previous year.

Neha Thirani Bagri contributed reporting from Mumbai, India.

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Shimon Peres to Press Obama to Release Jonathan Pollard

JERUSALEM (AP) — President Shimon Peres of Israel said on Tuesday that he would lead an effort during President Obama’s coming visit to press for the release of the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, ending one of the most painful episodes between the two allies.

Mr. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for passing classified material to Israel. He is said to be in poor health, and his case has become a rallying cry in Israel.

But stiff opposition from the American military and intelligence community has deterred a string of American presidents from releasing him.

More than 65,000 Israelis have signed a petition calling on Mr. Obama to free Mr. Pollard, the Facebook page of the United States Embassy in Israel has been flooded with pardon requests, and a nationwide campaign began urging Mr. Peres to push for Mr. Pollard’s release.

Mr. Peres said he would raise the issue in a meeting with Mr. Obama, calling for Mr. Pollard’s release “on humanitarian grounds.”

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Video Shows French Family’s Kidnappers Are Nigerian Extremists

LAGOS, Nigeria — A French family kidnapped last week on the Cameroon-Nigeria border appeared on a video posted Monday on YouTube, with one of the hostages and a gunman saying that the family is being held by the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.

The family members — three adults and four children — are shown sitting on the ground inside a sort of tent made from prayer mats, in front of a black Qaeda-style banner, grim-faced but apparently in good health. The children, boys ages 5 to 12, fidget and glance at the camera. The family is flanked by two masked, fatigues-wearing men holding rifles, and in front of them s another masked hostage taker, who reads out a statement in Arabic demanding the release of “brothers” and “sisters” and threatening twice to “slaughter those we took” unless the group’s demands are met.

The French military campaign against Islamist militants in Mali is obliquely referred to by the masked gunman, who says “the president of France” has “waged war against Islam.”

Before that, a man identified by the French media as Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, the children’s father, reads a statement in French saying the family was “arrested” by Boko Haram. He uses the group’s Arabic name — it means “those engaged in the propagation and teaching of the prophet and of jihad” — which is responsible for hundreds of killings in a three-year insurgency in Nigeria’s north.

Next to him are a woman, apparently his wife, and a man, his brother; his wife is wearing a black head covering.

On Monday evening, French officials, including Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, identified the kidnappers as members of Boko Haram, with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius calling the video “terribly shocking.”

But the link to Boko Haram remained unproven Monday night. The video differs from others released by the group in that Hausa, the language of Nigeria’s north, is not spoken on it, and Boko Haram had not previously been associated with kidnapping Westerners or showing them on videos. In addition, purported members of Boko Haram denied, in a statement to Nigerian journalists over the weekend, involvement in the kidnapping.

Mr. Moulin-Fournier, an expatriate employee of the French gas group GDF Suez, was vacationing with his family at a national park in northern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria when they were seized early last Tuesday by motorcycle-riding gunmen. Cameroon officials said the hostages were then taken across the border to Nigeria to the area that gave birth to Boko Haram nearly four years ago and where it is strongest, Borno State.

The group has waged a relentless guerrilla campaign of bombings and ambushes there and across northern Nigeria, which killed some 800 people last year alone. Its goals, beyond spreading mayhem and undermining the Nigerian state, remain vague, though it has demanded the establishment of Shariah law in Nigeria.

While Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the deadly 2011 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the group has focused mostly on Nigerian targets, which would make the kidnapping of the French family something of a departure. In the video, apart from the admonishment to “the president of France,” the masked gunman warns President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria that “we will establish the Islamic state of Nigeria.”

The gunman tells Mr. Jonathan in Arabic, according to the SITE Monitoring Service: “We say to you: If you want us to leave those French people, leave all of our women whom you imprisoned by your hands quickly, because we know that all ways of disbelief are the same, and all of you are equally in war with us.”

The gunman also warns the president of Cameroon to release Boko Haram members — the gunman uses that informal name for the group — though none is known to be held by that country.

Though kidnapping has not so far been part of Boko Haram’s campaign, it has figured in that of a splinter group, Ansaru, known to be holding a number of Western hostages.

Nigerian officials declined to comment on the video Monday night and have said almost nothing about the kidnapping. The French, however, reiterated their belief that the family is being held in Nigeria, not Cameroon.

Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.

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IHT Rendezvous: Opera for an Era When Money Is Tight

VIENNA—Not long ago it looked as if cuts in arts funding would sound the death knell of the Vienna Chamber Opera, known in German as the Kammeroper, an ensemble esteemed for its chamber-scale productions in an intimate, inviting setting. The Austrian federal government’s decision to eliminate entirely its support, which constituted half of the company’s governmental subsidies (the other half coming from the city) effectively put the Kammeroper out of business.

Yet the 2012-13 season has seen the Kammeroper come roaring back with five new productions—including a “Bohème” finishing up performances this weekend— put on by a resident company with an established orchestra in the pit.

How to explain this turnaround? In fact, the old company, which was founded over 50 years ago by Hans Gabor and was subsequently run by Isabella, his widow, is history. The new Kammeroper, formally known as Theater an der Wien in der Kammeroper, is a case of one opera company rushing to fill the void left by the collapse of another.

Few opera companies today are in a financial position to go into expansionary mode. But, with the city willing to continue its support, the Theater an der Wien saw an opportunity, as its director of artistic administration, Sebastian Schwarz, who oversees the Kammeroper, explained by phone. Surprisingly, as he pointed out, the Vienna Staatsoper lacks a young artists program, so the new venture helps meet a need in the city. It also adds a degree of continuity to the Theater an der Wien’s own operations, which include world-class productions of interesting repertory that are assembled individually, with visiting performers and orchestras.

What has happened at the Kammeroper would be akin the Metropolitan Opera taking over the name and venue of a smaller New York company in financial trouble, giving the city the “Mini-Met” audiences have fancied for decades. The Kammeroper’s venue is especially choice: the gilded former ballroom, dating from the turn of the last century, of the venerable Hotel Post in the old Fleischmarkt district of the city. Outfitted with an orchestra pit, it comfortably seats 300. The performance I attended was packed, and with ticket prices ranging from 16 to 48 euros ($21-64), it is a bargain.

At the core of the new Kammeroper is an ensemble of seven young singers, which Mr. Schwarz described as constituting a “cast for ‘Così Fan Tutte’ ”—two sopranos, a mezzo soprano, a tenor, a baritone and a bass, plus a counter-tenor. In addition to their Kammeroper duties, the singers take smaller roles at the Theater an der Wien.

“La Bohème” can make a special impact when cast with young singers, and so it does here, as performed in Jonathan Dove’s 1986 chamber version with newly composed modernistic music at the start and between acts by Sinem Altan. Basically, the opera is performed straight, but with choral and other big moments from Acts 2 and 3 excised. The interludes, which included prerecorded music, are atmospheric and intermittently engaging, but essentially peripheral. For one not knowing what to expect, it was a relief when—with Rodolfo and Marcello already onstage—the familiar music of Act 1 began to unfold and continued on uninterrupted.

The lively, updated staging is by Lotte de Beer, the young director of Robin de Raaff’s recent “Waiting for Ms. Monroe” at the Netherlands Opera. The set by Clement & Sanôu, who also did the lighting, focuses on the modern kitchen of the bohemians’ apartment, which also, somewhat confusingly seems to be part high-end boutique (at least until the merchandise is removed after Act 2). In any case, it is handsome and full of stylish details. The playwright Rodolfo writes at a laptop and throws pages of his opus into the oven for warmth.

There is an inevitable loss of grandeur in Act 2, but Ms. de Beer nicely handles Rodolfo and Mimi’s growing attraction to each other and the conflicts of Act 3. The setting of Mimi’s hospital room for Act 4 is rather contrived, however, especially since the others, not at first being allowed in, communicate with her from pay phones in the lobby, which detracts from the emotional impact. Mimi has lost her hair, presumably as a result of treating a fatal illness different from that specified by Puccini. Still, this is an engaging show

The vocal ensemble, which is capably augmented by two guests, Oleg Loza as Schaunard and Martin Thoma as Benoit and Alcindoro, is uniformly strong. From the opera’s opening line by Marcello, one admired Ben Connor’s rich, fluent baritone, and it didn’t take long for the tenor Andrew Owens to catch his stride as Rodolfo and spin his own handsomely lyrical phrases and a fine high C.

All the singers displayed ample voices that could be overpowering in a hall this size, but they didn’t allow that to happen. Cigdem Soyarslan’s Mimi was a little uneven at first, but one came to appreciate her warm spinto sound, especially in her Act 3 aria, and Anna Maris Sarra sings Musetta with a glinting soprano that is heard to fine effect in her animated account of the waltz aria.

Igor Bakan brings a full, resonant bass voice and a strong emotional charge to Colline’s farewell to his overcoat. The fine Vienna Chamber Orchestra is in the pit, led with assurance by Claire Levacher.

The newly constituted Kammeroper has thus emerged as a bright spot on the Viennese opera scene.

Two more productions remain this season, a double bill of Britten’s “Curlew River” and “Prodigal Son” and Handel’s “Orlando.”

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2 Palestinians Shot in Clashes With Israeli Settlers

JERUSALEM (AP) — Clashes erupted Saturday in the West Bank, with Jewish settlers shooting two Palestinian demonstrators in the northern village of Kusra, an Israeli military official and Palestinian residents said.

The unrest reflected mounting friction in the West Bank, where Palestinians have faced off against Israeli troops in recent weeks in a series of large demonstrations protesting Israel’s control of the territory in general and in solidarity with four prisoners on hunger strikes in Israeli jails.

Also on Saturday, a Palestinian prisoner died in an Israeli jail, an event that is likely to intensify tensions in the area.

In the West Bank skirmish, Helmi Abdul-Aziz, 24, was shot in the stomach by Jewish settlers, Palestinian demonstrators said. They said settlers also shot Mustafa Hilal, 14, in the foot.

An Israeli military official confirmed that two Palestinians had been shot, apparently by settlers, since the Israeli military forces there were not using live ammunition.

Villagers said the clashes began when a group of Jewish settlers encroached on their village lands and fired guns. They said settlers chased a Palestinian farmer and his family off land, prompting the farmer to call on other villagers to confront the settlers, and men on both sides hurled rocks at one another.

In an Israeli jail on Saturday, Arafat Shalish Shahin Jaradat, a Palestinian prisoner, died apparently of a heart attack, according to an Israeli prison services spokeswoman, Sivan Weizman. She said that Mr. Jaradat had not been on a hunger strike.

Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, said that Mr. Jaradat, 30, was arrested last week after he was involved in a rock-throwing attack that injured an Israeli citizen. Mr. Jaradat admitted to the charge, as well to another West Bank rock-throwing episode last year, the Shin Bet said.

A Shin Bet spokesman said that Mr. Jaradat had not been beaten during an interrogation.

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

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The Lede: Syrian Television's Most Outraged Bystander

Last Update, 4:47 p.m. In the aftermath of a deadly bombing in Damascus on Thursday, a man emerged from a small knot of bystanders crowded around a camera crew from Syrian state television to vent his anger at the foreign Islamist fighters he held responsible. “We the Syrian people,” he said, “place the blame on the Nusra Front, the Takfiri oppressors and armed Wahhabi terrorists from Saudi Arabia that are armed and trained in Turkey.”

A report on Thursday’s bombing in Damascus from Syrian state television’s YouTube channel.

Pointing at the ruined street near the headquarters of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling Baath Party, the man described the location as “a civilian place — a mosque, an elementary school, the homes of local families.”

Watching a copy of the report online, Rime Allaf, a Syrian writer monitoring the conflict from Vienna, noticed that this man on the street, whose views so closely echoed those of the Syrian government, had a very familiar face. That is because, as opposition activists demonstrated last June, the same man had already appeared at least 18 times in the forefront or background of such reports since the start of the uprising.

Man who appears on #Syria TV as “innocent bystander” with every Damascus car bomb has again appeared today. http://t.co/PmPRhzUUBN

— Rime Allaf (@rallaf) 21 Feb 13

After she posted a screenshot of the man’s latest appearance, Ms. Allaf observed on Twitter that “it would be funny if there weren’t so many victims of Syria regime terrorism!”

As The Lede noted last year, the man was even featured in two reports the same day during a small pro-Assad rally in Damascus.

Two pro-Assad television channels in Syria interviewed the same man on the street at a rally in July 2012.

Mocking the dark comedy of government-run channels recycling the same die-hard Assad supporter in so many reports, activists put together several video compilations of his appearances in the state media. The most comprehensive, posted online last June, featured excerpts from 18 reports.

A compilation of Syrian state media reports featuring the same Assad supporter again and again.

Another highlight reel, uploaded to YouTube 13 months ago by a government critic, showed that after the man had spoken at least five times on state-run television, he appeared in the background of a BBC report wearing a military uniform.

A man who is frequently interviewed on Syrian state television in civilian dress appeared in the background of a BBC report wearing a military uniform.

As longtime readers of The Lede may recall, during the dispute over Iran’s 2009 presidential election, opposition bloggers noticed that one particularly die-hard supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also appeared again and again and again in photographs of pro-government rallies.

While there is no way to determine just who is responsible for Syrian television’s frequent interviews with this same man on the street, there is some evidence that Iran has advised Syria on how to report bombings on state television.

Last year, when The Guardian published a trove of hacked e-mails taken from the in-boxes of Syrian officials, one message forwarded to the president appeared to include advice from Iranian state television’s bureau chief in Damascus on what his Syrian counterparts should report after bombings. That e-mail, from Hussein Mortada, a Lebanese journalist who runs coverage of Syria for the Iranian government’s satellite news channels, complained that the government was not heeding directions he had received “from Iran and Hezbollah,” the Lebanese militant group, about who Syria should blame for bomb attacks. “It is not in our interest to say that Al Qaeda is behind” every bombing, Mr. Mortada wrote, “because such statements clear the U.S. administration and the Syrian opposition of any responsibility.”

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World Briefing | Africa: Nigeria: Security Service Says It Halted Group Watching Israeli and U.S. Targets

Nigeria’s State Security Service said Wednesday that it broke up what it characterized as a terrorist group, backed by “Iranian handlers,” that wanted to gather intelligence about locations frequented by Americans and Israelis. The service said it arrested three suspects, but one remained at large. A spokeswoman, Marilyn Ogar, who was reading from a statement, identified the head of the group as Abdullahi Mustaphah Berende, a leader of a local Shiite sect. “He personally took photographs of the Israeli culture center in Ikoyi, Lagos,” she said. The group also conducted surveillance on USAID and the United States Peace Corps, she said. Ms. Ogar did not take questions.

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Pistorius Denies Murdering Girlfriend

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

Oscar Pistorius wept at a hearing on Tuesday seeking bail.

PRETORIA, South Africa — Early on Feb. 14, Oscar Pistorius says, he heard a strange noise coming from inside his bathroom, climbed out of bed, grabbed his 9-millimeter pistol, hobbled on his stumps to the door and fired four shots.

“I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated,” Mr. Pistorius said in an affidavit read Tuesday to a packed courtroom by his defense lawyer, Barry Roux. “I had no intention to kill my girlfriend.”

Prosecutors painted a far different picture, one of a calculated killer, a world-renowned athlete who had the presence of mind and calm to strap on his prosthetic legs, walk 20 feet to the bathroom door and open fire as his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, cowered inside, behind a locked door.

“The applicant shot and killed an unarmed, innocent women,” Gerrie Nel, the chief prosecutor, said in court on Tuesday. That, Mr. Nel argued, amounted to premeditated murder, a charge that could send Mr. Pistorius to prison for life.

In court, Mr. Pistorius, a Paralympic track star who competed against able-bodied athletes at the London Olympics despite having lost both his lower legs as an infant, wept uncontrollably as Mr. Roux gave the runner’s account of the fateful early morning. At one point, Magistrate Desmond Nair called a recess to allow Mr. Pistorius, who was sobbing loudly, his face contorted, to regain his composure.

“My compassion as a human being does not allow me to just sit here,” Magistrate Nair said.

As the defense and prosecution laid out their competing versions of the shooting, some details were beyond dispute.

Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp were alone in the house, having spent the evening there. Around 3 a.m., Mr. Pistorius shot Ms. Steenkamp through the bathroom door, fatally wounding her. He broke down the door and carried her down the stairs, where she died in the foyer of his upscale home in a highly secured compound.

The young woman, a model, was cremated Tuesday on the other side of the country in her hometown, Port Elizabeth. Her family and friends mourned her and called for the authorities to deal harshly with Mr. Pistorius.

“There’s a space missing inside all the people that she knew that can’t be filled again,” her brother, Adam Steenkamp, told reporters after the memorial service.

In court, Mr. Pistorius is seeking bail on the charge of premeditated murder, but he faces an uphill battle. Magistrate Nair ruled Tuesday that the case would be treated as the most serious kind of offense, which means bail will be granted only if the defense can prove extraordinary circumstances requiring it.

The court proceedings, though they concerned only whether Mr. Pistorius would receive bail, offered the first real glimpse into what unfolded at his home on the day of the shooting.

In his affidavit, Mr. Pistorius said that he and Ms. Steenkamp had decided to stay in for the night. He canceled plans with his friends for a night on the town in Johannesburg, while she opted against movies with one of her friends. They had a quiet evening, he said. She did yoga. He watched television. About 10 p.m., they went to sleep.

In the early morning hours, he said, he woke up to move a fan from the balcony and to close the sliding doors in the bedroom.

“I heard a noise in the bathroom and realized that someone was in the bathroom,” he said. “I felt a sense of terror rushing over me.”

He had already said in the affidavit that he feared South Africa’s rampant violent crime, and later added that he was worried because there were no bars on the window to the bathroom. Construction workers had left ladders in his garden, he said.

“I believed someone had entered my house,” he said in the affidavit. “I grabbed my 9-millimeter pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch dark in the bedroom, and I thought Reeva was in bed.”

Walking on his stumps, he heard the sound of movement inside the toilet, a small room within the bathroom.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.

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China’s Army Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.

This 12-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai is the headquarters of Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army. China’s defense ministry has denied that it is responsible for initiating digital attacks.

On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyberwarriors.

The building off Datong Road, surrounded by restaurants, massage parlors and a wine importer, is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398. A growing body of digital forensic evidence — confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of the army unit for years — leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around the white tower.

An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”

Other security firms that have tracked “Comment Crew” say they also believe the group is state-sponsored, and a recent classified National Intelligence Estimate, issued as a consensus document for all 16 of the United States intelligence agencies, makes a strong case that many of these hacking groups are either run by army officers or are contractors working for commands like Unit 61398, according to officials with knowledge of its classified content.

Mandiant provided an advance copy of its report to The New York Times, saying it hoped to “bring visibility to the issues addressed in the report.” Times reporters then tested the conclusions with other experts, both inside and outside government, who have examined links between the hacking groups and the army (Mandiant was hired by The New York Times Company to investigate a sophisticated Chinese-origin attack on its news operations, but concluded it was not the work of Comment Crew, but another Chinese group. The firm is not currently working for the Times Company but it is in discussions about a business relationship.)

While Comment Crew has drained terabytes of data from companies like Coca-Cola, increasingly its focus is on companies involved in the critical infrastructure of the United States — its electrical power grid, gas lines and waterworks. According to the security researchers, one target was a company with remote access to more than 60 percent of oil and gas pipelines in North America. The unit was also among those that attacked the computer security firm RSA, whose computer codes protect confidential corporate and government databases.

Contacted Monday, officials at the Chinese embassy in Washington again insisted that their government does not engage in computer hacking, and that such activity is illegal. They describe China itself as a victim of computer hacking, and point out, accurately, that there are many hacking groups inside the United States. But in recent years the Chinese attacks have grown significantly, security researchers say. Mandiant has detected more than 140 Comment Crew intrusions since 2006. American intelligence agencies and private security firms that track many of the 20 or so other Chinese groups every day say those groups appear to be contractors with links to the unit.

While the unit’s existence and operations are considered a Chinese state secret, Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview that the Mandiant report was “completely consistent with the type of activity the Intelligence Committee has been seeing for some time.”

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Graham and McCain Say They Will End Bid to Block Hagel

Two of the most outspoken Republican critics of Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense indicated Sunday that they would no longer hold up his Senate confirmation.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Fox News Sunday that he would stand aside because Mr. Hagel had disavowed comments that he was said to have made during a talk at Rutgers University in 2007 that the State Department was an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office.

“I got a letter back from Senator Hagel in response to my question, ‘Did you say that, and do you believe that?’ And the letter said he did not recall saying that,” Mr. Graham said. “He disavows that statement.”

Mr. Graham, one of the most vociferous and persistent critics of Mr. Hagel’s nomination, added, “I’ll just take him at his word unless something new comes along.”

Although Mr. Graham said he would no longer try to block the nomination, he was far from giving it an emphatic endorsement, calling Mr. Hagel “one of the most unqualified, radical choices for secretary of defense in a very long time.”

Those comments were echoed, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a close friend of Mr. Graham and a public opponent of Mr. Hagel’s nomination.

“I don’t believe he is qualified,” Mr. McCain said. “But I don’t believe that we should hold up his nomination any further because I think it’s a reasonable amount of time to have questions answered.”

Mr. Graham and Mr. McCain were among a majority of Republicans in the Senate who backed a filibuster on Thursday when Mr. Hagel’s nomination came to a vote. Despite four Republicans’ crossing over to vote with the majority Democrats, the nomination fell one vote short of passing an up-or-down floor vote.

That unprecedented move forced the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, to set up another vote on Feb. 26. With Democratic control of the Senate, Mr. Hagel is expected to win confirmation whenever his nomination comes up for a vote.

Mr. Hagel, a Republican former senator from Nebraska, has been broadly criticized by his former colleagues over his positions on Iran, Iraq and Israel, and faced a nomination process rocky even by recent fractious standards.

President Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, appearing Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week,” said that the White House had “grave concern” that national security was at stake, given the Senate Republicans’ delaying tactics in confirming both a new Pentagon chief and a director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“If you look at Chuck Hagel — decorated war veteran himself, war hero, Republican senator, somebody who over the course of the last many years, either as a Republican senator or as a chairman of the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board, I’ve worked with very closely,” he said. “This guy has one thing in mind — how to protect the country.”

Mr. McDonough, who was formerly Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, working under John O. Brennan, the president’s choice for C.I.A. director, added that “between John Brennan as the C.I.A. director and Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, we want to make sure that we have those guys sitting in the chairs working. Because I don’t want there to have been something missed because of this hangup here in Washington.”

The White House and Senate Democrats have continued to express confidence that both men will be confirmed. Democrats have enough votes to approve both nominees, but they do not have the 60 votes necessary to overcome any filibuster.

After Thursday’s vote, outside groups campaigning against Mr. Hagel’s nomination said they would step up efforts to find damaging information and to pressure senators to vote against him.

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Dismissed as Doomsayers, Advocates for Meteor Detection Feel Vindicated

For decades, scientists have been on the lookout for killer objects from outer space that could devastate the planet. But warnings that they lacked the tools to detect the most serious threats were largely ignored, even as skeptics mocked the worriers as Chicken Littles.

Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Dr. Edward Lu, a former NASA astronaut and Google executive, has warned about space threats.

No more. The meteor that rattled Siberia on Friday, injuring hundreds of people and traumatizing thousands, has suddenly brought new life to efforts to deploy adequate detection tools, in particular a space telescope that would scan the solar system for dangers.

A group of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who helped build thriving companies like eBay, Google and Facebook has already put millions of dollars into the effort and saw Friday’s shock wave as a turning point in raising hundreds of millions more.

“Wouldn’t it be silly if we got wiped out because we weren’t looking?” said Edward Lu, a former NASA astronaut and Google executive who leads the detection effort. “This is a wake-up call from space. We’ve got to pay attention to what’s out there.”

Astronomers know of no asteroids or comets that pose a major threat to the planet. But NASA estimates that fewer than 10 percent of the big dangers have been discovered.

Dr. Lu’s group, called the B612 Foundation after the imaginary asteroid on which the Little Prince lived, is one team of several pursuing ways to ward off extraterrestrial threats. NASA is another, and other private groups are emerging, like Planetary Resources, which wants not only to identify asteroids near Earth but also to mine them.

“Our job is to be the first line of defense, and we take that very seriously,” James Green, the director of planetary science at NASA headquarters, said in an interview Friday after the Russian strike. “No one living on this planet has ever before been hurt. That’s historic.”

Dr. Green added that the Russian episode was sure to energize the field and that an even analysis of the meteor’s remains could help reveal clues about future threats.

“Our scientists are excited,” he said. “Russian planetary scientists are already collecting meteorites from this event.”

The slow awakening to the danger began long ago, as scientists found hundreds of rocky scars indicating that cosmic intruders had periodically reshaped the planet.

The discoveries included not just obvious features like Meteor Crater in Arizona, but wide zones of upheaval. A crater more than a hundred miles wide beneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico suggested that, 65 million years ago, a speeding rock from outer space had raised enough planetary mayhem to end the reign of the dinosaurs.

Some people remain skeptical of the cosmic threat and are glad for taxpayer money to go toward urgent problems on Earth rather than outer space. But many scientists who have examined the issues have become convinced that better precautions are warranted in much the same way that homeowners buy insurance for unlikely events that can result in severe damage to life and property.

Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, astronomers turned their telescopes on the sky with increasing vigor to look for killer rocks. The rationale was statistical. They knew about a number of near misses and calculated that many other rocky threats whirling about the solar system had gone undetected.

In 1996, with little fanfare, the Air Force also began scanning the skies for speeding rocks, giving credibility to an activity once seen as reserved for doomsday enthusiasts. It was the world’s first known government search.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration took a lead role with what it called the Spaceguard Survey. In 2007, it issued a report estimating that 20,000 asteroids and comets orbited close enough to the planet to deliver blows that could destroy cities or even end all life. Today, with limited financing, NASA supports modest telescopes in the southwestern United States and in Hawaii that make more than 95 percent of the discoveries of the objects coming near the Earth.

Scientists lobbied hard for a space telescope that would get high above the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere. It would orbit the Sun, peering across the solar system, and would have a much better chance of finding large space rocks.

But with the nation immersed in two wars and other earthly priorities, the government financing never materialized. Last year, Dr. Lu, who left the NASA astronaut corps in 2007 to work for Google, joined with veterans of the space program and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to accelerate the asteroid hunt.

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Peru Objects to U.S. Embassy’s Warning to Tourists

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A United States Embassy warning to American tourists about a potential kidnapping threat in the Cuzco region of Peru, which includes the Incan citadel Machu Picchu, drew vehement objections from Peruvian officials on Friday.

But a United States Embassy official said credible evidence existed of a threat from a Peruvian terrorist group.

The official confirmed a report in La República, a Peruvian newspaper, that said that leaders of the Shining Path guerrilla group had discussed kidnapping foreigners, particularly Americans, in intercepted communications. Tens of thousands of Americans visit Peru each year.

The official agreed to discuss the report only if not quoted by name because of the political delicacy of the warning.

La República said its sources about the interceptions included members of Peru’s military high command, but the country’s military chief, Adm. José Cueto, said that he had no such information.

“Perhaps it is information that they alone have and have not shared,” Admiral Cueto said of the United States government.

The embassy warning that mentioned Peru’s biggest tourist draw was posted on the embassy’s Facebook page on Thursday. Dated Feb. 13, it was also posted on the embassy’s Web site.

It says a “criminal organization may be planning to kidnap U.S. citizen tourists in the Cuzco and Machu Picchu area.” The warning also says United States Embassy personnel are barred from visiting Machu Picchu and the Cuzco region unless on official business, which is restricted.

“It’s very rare that it would be so pointed to us,” the American official said of the threat.

The mayor of the city of Cuzco, Luis Florez, urged the American ambassador, Rose M. Likins, to retract the warning.

“Tourism is an incredibly sensitive topic, and they would be damaging a big source of earnings at the national level,” Mr. Florez told reporters after a group of mayors met with President Ollanta Humala.

But Ms. Likins said the United States government was obliged by law to inform its citizens of any information regarding their security. “In this case, we received information that we consider reliable,” she told RPP radio.

The Maoist-inspired Shining Path group had been severely disrupted by the time the State Department designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Its remnants number about 500 and have become an increasingly potent and disciplined fighting force, financing themselves by taxing drug traffickers in Peru’s coca-growing heartland.

Shining Path’s radius of action has in recent years expanded to include the northern jungle province of Convención in Cuzco, where, La República said, the conversations were intercepted and where the Camisea natural gas project is located.

In that region, a rugged 100 miles north of Machu Picchu, Shining Path fighters last April kidnapped and briefly detained 36 construction workers near a Camisea site. All were released unharmed, but the rebels killed eight soldiers and police officers sent to rescue them. The group has killed more than 80 Peruvian soldiers since 2008.

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Loi Journal: In Vietnam, Some Chose to Be Single Mothers

Justin Mott for the International Herald Tribune

Nguyen Thi Nhan at home with her grandson, Thao, 2. Abandoned by her husband after the war, she asked another man to impregnate her. More Photos »

LOI, Vietnam — They had no plan to break barriers or cause trouble. But 30 years ago in this bucolic village in northern Vietnam, the fierce determination of one group of women to become mothers upended centuries-old gender rules and may have helped open the door for a nation to redefine parenthood.

One recent morning in Loi, as farmers in conical straw hats waded quietly through rice paddies, a small group of women played with their grandchildren near a stream. Their husbands were nowhere to be found, not because they perished in the war, but because the women decided to have children without husbands.

The women’s story began during the American War, as it is called here, when many put the revolution before their families. As peace settled more than a decade later, it became clear that they — like so many of their generation — had sacrificed their marriageable years to the war.

At that time Vietnamese women traditionally married around 16, and those still single at 20 would often be considered “qua lua,” or “past the marriageable age.” When single men who survived the war returned home, they often preferred younger brides, exacerbating the effects of a sex ratio already skewed by male mortality in the war. According to the Vietnam Population and Housing Census of 2009, after reunification in 1979 there were on average only about 88 men for every 100 women between 20 and 44.

Unlike previous generations of unwanted Vietnamese women who dutifully accepted the “so,” or “destiny,” of living a solitary life, a group of women in Loi decided to take motherhood into their own hands. They had endured the war, developed a new strength and were determined not to die alone.

One by one they asked men — whom they would never interact with afterward — to help them conceive a child. The practice became known as “xin con,” or “asking for a child,” and it meant breaking with tradition, facing discrimination and enduring the hardships of raising a child alone.

“It was unusual, and quite remarkable,” said Harriet Phinney, an assistant professor of anthropology at Seattle University who is writing a book on the practice of xin con in Vietnam. Purposely conceiving a child out of wedlock, she said, “was unheard-of” before the revolutionary era.

It was a product of the mothers’ bravery, said Ms. Phinney, but also of a postwar society that acknowledged the unique situation of women across Vietnam, including thousands of widows, who were raising children alone.

Some of the women in Loi were willing to share their stories, though they always kept the names of the fathers a tightly held secret. One of the first women in Loi to ask for a child was Nguyen Thi Nhan, now 58.

Ms. Nhan had led a platoon of women during the war, and though she never saw battle, was awarded a medal for her exemplary leadership. Her husband, with whom she had a daughter, abandoned her after the war. Ms. Nhan moved to the cheapest land she could find, a field near the stream on the outskirts of Loi, where a few refugees from bombing nearby still lived. She then asked for a second child, ending up with the son she wished for.

Her first several years were hard. Despite her best efforts, food and money were scarce. The villagers eventually set aside prejudices and accepted her choice, offering to share the little food they could spare. Eventually, Ms. Nhan was joined by more than a dozen other women. Among them was Nguyen Thi Luu, 63. She had fallen in love with a soldier who was killed in battle in 1972.

“I was 26 when the war ended,” Ms. Luu said. “That was considered too old for marriage, in those times. I did not want to marry a bad, older man, and no single men came to me.”

But Ms. Luu wanted to become a mother, not least so she would have support in her old age. In Vietnam, nursing homes are scarce, and care for the elderly is considered a filial duty.

“I was afraid to die alone,” Ms. Luu said. “I wanted someone to lean on in my old age. I wanted a child of my own.”

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India Ink: In India, Kisses Are on Rise, Even in Public

Manpreet Romana for The New York Times

A couple in a public park in New Delhi. Indians have long tended to view outward expressions of love with suspicion, but kissing is increasing.

NEW DELHI — India may be the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, the ancient how-to manual on kissing and sex. But for many years, Indian couples did not widely embrace kissing, at least not in public. Now that is changing.

The Mahabharata, an epic poem written 3,000 years ago, is believed to include the first written description of mouth-to-mouth kissing. But anthropological studies done over the past century in India and elsewhere in Asia showed that kissing was far from universal and even seen as improper by many societies, said Elaine Hatfield, a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii.

Sanjay Srivastava, a professor of sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth at Delhi University, said: “Until recently, kissing was seen as Western and not an Indian thing to do. That has changed.”

In India, most marriages are still arranged, and the rate of sex before marriage is low, according to a government survey, so passionate kissing among the unmarried has long been discouraged. Many married couples refrained as well, at least in front of other people. But recent studies, backed by interviews with sociologists and psychiatrists in India, suggest that kissing’s popularity has risen considerably.

Chastity is viewed as highly desirable in India, and Indians, as a result, have also tended to view outward expressions of love, be they physical or verbal, with suspicion, said Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, president of the Indian Psychiatric Society.

“I don’t tell my wife that I love her,” Dr. Kallivayalil said. “My father has never in 88 years told me that he loved me. We don’t do that.”

A study led by James Witte, a professor of sociology at George Mason University in Virginia, reported that more than half of a set of volunteer respondents in India said they kissed at least several times a week. He solicited respondents through Internet portals, in English, but cautioned that his sample was not random. He said he reached people who were “well educated, younger and more urban” and who had access to the Internet.

In Professor Witte’s study, of the 112 respondents in the kissing module, 24.1 percent said they kissed passionately “many times a day,” but when asked about kissing, hugging or caressing in public, 41.1 percent of participants chose “hardly ever or not at all.”

A pivotal screen kiss reflected the changing romantic landscape here. Kissing scenes were banned by Indian film censors until the 1990s, and Shah Rukh Khan, a Bollywood heartthrob who is one of the world’s biggest movie stars, has been teasing Indian audiences in dozens of films since then by bringing his lips achingly close to those of his beautiful co-stars. But his lips never touched any of theirs until he kissed the Bollywood bombshell Katrina Kaif in “Jab Tak Hai Jaan,” which was released in December 2012.

Mr. Khan tried to soften the impact by saying in a published interview that his director made him do it. But the cultural Rubicon had been crossed.

“That kiss was an incredibly important moment,” Dr. Srivastava said. “Shah Rukh Khan defines what is mainstream. If he does it, it becomes acceptable.”

Kissing’s rise here may also reflect the growing power of young women in deciding who to marry, said Debra Lieberman, an assistant professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Miami. In many cases, “women are now able to select mates without having to negotiate as much with family members,” Dr. Lieberman said.

And Dr. Avdesh Sharma, a psychiatrist practicing in New Delhi, said that his younger female patients are far more insistent than their mothers were that their emotional needs be met. That often involves kissing, he said.

“The terms and timing of intimacy used to be initiated and decided entirely by the man,” Dr. Sharma said. “That is no longer true.”

Indeed, while arranged marriages are still the norm in India, a growing share of young couples say that their views play a role in the process. If a young woman does not like the man her parents have picked, many families now offer her a veto.

Shreeya Sinha contributed reporting from New York.

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India Ink: Silicon Valley and Immigrant Groups Find Common Cause

SAN FRANCISCO — What do computer programmers and illegal immigrants have to do with each other?

When it comes to the sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws that Congress is considering this year, the answer is everything.

Silicon Valley executives, who have long pressed the government to provide more visas for foreign-born math and science brains, are joining forces with an array of immigration groups seeking comprehensive changes in the law. And as momentum builds in Washington for a broad revamping, the tech industry has more hope than ever that it will finally achieve its goal: the expanded access to visas that it says is critical to its own continued growth and that of the economy as a whole.

Signs of the industry’s stepped-up engagement on the issue are visible everywhere. Prominent executives met with President Obama last week. Start-up founders who rarely abandon their computers have flown across the country to meet with lawmakers.

This Tuesday, the Technology CEO Council, an advocacy organization representing companies like Dell, Intel and Motorola, had meetings on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, Steve Case, a founder of AOL, is scheduled to testify at the first Senate hearing this year on immigration legislation, alongside the head of the deportation agents’ union and the leader of a Latino civil rights group.

“The odds of high-skilled passing without comprehensive is close to zero, and the odds of comprehensive passing without high-skilled passing is close to zero,” said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington.

The push comes as a clutch of powerful Senate Republicans and Democrats have reached a long-elusive agreement on some basic principles of a “comprehensive” revamping of immigration law. Separately, a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in late January focuses directly on the visa issue.

The industry’s argument for more so-called high-skilled visas has already persuaded the president.

“Real reform means fixing the legal immigration system to cut waiting periods, reduce bureaucracy, and attract the highly-skilled entrepreneurs and engineers that will help create jobs and grow our economy,” Mr. Obama said in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech.

In a speech in Las Vegas in January in which he introduced his own blueprint for overhauling immigration law, Mr. Obama embraced the idea that granting more visas was essential to maintaining innovation and job growth. He talked about foreigners studying at American universities, figuring out how to turn their ideas into businesses.

In part, the new alliance between the tech industry and immigration groups was born out of the 2012 elections and the rising influence of Hispanic voters.

“The world has changed since the election,” said Peter J. Muller, director of government relations at Intel, pointing out that the defeat of many Republican candidates had led to a softening of the party’s position on broad changes to immigration law. “There is a focus on comprehensive. We’re thrilled by it.”

“At this point,” he added, “our best hope for immigration reform lies with comprehensive reform.”

Mr. Case, the AOL co-founder, who now runs an investment fund, echoed that sentiment after meeting with the president last Tuesday.

“I look forward to doing whatever I can to help pass comprehensive immigration reform in the months ahead,” he said, “and ensure it includes strong provisions regarding high-skilled immigration, so we are positioned to win the global battle for talent.”

That sort of sentiment delights immigrants’ rights advocates who have banged their heads against the wall for years to rally a majority of Congress around their agenda.

“The stars are aligning here,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “You’ve got the politics of immigration reform changing. You’ve got tech leaders leaning in not just for high-skilled but for broader immigration reform.”

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is co-sponsoring the bill to increase the number of visas available for highly skilled immigrants, said the cooperation went both ways.

“All the talk about the STEM field — science, technology, engineering, mathematics — has awakened even those who aren’t all that interested in the high-tech world,” he said.

While the growing momentum has surprised many in Washington, comprehensive change is still not a sure thing, especially in the Republican-controlled House.

Mr. Hatch said he would push forward with his measure even if the broader efforts foundered. But his Democratic co-sponsor, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, said she would press for the bill to be part of the comprehensive package.

Last year, technology executives had a taste of what could happen with stand-alone legislation.

In November the House passed a bill, sponsored by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Republican of Texas, that would have provided 55,000 visas for foreigners graduating from American universities with advanced degrees in STEM fields. Mr. Smith, then the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, brought considerable clout, and the tech industry rallied behind the bill.

But the legislation died in the Senate, because Democrats wanted any technology-specific measure to be part of a broader bargain that would include more visas for family members.

In pressing its case, the industry has used some vivid examples to sway lawmakers, arguing that if skilled workers cannot get visas, tech companies will simply move the jobs overseas.

Facebook was the latest to make this case. It said it had to place nearly 80 engineers in its office in Dublin in 2011 because it could not obtain even temporary work visas to employ them at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Those temporary visas, called H-1B visas, are capped at 60,000 a year and usually run out within a couple of months. The bill proposed by Mr. Hatch and Ms. Klobuchar would more than double that number.

Microsoft has also argued that the visa backlog takes jobs out of the United States, saying it was forced to open a development office in Vancouver.

Hundreds of thousands of foreigners, the largest share from India and China, come to American universities every year to study science and engineering. But it can take so long for them to get permanent residency that many end up returning home. Mr. Hatch said he was keen to see foreign-born graduates of American universities remain in this country rather than work for competitive firms elsewhere.

“China, India — they would love to have these Ph.D.’s return to their countries,” he said. “They see the benefits. Why can’t we?”

There is no dearth of jobs in Silicon Valley. Employment in San Francisco and its southern suburbs grew about 3.6 percent in 2012, twice the growth rate nationally, according to a study released last week by Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonpartisan research organization.

But many of those jobs are filled by foreigners. In San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, nearly two-thirds of those employed in science- and engineering-related jobs were born abroad, compared with about one-fourth nationwide, according to the study.

Industry executives hope to employ many more.

“The issue has truly ripened,” said Bruce Mehlman, a veteran Washington lobbyist and executive director of the Technology CEO Council. “Levels of optimism are higher than they’ve been in a while.”

Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York.

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North Korea Is Suspected of Conducting 3rd Nuclear Test

Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press

A South Korean watched news reporting about a possible nuclear test conducted by North Korea on a TV screen in Seoul on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — American and South Korean officials reported seismic activity in North Korea on Tuesday that appeared to be evidence of the country’s third, and long-threatened nuclear test and a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

“We believe that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test,” said Kim Min-seok, spokesman of the South Korean Defense Ministry.

The shock appeared to be centered in the same location where the North conducted tests in 2006 and 2009, and the United States Geological Survey said it was only a kilometer underground, all indications consistent with a nuclear blast.

If confirmed, the test would be the first under the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and an open act of defiance to the Chinese, who urged the young leader not to risk open confrontation by setting off the weapon. Just in the past few days a Chinese newspaper that is often reflective of the government’s thinking said the North must “pay a heavy price” if it proceeded with the test.

But past United Nations Security Council sanctions have not deterred the country from accelerating its missile and nuclear programs. And recent actions, including a successful missile test nearly two months ago that reached as far as the Philippines and sent a washing-machine sized satellite into space have dashed hopes that the country’s Swiss-educated new leader might be willing to focus on economic reform rather than pursuing the path taken by his father and grandfather: open defiance of the country’s adversaries.

The Obama administration has already threatened to take additional action to penalize the North if it conducts a test, through the United Nations. But the fact is that there are few sanctions left to apply against the most unpredictable country in Asia. The only penalty that would truly hurt the North would be a cutoff of oil and other aid from China. And until now, despite issuing warnings, the Chinese have feared instability and chaos in the North more than its growing nuclear and missile capability, and the Chinese leadership has refused to participate in sanctions.

Mr. Kim, believed to be about 29, appears betting that even a third test would not change the Chinese calculus.

It may take days or weeks to determine if the test, if that is what it proves to be, was successful. But American officials will also be looking for signs of whether the North, for the first time, conducted a test of a uranium weapon, based on a uranium enrichment capability it has been pursuing for a decade. The past two tests used plutonium, reprocessed from one of the country’s now-defunct nuclear reactors. While the country only has enough plutonium for a half-dozen or so bombs, it can produce enriched uranium well into the future.

No country is more interested in the results of the North’s nuclear program, or the Western reaction, than Iran, which is pursuing its own uranium enrichment program. The two countries have long cooperated on missile technology, and many intelligence officials believe they share nuclear knowledge as well, though so far there is no hard evidence. The Iranians are also pursuing uranium enrichment, and one senior American official said two weeks ago that “it’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.” Some believe that the country may have been planning two simultaneous tests, but it could take time to sort out the data.

The timing of the test, if that is what it was, is critical. It comes just as a transition of power is about to take place in South Korea, and the North detested the South’s hard-line outgoing president, Lee Myung-bak. By conducting a test just before he leaves office, the North could be both sending a message and giving his successor, Park Guen-Hye, the chance to restore relations after the breach a test will undoubtedly cause.

Western officials considered the country’s first nuclear test, in 2006, a fizzle, but the next one in 2009 was judged more successful. It may take outside experts days or weeks to determine if the latest blast moved the program to a “higher level,” as Pyongyang recently promised, allowing it to improve, or even expand, an arsenal that intelligence experts say includes enough plutonium for roughly 6 to 10 nuclear bombs.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, South Korea.

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