Oil prices rise after upbeat US, China data

NEW YORK: Oil prices finished higher Friday in New York, buoyed by greater optimism about global growth following encouraging indicators from the US and China.

A barrel of West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, settled 28 cents higher at US$97.77 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Even stronger was the price of European oil benchmark Brent futures, which closed at US$116.76 a barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange, up US$1.21. The close was Brent's highest level since May 2012.

Oil prices got a lift from Friday's monthly US nonfarm labour payroll data.

Although the number of net jobs added in January came in below expectations, markets were heartened by a significant upward revision in the 2012 monthly figures.

The Labor Department reported employers added 157,000 jobs in January and upped its estimate for December jobs growth to 196,000.

After a sweeping annual revision of earlier data, the department also said monthly job growth averaged 181,000 in 2012, well above the prior estimate of 153,000 jobs.

The US jobs report was not the only strong data point released Friday, said Dominick Chirichella, an analyst with the Energy Management Institute. There was also strong manufacturing data in the US and China, the world's two biggest energy consumers.

"Pretty much everything across the board was positive," Chirichella said.

The one exception was Wednesday's report on the US economy for the 2012 fourth quarter, which showed gross domestic product shrank 0.1 per cent, the first contraction since the 2009 recession.

But the oil and equity markets "ignored" the GDP reading, Chirichella added.

"Crude is being lifted with all the other markets, even though the underlying fundamentals do not necessarily justify that," said Matt Smith, an analyst with Schneider Electric. "Demand is relatively flat and supply is at a 20-year high."

Oil prices have also been supported by the fall in the US dollar against the euro. Because oil is traded in US dollars, it becomes cheaper for consumers who use other currencies to purchase the commodity.

Still, prices of US benchmark WTI continued to be weighed down by problems at the Seaway pipeline.

The pipeline has encountered operational problems that have limited the flow of oil from the Cushing, Oklahoma-based trading hub to refineries on the US Gulf Coast, producing a glut of oil at landlocked Cushing that has pressured prices.

- AFP/jc

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India irked as China gets Pakistan's strategic Gwadar port

NEW DELHI: Pakistan's cabinet formally agreed to hand over the operation of its strategically located Gwadar port to China on Wednesday. This puts in place China's famed "string of pearls" strategy which may have significant implications for India.

On Wednesday, the Pakistan cabinet, in one of its last decisions, transferred the operations responsibility of the Gwadar port from Singapore's PSA (Port of Singapore Authority) International to China's Overseas Port Holdings. This had been agreed some time ago as PSA International and Pakistani navy fell out over land transfers, security issues and lack of infrastructure. PSA had asked to withdraw from the contract and Pakistan had agreed.

In 2011, the Pakistani defence minister had announced in Beijing that Islamabad would transfer ownership to a Chinese company. China had demurred then, but despite the worsening security situation in Balochistan, the Chinese have apparently agreed to take it over.

China has already encountered opposition from Baloch people, who have objected to the Chinese taking over their traditional lands. And as the transition in Afghanistan draws near, that region, specially Quetta, which apparently houses top Taliban leaders, is likely to see more violence.

Gwadar was built by China but during its operation by PSA, it barely attracted any commercial traffic. There is also a lot of port development that remains to be built. Pakistan expects China to complete that construction in record time, given its past performance.

More than that, Pakistan expects China to turn Gwadar into a naval base. However, China has its work cut out. A container terminal, rail and road links from the port across Balochistan would need to be built, before China can take advantage of the port itself.

For China, Gwadar could also be a conduit for energy flows into northwestern China, by transporting oil and gas from the port through pipelines that traverse Balochistan and the federal agencies to feed into China's Xinjiang province. As China's oil imports increase, it would prefer to insulate its energy flows from the turbulent waters of the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea.

Indian ships among others patrol the former as an anti-piracy measure. In the latter, China is involved in a territorial dispute with Vietnam and Philippines among others. In a conflict, it would be easy to shut off China's energy supplies. But not if they can be routed through Gwadar where Pakistan Navy can also add to the security.

According to recent figures, over 60% of China's imported oil travels through the Straits of Hormuz. Having Gwadar under its command would change the security dynamics for China.

As China moves into the Indian Ocean, Gwadar port would be ideal as a staging ground for Chinese ships. China already has a steady presence in Sri Lanka's Hambantota port, it is wooing Maldives, though no port presence is planned yet. China is also building a port in Chittagong, Bangladesh, as well as Sonadiya, near Cox's Bazar.

From the security point of view, India could find itself considerably constrained. It's not for nothing that India has ramped up its relations with Oman, though there is no security presence there yet. India has been pushing to develop the Iranian port of Chahbahar, but that remains a long-term project.

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Secret Video Shows Bomb Dogs Failing Tests

A new government investigation suggests that the Transportation Security Administration is not collecting enough detailed information to know if its bomb dogs are well trained and capable of finding bombs at the nation's airports, and includes secret video that shows the dogs failing tests to detect explosives.

TSA has been testing bomb dogs in Miami and Oklahoma City and will be testing them at Dulles airport, outside Washington, D.C., this month.

A GAO report released this week, however, says that the passenger-screening canines have not been adequately tested, and included secret video shot over the past year that showed the dogs failing to detect explosives properly at the test airports.

"As part of our review," wrote the GAO, "we visited two airports at which PSC teams have been deployed and observed training exercises in which PSC teams accurately detected explosives odor (i.e., positive response), failed to detect explosives odor (i.e., miss) and falsely detected explosives odor (i.e., non-productive response)."

Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

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The report also said that "TSA could have benefited from completing operational assessments of PSCs before deploying them on a nationwide basis to determine whether they are an effective method of screening passengers in the U.S. airport environment."

In a statement, the TSA said it "acknowledges the need to further examine the data collected over a longer term. To that end, the National Canine Program (NCP) will reestablish annual comprehensive assessments. Beginning in March 2013, TSA plans to expand the Canine Website to improve functionality and reporting capabilities addressing a GAO recommendation."

It also said that this month it would complete effectiveness assessments at Miami, Oklahoma City and Dulles airports, and that it would identify the proper places for the dogs to be deployed at 120 airports by the end of fiscal 2013.

The cost of keeping bomb-sniffing dogs on the government's payroll has almost doubled in the past two years, from $52 million to more than $100 million. Each TSA dog team costs the taxpayers $164,000 dollars a year.

"They want to do the right thing," aviation expert Jeff Price told ABC News, "but the homework hasn't been done. A lot of money gets spent before they know something works."

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Pictures: Super Bowl Caps Banner Season in NFL Green Drive

Multiple-exposure photograph by Gerard Lodriguss, Getty Images

When the Ravens and 49ers face off Sunday in Super Bowl XLVII, it will be in a city—and stadium—that have spent more than six years battling back from natural and ecological disaster.

So it's no surprise that New Orleans aims to set a new mark for environmental sustainability in its ninth turn at hosting the NFL's marquee event, reflecting a broader green movement that is changing the look of stadiums and attitudes throughout the sports world.

"It's a wonderful platform to bring people together to think about how our actions as individuals matter, and what we can do about climate change," says Patty Riddlebarger, director of corporate social responsibility for the Gulf Coast energy company Entergy. She has chaired the New Orleans Host Committee's environmental effort over the past two years.

Riddlebarger notes that much of the world holds a lingering image of the Superdome far different from the renovated stadium that will showcase the game. After a $336 million restoration, the "refuge of last resort" for 30,000 people during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 is now buttressed with protective and energy-saving features. The stadium's outer wall is a specially designed double barrier system with improved insulation and rainwater control. The Mercedes-Benz Superdome, as it is now known, is ringed with 26,000 LED lights, covering two million square feet and supported by five miles of copper wiring, but which draw only ten kilowatts of electricity—as much as a small home. The stadium stands as an example for "not just rebuilding what was there before, but making it more environmentally sound," Riddlebarger says.

Entergy will donate carbon credits—investments in projects that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—to offset the estimated 3.8 million pounds of emissions expected to be generated due to energy use at the Super Bowl venues. New Orleans' Second Harvest Food Bank will recover unused food items from all Super Bowl events to donate to those in need. And two nonprofits, the Green Project and REPurposingNola, will reclaim Super Bowl banners, displays, and other promotional items to be recycled into souvenir items such as tote bags, wallets, and shower curtains.

The Host Committee organized a Super Bowl Saturday day of service focused on continuing restoration. New Orleans is one of the most deforested cities in the United States, having lost 100,000 trees to Katrina's wind and standing saltwater. The urban forestry initiative Hike for KaTreena will mark the planting of its 20,000th tree on Saturday—7,000 of them planted or given away in a drive organized around the game (a Super Bowl tree-planting record). And since Saturday is World Wetlands Day, local students will join a coastal restoration project in Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge coordinated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whose administrator, Lisa Jackson, is a New Orleans native.

The effort around this year's Super Bowl is part of a larger movement around green games and green stadiums, featuring solar panels, wind turbines, efficient lighting, recycling, and innovative water-management systems. Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been working for years with U.S. professional sports teams, believes that the influence of sports gives such partnerships "the potential to become one of the most important collaborations in the history of the environmental movement."

"Sports is the ultimate cultural unifier and if you want to change the world, you don't emphasize how different you are from everyone else," he wrote recently in his NRDC blog about the report, "Game Changer: How the Sports Industry is Saving the Environment." "We need to bond through our common connections."

—Marianne Lavelle, Amy Sinatra Ayres, and Jeff Barker

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Published February 1, 2013

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Judge to US government: stop censoring 9/11 hearings

GUANTANAMO BAY: A military judge overseeing September 11 pre-trial hearings revealed Thursday the government had censored discussion of secret CIA prisons from outside the courtroom, and angrily ordered such censorship not happen again.

The proceedings at the high-security courtroom where five alleged 9/11 plotters are to be tried are heard in the press gallery and in a room where human rights groups and victims' families sit, with a 40 second delay.

This is done so a court security officer, or CSO, sitting next to the judge can block anything deemed classified.

The officer has two switches -- "stop" and "go" -- and spectators behind a thick glass window can see a red light go on when proceedings are in fact being silenced.

Judge James Pohl disclosed Thursday that the government -- by means of the so-called original classification authority (OCA) -- also has a switch, but outside the courtroom, that allows it to cut off the broadcast of the proceedings.

On Monday part of the proceedings were censored when the discussion touched on secret CIA prisons where the suspects were held and abused.

The judge said he was stunned and angry that the censoring mechanism was activated from outside the court, without his knowledge.

This must stop, Pohl said, adding that "the judge and only the judge" can decide what happens in his courtroom.

On Thursday, the last day of this round of hearings, Pohl said the government must "disconnect the outside feed or ability to suspend the broadcast" from outside his court.

The ruling means censoring can go on, but it cannot be activated from outside the courtroom.

The judge said the "public has no unfettered right to access classified info. However, the only person who is authorised to close the courtroom is the judge."

"This order takes effect immediately," he said.

The Justice Department prosecutor in charge of classified material questions, Joanna Baltes, had said the OCA had the possibility of controlling the outside feed.

So it seems it was the OCA that pulled the plug on the sound Monday, as it was the CIA that ran the secret prisons where terror suspects, including the five defendants here, were subjected to "enhanced interrogation" methods.

The harsh interrogations have included techniques like waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, that are widely regarded as torture.

Thursday was the last day of the latest session of pre-trial hearings. The five defendants, including self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, were not present as they are boycotting the sessions.

The 9/11 trial at this US base on the southeastern tip of Cuba is not expected to start for at least a year.

The five men accused of plotting the suicide attacks against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which killed nearly 3,000 people, face the death penalty if convicted.

Before Pohl's ruling, defence attorneys filed an emergency request seeking to suspend the proceedings on grounds that a dispute over the confidentiality of their conversations with their clients had not been resolved.

David Nevin, lawyer for Mohamed, said all his conversations with his client -- including during prison visits and even in the courtroom -- were being recorded.

The next hearings are scheduled to begin February 11, and the confidentiality issue is to be addressed. Pohl has ordered the defendants be present for that hearing.

Before adjourning until that date, Pohl summoned Bruce MacDonald, who oversees all US military courts, to testify. This was another setback for the government because it had opposed his testifying.

- AFP/jc

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Ensure our states aren’t hit by your Brahmaputra dams: India to China

NEW DELHI: India took an unusually sharp stand against China's unilateral moves to dam the Brahmaputra, saying it had "established user rights" to the river. Asserting itself for the first time, India asked China "to ensure that the interests of downstream states are not harmed by any activities in upstream areas".

In its new blueprint for the energy sector for 2011-2015, China announced it would build three hydropower bases on the Yarlung Tsangpo river, at Dagu, Jiacha and Jiexu. A hydropower station at Zangmu is already under construction. The Chinese announcement earlier this week was not preceded by any consultation or sharing of information with New Delhi.

While this actually indicates China's consistent policy that it does not believe it needs to engage India on this, the Indian response represents a distinct change in policy. Thus far, India's stated position was that New Delhi "agreed" with the Chinese statement that it would "not hurt India's interests".

As recently as March 2012, during the visit of Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi, external affairs ministry officials said on record, "India and China have had many exchanges on this subject including at the highest levels, between the prime ministers of the two countries. The Chinese side has on many occasions told us that they will not do anything on trans-border rivers which will hurt the interests of the lower riparian countries like India. Our own look into this whole question has also led us to believe that what the Chinese are telling us is correct."

Answering a question in Rajya Sabha in November 2011, the then foreign minister SM Krishna said, "The Chinese premier, during his visit to India in December 2010, said that China's development of upstream areas will never harm downstream interests. Government has ascertained that the dam at Zangmu in the Tibet Autonomous Region is a run-of-the-river hydro-electric project, which does not store water and will not adversely impact the downstream areas in India."

In fact, in the past few years, India has consistently tried to play down the threat that Chinese construction poses. Even when local reports said that in Pasighat town in East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, the water level of the Brahmaputra river receded so much that it was almost dry. In fact, Chinese spokespersons have even quoted Krishna to show that India "understood" the Chinese position.

In October, 2011, Jiao Yong, China's vice-minister for water resources, was quoted as saying, "The Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) river flows across China's Qinghai Tibet plateau. Many Chinese citizens have been calling for greater usage of this river. However, considering the technical difficulties, the actual need of diversion, and the possible impact on the environment and state-to-state relations, the Chinese government has no plans to conduct any diversification project in this river."

Clearly a lot has changed since then. For India, the biggest problem is not merely that China continues to build dams on the river with impunity, and might implement its long-term plan of diverting the waters of the Brahmaputra to its parched northeast. It is that China refuses to accede to any international rule of law. There is no bilateral water treaty between India and China. China is not ready to even discuss the issue with India.

Indian officials say a large proportion of the catchment of the Brahmaputra lies within Indian territory, which will not be affected by the Chinese dams. Within the government, there is an urgency to dam the waters of the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. Some of this makes Bangladesh uneasy, but India is going out of its way to accommodate Dhaka's concerns even to the extent of giving it a stake in these projects. None of this is forthcoming from China to India, however.

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Beyonce Admits to Singing With Pre-Recorded Track

Jan 31, 2013 3:52pm

Credit: Christopher Polk/Getty Images. 

Beyonce proved the critics wrong at a press conference for the Super Bowl.

As the singer walked on stage, she asked the audience to please stand. She then kicked off the press conference with a show-stopping, live performance of the national anthem.

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“I am a perfectionist and one thing about me, I practice until my feet bleed, and I did not have time to rehearse with the orchestra. It was a live television show and a very, very important emotional show for me. One of my proudest moments,” Beyonce said when asked what happened at the inauguration.

“Due to the weather, due to the delay, due to no proper sound check, I did not feel comfortable taking a risk. It was about the president and the inauguration and I wanted to make him and my country proud. So I decided to sing along with my pre-recorded track, which is very common in the music industry, and I’m very proud of my performance,” she said.

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The 31-year-old singer also guaranteed that she will be singing live during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show.

“I will absolutely be singing live. I am well rehearsed and I will absolutely be singing live,” Beyonce said. “This is what I was born to do. What I’m born for.”

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After reporters were told to move onto another topic, Beyonce said she was honored and humbled to have the opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl, especially in New Orleans, since her family is from Louisiana.  As for her setlist, she said it was difficult to choose which songs to perform, adding, “trying to condense a career into 12 minutes is not easy.”

Her plans after the Super Bowl?  “I’m going to enjoy my daughter,” Beyonce laughed.  “I’ve missed her, I’m working so hard and I keep saying, ‘Mommy will be done Sunday at nine o’clock!’”

Beyonce also said that she “might” have an announcement at the end of her performance — she hinted that it would have to do with a tour.  In addition, she refused to confirm a Destiny’s Child reunion onstage.

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Opinion: Sizing Up Google’s New North Korea Map

Editor's note: Juan José Valdés is National Geographic's geographer and director of editorial and research for National Geographic Maps.

Google this week unveiled its first detailed maps of North Korea.

Where most of the reclusive police state had formerly appeared as white space, the new maps include street names in the capital, government buildings and businesses, and four sites that Google identifies as gulags.

The Internet search company noted that the project was made possible by citizen cartographers, who for years have been adding the names of roads and points of interest through Google's online Map Maker tool.

"As a result," Google said in a blog post this week, "the world can access maps of North Korea that offer much more information and detail than before." (Read "Escaping North Korea" in National Geographic magazine.)

It's certainly a commendable task. North Korea is among the hardest places on Earth from which to obtain information, let alone accurate cartographic data.

The advent of the fax machine, followed by the Web, has lessened this task. Map sources—specifically satellite imagery—as well as experts on obscure or secretive places like North Korea, are more readily accessible than ever before.

Google's new Korea maps speak to today's bottom-up approach to mapmaking. Traditionally, national survey offices and cartographic houses have dictated map content. (Video: Inside North Korea.)

But that tradition has quickly lost ground with the emergence of dynamic mapping platforms and the legions of citizen cartographers who have begun making and updating maps.

The best example of this movement is the OpenStreetMap project. Since its founding in 2004, over a million worldwide participants have—with the aid of satellite and aerial imagery, GPS, and hard-copy sources—catalogued everything from foot trails and bike paths to handicapped-accessible buildings in some of the world's major cities.

While the democratization of mapmaking has much to add to an old science by allowing anyone with access to a computer to upload their findings, it's also important that we acknowledge the pitfalls and limits of citizen cartography.

In many parts of the world such citizen mapping has proven challenging, if not downright dangerous. In many places, little can be achieved without the approval of local and or national authorities—especially in North Korea.

When attempting to map contentious areas, National Geographic not only works closely with individual governmental entities but also with external entities, including international toponymic (place-naming) authorities and agencies such as the United Nations.

At the other end of the spectrum there's the issue of a citizen cartographer's knowledge or understanding of official naming or boundary policies.

It's one thing to record and portray place-names on a map as recognized by locals or wondering citizen cartographers. It's quite another for them to abide by the official cartographic policies of the territories they are mapping.

In many countries, place-names, let alone the alignment of boundaries, remain a powerful symbol of independence and national pride, and not merely indicators of location. This is where citizen cartographers need to understand the often subtle nuances and potential pitfalls of mapping.

From National Geographic's perspective, all a map should accomplish is the actual portrayal of national sovereignty, as it currently exists. It should also reflect the names as closely as possible to those recognized by the political entities of the geographic areas being mapped.

To do otherwise would give map readers an unrealistic picture of what is occurring on the ground.

If not cognizant of these facts, there is a real danger that certain parts of the world could be erroneously mapped.

Such errors could, and have had, international repercussions. In 2000, an incorrect alignment of the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border on Google Maps inflamed tensions between the two countries. Google quickly corrected the error.

Over the centuries, cartography has witnessed many "golden ages." Today, experts are proclaiming that we are in the midst of a new one.

A profession once practiced by few has become a discipline enthusiastically engaged by many. Unlike printed maps, where an error—as with the recent find of the phantom Sandy Island in the South Pacific—can be perpetuated through time, online maps enable such errors to be quickly corrected.

What better face-saving device could a cartographer ask for?

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Brazil night club owner attempts suicide

SANTA MARIA: An owner of the Brazilian night club where 235 people perished in a weekend fire tried to commit suicide, police said Wednesday, as the number of survivors seeking medical treatment after the disaster continued to rise.

Elissandro Sphor tried to kill himself with a plastic shower hose, said senior police official Lilian Carus in the town of Cruz Alta 125 kilometres from Santa Maria, where the club owner is hospitalised.

"It was clear he wanted to hang himself," Carus told AFP, adding that a police officer arrived at the scene -- a hospital where Sphor is being treated for gas poisoning -- before anything happened.

Police took Sphor and three others into custody as they pieced together what caused the inferno at the Kiss nightclub, which was packed with partying students when the blaze broke out early Sunday.

About 75 injured victims of the fire are clinging to life, some in critical condition, in the college town of Santa Maria.

Meanwhile, health officials there said about 20 people have been hospitalised since the fire with symptoms of "chemical pneumonitis" after breathing in smoke and toxic gases emitted during the inferno.

The symptoms may take five days to appear and can be severe, health official Neio Pereira said.

Most of the victims died of smoke inhalation as they desperately tried to escape.

Those treated for the respiratory ailments Wednesday were in addition to 123 people hospitalised after the fire, which authorities say was sparked by a cheap flare lit by musicians as part of an illegal pyrotechnics display.

Authorities catalogued a long list of other infractions at club, including a lack of emergency lighting, non-functioning fire extinguishers and suspected overcrowding.

It also was operating with an expired licence and had only one functioning exit, which survivors said was unmarked and blocked by steel barriers, making it difficult to flee the establishment.

Sphor's doctor told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that since the tragedy, his client -- who is one of two owners of the night club -- cries incessantly, has had to be put on a prescription of tranquilisers, and is emotionally "destroyed."

Meanwhile, dozens of people late Tuesday took to the streets of Santa Maria demanding justice and stricter laws.

"We will work tirelessly until all those responsible are identified," police commissioner Marcelo Arigony promised the demonstrators -- even as many blamed the government itself for failing to carry out the inspections that might have saved lives.

Some survivors said that security guards initially blocked the exit to prevent customers from leaving the club without paying their bar tabs.

Fire chief Sergio Roberto de Abreu said his department had been in the process of reviewing the club's fire extinguisher documentation, but that approval had not yet been given at the time of the fire.

Lawyers for the club, however, have insisted that the establishment was in full compliance.

- AFP/jc

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Asaram foot-in-mouth again, turns abusive

JABALPUR: Within days of a tsunami of protest over his remark that the Delhi gang-rape victim should have pleaded with her rapists that she was their sister, controversial godman Asaram said during a satsang here that doctors who carry out abortions are "haraami" (illegitimate) and that women who charge their in-laws with dowry harassment are 'manchali' (giddy, frivolous).

Asaram said this in presence of hundreds of people on Tuesday evening during an event where the media was banned. However, unbeknownst to Asaram, his comments were noted down by local intelligence unit personnel and reported to their seniors, who informed the Indian Medical Association.

By Wednesday afternoon, even as an oblivious Asaram danced and dispensed toffees from " bhaktidham express", a scented toy train on a 220-feet track remote-controlled by him, IMA called an emergency meeting and condemned the godman's remarks, demanding immediate retraction of his statement.

Questioning Asaram's abusiveness and vicious female bashing, IMA chief, Dr RK Pathak, said use of such crude language before thousands of people had left the medical fraternity speechless.

"Either Asaram has lost his mental balance or he does not know the meaning of the expletives he used. The association demands an immediate retraction of the offending sentence, failing which we will be forced to take further steps," said Dr Pathak.

Asaram's audience included Madhya Pradesh assembly speaker Ishwar Das Rohani while he advised them to steer clear of pro-abortion doctors. This class, the godman claimed, is being generously funded by evil foreign powers. Asaram said America is pumping in money to annihilate Indian culture. Medical termination of pregnancy, he warned, was the worst sin. But 'harami' doctors mislead gullible women who end up "truncating" India's population, he said.

On dowry harassment, Asaram said, "Such cases are piling up fast but at least 96% of these are unable to stand up to legal scrutiny," Asaram declared. An ideal daughter-in-law, he said, is one who serves the family and doesn't drag her family members to court. Cunning bahus, he emphasized, deserve to be punished.

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