| |  | | | | | SHUTTING DOWN Feed My Inbox will be shutting down on January 10, 2013. To find an alternative service for email updates, visit this page. | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Police say Erica Menendez made statements implicating herself in death of Sunando Sen, who was pushed in front of train A woman accused of pushing an immigrant from India to his death in front of a subway train was charged on Saturday with murder as a hate crime. Police arrested Erica Menendez on Saturday after a passer-by on a street noticed she resembled the woman seen in a surveillance video. A spokeswoman for Queens district attorney Richard A Brown said Menendez told authorities she hates Hindus and Muslims. Subway shoving victim Sunando Sen was from India, but it's unclear if he was Muslim or Hindu. Sen, who lived in the borough of Queens and ran a printing shop, was killed on Thursday night. Witnesses said a muttering woman pushed him on the tracks as a No. 7 train entered a Queens station and then ran off. Menendez was in custody on Saturday and couldn't be reached for comment. It was unclear if she had an attorney. It was also unclear whether the woman who pushed Sen had any connection to him. Witnesses told police the two did not interact on the platform as they waited for the 7 train, which runs between Manhattan and Queens. Police released security camera video showing a woman running from the station where Sen was killed. On Saturday, a passer-by noticed a woman who resembled the woman in the video and called police. Police responded and confirmed her identity and took her to a police station, where she made statements implicating herself in the crime, police spokesman Paul Browne said. The attack was the second time this month that a man was pushed to his death in a city subway station. A homeless man was arrested in early December and accused of shoving a man in front of a train in Times Square. He claimed he acted in self-defence and is awaiting trial.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Blow for François Hollande as constitutional council vetoes Socialist policy at the 11th hour France's constitutional council has dealt a blow to beleaguered Socialist president François Hollande by rejecting the new 75% rate of income tax due to come into effect on Tuesday. It declared the measure, the backbone of the French leader's successful presidential election campaign earlier this year, to be unfair and therefore unconstitutional. Immediately after the surprise legal ruling on Saturday, the French government pledged to redraft and resubmit the proposal. The so-called "supertax" rate of 75% on individual incomes over €1m a year had provoked anger and angst in recent weeks after French national hero Gérard Depardieu announced he was moving just over the border into Belgium, reportedly for tax reasons. After the French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, described the actor's move into tax exile as "shabby", Depardieu wrote a furious open letter in which he accused the Socialist government of seeking to "punish… success, creation and talent". Hollande had called on the country's wealthy to show some economic "patriotism" and said the 75% tax band would be a temporary two-year measure. The tax was expected to affect only 1,500 people and raise €500m in 2013 as part of a raft of measures aimed at helping reduce France's public deficit. The measure was broadly supported by the French left, but criticised by the right and business leaders as likely to provoke a flood of entrepreneurs and the wealthy moving abroad. The politically independent constitutional council, made up of nine judges and three former presidents known as les sages (the wise), was asked to rule on the tax by the centre-right opposition UMP party. It did not declare the tax too high, but said its application was unconstitutional because it "failed to recognise equality before public burdens". Unlike regular income tax, which is levied on households, the 75% rate would have been applied to individuals. This meant an individual earning over €1m a year would have been subject to the tax, but a couple each earning €900,000 would not. The council ruled this was unconstitutional as it could lead to two households with identical incomes being taxed differently. Ayrault's office said in a statement on Saturday that it would draw up a "new proposal … taking into account the principles raised by the constitutional council's decision" to be part of the next budget. No details were given on when or how this would be done. Finance minister Pierre Moscovici told BFM television: "Our deficit-cutting path will not be affected." The council's decision comes as a triple whammy for Hollande in a week that saw unemployment leap to a 15-year high and the International Monetary Fund reduce France's growth forecasts to well below the 0.8% Hollande is seeking to reduce the deficit.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Police say no passengers were on board airliner that rammed through highway barrier outside Vnukovo airport near Moscow A Russian airliner broke into pieces after it slid off a runway and crashed on to a highway outside Moscow, killing four of the 12 crew on board and leaving chunks of fuselage on the icy road. The crash during peak holiday travel before Russia's new year's vacation, which runs from Sunday until 9 January, cast a spotlight on Russia's poor air-safety record despite President Vladimir Putin's calls to improve controls. Television footage showed the Tupolev Tu-204 jet in pieces, with smoke billowing from the tail end and the cockpit broken off the front. One witness told state channel Rossiya-24 he saw a man thrown from the plane as it rammed into the barrier of the highway outside Vnukovo airport, south-west of the capital, and another described pulling other people from the wreckage. "The plane split into three pieces," Yelena Krylova, chief spokeswoman for the airport, said in televised comments. An emergency services spokesman said four people died of injuries after the crash and four others were in hospital. Police said 12 crew members were on board, but no passengers. "The plane went off the runway, broke through the barrier and caught fire," police spokesman Gennady Bogachyov said. The mid-range Tu-204 was operated by the Russian airline Red Wings and travelling from the Czech Republic, Krylova said. Debris from the crash was scattered across the highway and the plane's wings were torn from the fuselage, witnesses said. "We saw how the plane skidded off the runway ... The nose, where business class is, broke off and a man fell out," a witness, who gave his name as Alexei, said. "We helped him get into a minibus to take him to the hospital." Another witness described pulling four people from the wreckage when he arrived at the scene before emergency service workers. "We could not get the pilot out of the cockpit but we saw a lot of blood," he told Rossiya-24. Russian investigators said preliminary findings pointed to pilot error as the cause of the crash.The Russian-built Tu-204, which is comparable in size to a Boeing 757 or Airbus A321, is a Soviet-era design that was produced in the mid-1990s but is no longer being made. No major accidents had been previously reported with Tu-204s.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Maine only one of the three US states to legalise gay marriage where voters passed ballot initiative without referendum The first gay and lesbian couples to wed under Maine's new same-sex marriage law exchanged vows early Saturday, in a series of modest but joyous civil ceremonies held shortly after midnight. "We finally feel equal and happy to be living in Maine," an exuberant Steven Bridges, 42, said shortly after he and his new husband, Michael Snell, 53, became the first couple at City Hall in Maine's largest town to tie the knot. After the pair had filled out the necessary paperwork, the city records clerk, Christine Horne, performed the brief, no-frills ceremony, pronouncing the two men married as they exchanged rings and kissed. Snell's two adult daughters, both from a previous heterosexual marriage, looked on smiling. Other couples waiting in the hallway outside the clerk's office cheered the pair as they emerged, and a much larger crowd of about 250 supporters huddled in front of the building let out a jubilant roar as Bridges, a retail manager, and Snell, a massage therapist, stepped out into the cold night air. A group in the crowd sang the Beatles song All You Need Is Love, accompanied by several musicians playing brass horns, and many carried signs with such slogans as "America's new day begins in Maine" and "Love one another." Similar scenes were repeated as five more couples exchanged vows during the next two hours, and more weddings were expected before the office was scheduled to close again at 3am. About 15 couples simply obtained their marriage licenses, with plans to wed later. "We've been together for 30 years, and never thought that this country would allow marriages between gay couples," said Roberta Batt, 71, an antiques dealer and retired physician with silver hair and round eyeglasses, as she and her long-time partner, Mary, waited their turn to wed. "We're just very thankful to the people of Maine, and I hope the rest of the country goes the way this state has," she added. Maine, Maryland and Washington state became the first three US states to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples by popular vote with passage of ballot initiatives on 6 November. But Maine was the only one of the three where voters did so entirely on their own, without state legislators precipitating a referendum by acting first. Nine of the 50 US states, plus the District of Columbia, now have statutes legalizing gay marriage. Washington's law took effect on 9 December, and Maryland's law does so on 1 January. Another 31 states have passed constitutional amendments restricting marriage to heterosexual couples.
City clerks' offices around Maine scheduled extra weekend office hours, some opening late Friday night as in Portland to accommodate same-sex couples rushing to wed as the new law went into force at 12.01am local time.
More lavish same-sex weddings were being booked for the spring at the On the Marsh Bistro in Kennebunk, said owner Denise Rubin. "We support it wholeheartedly," she said. "We look forward to being part of a whole new wave of wonderful thinking." The tide of public opinion has been shifting in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. In May, President Barack Obama became the first US president to declare his support for allowing gay couples to marry. A Pew Research Center survey from October found 49% of Americans favored allowing gay marriage, with 40% opposed. The US supreme court has agreed to review two challenges to federal and state laws that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The court said this month it will review a case against a federal law that denies married same-sex couples the federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive. It also will look at a challenge to California's ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, which voters narrowly approved in 2008. Maine's voter-approved initiative this year marked a turnaround from 2009, when legislators passed a statute recognizing gay marriage only to see it overturned that same year in a statewide referendum.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President says 'I believe we may be able to reach agreement' but White House prepares back-up proposal for Senate vote Senate leaders were engaged in last-ditch efforts to secure a fiscal cliff deal Saturday, as President Barack Obama prepared to strong-arm Congress into an up-or-down vote on a back-up plan to avert the looming economic crisis. With just two days to go until a year-end deadline triggers a series of damaging spending cuts and tax increases for nearly all Americans, the president used his weekly radio address to again urge action in Washington. "Leaders in Congress are working on a way to prevent this tax hike on the middle class, and I believe we may be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time," Obama said. It echoed comments made after a crisis meeting in the White House on Friday in which the president said he remained "modestly optimistic". But failing any agreement, the White House is putting into motion plans to force a vote in Congress on scaled-back measures that would avert the immediate impact of heading over the fiscal cliff. That "up-or-down vote on a basic package" would stop tax hikes for middle-income Americans, while "laying the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction", Obama said Saturday. The president has repeatedly said that he believes the stop-gap measure would clear both houses. But he made it clear that if the emergency measures failed to pass through Congress, then the blame would lie with obstructionists in the Senate and House of Representatives. "If they still want to vote no, and let this tax hike hit the middle class, that's their prerogative – but they should let everyone vote," he said during Saturday's address. By threatening to force a vote, the White House is putting pressure on the leaders of both sides in Congress to find a compromise by the end of the weekend at the latest. On Sunday, the House of Representatives will reconvene. House speaker John Boehner has warned colleagues to expect to work through the New Year. The two men tasked with coming up with a deal are Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, and Mitch McConnell, who heads the Senate's Republican minority. Both men were summoned by Obama to a White House meeting on the fiscal cliff crisis on Friday, alongside Boehner and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Treasury secretary Tim Geithner was also in attendance. Both sides emerged after an hour and 15 minutes of talks with no deal, but in an apparent mood to work on a solution. McConnell said he was "hopeful and optimistic". Obama said the meeting had been "good and constructive". But in comments that displayed his frustration at Washington's continued brinkmanship over fiscal and budget-related deadlines, he added: "This is déjà vu all over again." He also warned: "The American people are watching what we do here. Obviously their patience is already thin." Further pressure for a deal is expected to be exerted by the president on Sunday, when he will make his case during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. If no deal is done, 88% of Americans will see their taxes rise on January 1, a wave of deep spending cuts will start to take effect, and 2 million long-term unemployed people will lose their benefits. The main sticking point appears to be the threshold for raising income taxes on households with upper-level earnings. Obama's initial plan was for all earners of $250,000 a year and above to shoulder a greater burden. Meanwhile, many Republicans in the House have indicated that they will vote against any increase in tax. Analysts believe that any deal could be anchored on raising taxes for households earning more than $400,000 or $500,000 a year, but it remains to be seen if such a compromise could win the backing of both houses. "Whatever we come up with is going to be imperfect. Some people aren't going to like it, some people will like it less," Reid said on Friday.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Lakhdar Brahimi calls for political solution to prevent the 'hell' of further violence destabilising neighbouring countries The United Nations envoy for Syria has warned that further violence could create waves of refugees which may destabilise neighbouring countries. Lakhdar Brahimi said: "If you have a panic in Damascus and if you have 1 million people leaving Damascus in a panic, they can go to only two places, Lebanon and Jordan." Both those countries could break if faced with half a million refugees, he said on Saturday after meeting the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, in Moscow. "If the only alternative is really hell or a political process, then we have got, all of us, to work ceaselessly for a political process," he said. Neither Brahimi nor Lavrov gave an indication of progress toward resolving the 21-month-old conflict in which an estimated 40,000 people have died. Lavrov said the demand by the Syrian opposition that President Bashar al-Assad step down as a precondition to talks was incorrect and counterproductive. "The price for that precondition will be the loss of more Syrian lives," he said. Meanwhile, in Syria government forces have pushed rebels from a district in Homs after several days of fierce fighting, opposition activists said on Saturday. The army moved into Deir Baalba, a neighbourhood on the north-eastern edge of Homs, leaving the rebels in control of just the central neighbourhoods around the old city and the district of Khalidiya, immediately to the north.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Authorities claim Dawn Nguyen of Rochester bought two guns for killer William Spengler, her former next-door neighbour The neighbor of a convicted felon who ambushed firefighters on Christmas Eve, killing two, bought the guns for him and lied to the seller, knowing that he wasn't allowed to have them, authorities said Friday. William Spengler had picked out the semi-automatic rifle and shotgun used in the ambush and went to the sporting goods store with the neighbor when she bought them for him, US attorney William Hochul said. The neighbor, Dawn Nguyen of Rochester, was arrested Friday. She faces a federal charge of knowingly making a false statement for signing a form indicating she would be the legal owner of the guns, Hochul said. She also was charged with a state count of filing a falsified business record, state police senior investigator James Newell said. Shortly before her arrest, Nguyen told the Associated Press that she didn't want to talk about Spengler. A number listed in the name of her lawyer, David Palmiere, was disconnected. The charges stem from the purchase of an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun that Spengler had with him Monday when firefighters Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka were shot dead. Three other people were wounded before the 62-year-old Spengler killed himself. He also had a .38-caliber revolver, but Nguyen is not connected to that gun, Newell said. Police used the serial numbers on the rifle and shotgun, which were purchased on June 6, 2010, to trace them to Nguyen, Hochul said. "She told the seller of these guns, Gander Mountain in Henrietta, New York, that she was to be the true owner and buyer of the guns instead of William Spengler," he said. "It is absolutely against federal law to provide any materially false information related to the acquisition of firearms." "It is sometimes referred to acting as a straw purchaser and that is exactly what today's complaint alleges," he said. The federal charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment, a fine of $250,000 or both. During an interview late on Christmas Eve, Nguyen told police she had bought the guns for personal protection and that they were stolen from her vehicle, though she never reported the guns stolen. The day after the shootings, Nguyen texted an off-duty Monroe County sheriff's deputy with references to the killings. She later called the deputy and admitted she bought the guns for Spengler, police said. That information was consistent with a suicide note found near Spengler's body after he killed himself. Nguyen and her mother, Dawn Welsher, lived next door to Spengler in 2008. On Wednesday and again on Friday, she answered her cellphone and said she didn't want to discuss Spengler. Her brother, Steven Nguyen, told the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper of Rochester that Spengler stole the guns from Dawn Nguyen. Spengler set a car on fire and touched off a blaze in his Webster home on a strip of land along the Lake Ontario shore, took up a sniper's position and opened fire on the first firefighters to arrive at about 5.30am on Christmas Eve, authorities said. He wounded two other firefighters and an off-duty police officer who was on his way to work. A Webster police officer who had accompanied the firefighters shot back at Spengler with a rifle in a brief exchange of gunfire before the gunman killed himself. Spengler spent 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother in 1980. He had been released from parole in 2006 on the manslaughter conviction, and authorities said they had had no encounters with him since. Investigators still haven't released the identity of remains found in Spengler's burned house. They have said they believe the remains are those of his 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, who also lived in the house near Rochester and has been unaccounted for since the killings. The Spengler siblings had lived in the home with their mother, Arline Spengler, who died in October. In all, seven houses were destroyed by the flames. Investigators found a rambling, typed letter laying out Spengler's intention to destroy his neighborhood and "do what I like doing best, killing people."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Government proposal to tax those earning more than €1m at 75% has divided public opinion and led some to leave France The French constitutional council has rejected a government proposal to levy a 75% tax on high earners. The tax on incomes over €1m has divided opinion in France and encouraged some to set up homes outside France. The actor Gérard Depardieu bought a house in Belgium, prompting the French prime minister, Jean Marc Ayrault, to say: "It's pathetic really. Paying taxes is an act of patriotism and we're asking the rich to make a special effort here for the country." In response Depardieu offered to give up his passport. The government will redraft the tax proposal and resubmit it, Ayrault's office said on Saturday. The council's ruling would not obstruct the government's determination to reduce the public deficit, it added. The high tax rate was the centre piece of President François Hollande's election campaign earlier this year but it has infuriated France's high earners, many of who have already moved to cities such as London. The constitutional council is a politically independent body that rules on whether laws, elections and referendums are constitutional. It is made up of nine judges and three former presidents, and is concerned the tax would hit a married couple where one partner earned above €1m but it would not affect a couple where each earned just under €1m. Ayrault's comments to Depardieu prompted him to write an open letter to the prime minister: "I am leaving because you consider success, creativity and talent grounds for sanction," he wrote. Depardieu said he had paid more than €170m in taxes over the last four decades. He said he no longer recognised his country and offered to surrender his passport if he was, indeed, so pathetic. Earlier this month, Edouard Leclerc, the founder of one of France's biggest supermarkets, said that the government's attitude to the rich recalled the rhetoric of the French Revolution. "Whether you like Depardieu or not is not the point," he said. "It's this government's fiscal campaign against those who make money in this country. Maybe it's not 1789, but there will be plenty of rich leaving France. And there is a frightening populism on the rise."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Red Wing Airlines Tu-204 aircraft reportedly carrying 12 crew but no passengers when it ran off runway and burst into flames A Russian passenger jet has crash landed at Moscow's Vnukovo airport, killing at least two people. The Red Wing Airlines Tu-204 aircraft split into three pieces after sliding off a runway and crashing into a main road on Saturday, according to the Interfax news agency. Russia's state news channel Vesti said the plane had a crew of 12 aboard but was not carrying passengers. State-run RIA news agency said two people had been killed. The cause of the crash is as yet unknown. Light snow was falling in Moscow at the time. The Tu-204 is a twin-engine, medium-range jet with a capacity of 210 passengers. An initial report from Interfax said the plane had landed hard on a main road. A photograph posted on the internet showed smoking wreckage on a road by the airport. "After a hard landing, the plane split into three pieces," Yelena Krylova, chief spokeswoman for the airport, said in a TV interview.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | It's 50 years since the first interplanetary probe, and this year's stunning pictures from across the solar system show how far space technology has come This image gives us an unprecedented view of Earth at night. Ribbons of light from cities stretch across the shadows of the world's great land masses and reveal the extent of our species' conquest of the planet. The picture is one of a series known as the Black Marble photographs, released this month by Nasa. The US space agency created them from data gathered between April and June by the Suomi NPP satellite, which sweeps over the poles at a height of 500 miles, covering the entire planet as it revolves beneath. Each picture is a composite of several photographs taken on different cloud-free nights using the satellite's visible infrared imaging radiometer suite; they are remarkable for the detail they provide of Earth at night. The Black Marble photographs were just one of several sets of stunning photographs generated by Nasa spacecraft last year. Other probes sent back enthralling images of Mars, Saturn, the Moon, Mercury and other planets, revealing remarkable information and unexpected details of these distant worlds. Has Nasa become, along with everything else, the world's best photographic agency? The publication of these interplanetary photographs marks the 50th anniversary of the first successful flight of an interplanetary probe and demonstrates the dramatic changes that have been made to America's fleet of robot spacecraft in that time. Launched on 26 August 1962, the US probe Mariner 2 swept past Venus at a distance of 22,000 miles in December that year. Its radiometers revealed a world with cool, thick clouds and a very hot surface. It returned no images of Venus, however, for the craft was not fitted with a camera. Today Nasa spaceships bristle with them. The US robot rover Curiosity, which landed on Mars this summer, has a total of 17 on board. These recorded the craft's descent to the surface of the red planet and have since provided detailed images of every manoeuvre the rover has made. Curiosity landed on Mars in August and has since been subjecting rocks and soil to a detailed examination. The craft has a laser to vaporise slivers of rocks and analyse their chemical composition; a robot arm to pulverise pieces of stone; and an oven in which soil and rock samples are baked and tested for the presence of organic carbon. In addition, Curiosity's cameras have returned glorious images of the terrain and hills as the robot rover trundles along on a journey of investigation that has been designed to discover if Mars ever possessed the right atmospheric and geological conditions to support life. In contrast to Curiosity, which has subjected Mars to an investigation that is up close and personal, most other US probes are surveying their targets from a distance. An example is Nasa's Messenger probe, which has been in orbit around Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, for almost two years. Daytime temperatures there can reach more than 400C. Despite the searing heat, however, Messenger last month sent back data which showed that ice and frozen organic material exists in craters permanently shadowed in Mercury's north pole. "It's not something we expected to see, but then of course you realise it kind of makes sense because we see this in other places," planetary scientist David Paige of the University of California told Reuters at the time. Other probes have shown that our own Moon has ice in craters at its poles, for example. The discovery of the ice and frozen organics on Mercury is a technical triumph. The planet's orbit approaches to within 46 million kilometres of the Sun (compared with the Earth, which reaches 147m km at its closest). At this distance, the radiation from the Sun and its intense gravitational pull make it difficult to manoeuvre and observe Mercury. In fact, Messenger is the only spacecraft to achieve orbit round the planet. It used radar imagery to detect ice and organics. These icy deposits are thought to have been dumped on Mercury by comets in the distant past and their discovery helps explain how such material might have appeared on Earth and how life could have evolved here. Equally surprising were the results produced by two Nasa satellites called Ebb and Flow, collectively known as the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) mission. They have been measuring tiny fluctuations in the gravitational field of the Moon and have produced a detailed map of rock densities there. The map shows that, in its first billion years, the Moon was fractured repeatedly by impacts of unexpected violence from asteroids and other remnants from the early years of the solar system. On Earth, the shifting of tectonic plates and churning of our planet's molten mantle have wiped out most evidence of these early asteroid bombardments. Grail has now revealed that conditions in the early solar system must have been far more violent than we once thought and has shown that our planet must have gone through some particularly violent formative years. The photographs and information sent back by Messenger, Grail and Curiosity show worlds that are very different from our own. By contrast, those returned last month by the probe Cassini of Titan, the largest moon of distant Saturn, have a very familiar look. They show images of a river valley that stretches for more than 400 km from its "headwaters" to a large sea. The valley crosses Titan's north polar region and runs into Ligeia Mare, one of the three great seas in Titan's high northern latitudes. The river has tributaries and in some places meanders just like those on Earth. On a smaller scale, it could be confused - from these images - with the Nile delta. Appearances would be deceptive, however. This river is no flowing waterway like those on Earth. It is made up of liquid hydrocarbons including methane and ethane. Titan may be the only other world in the solar system that has open stretches of liquid on its surface but that liquid is very different from the rivers of Earth.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Death of student gang-raped by six men and thrown from a moving bus in Delhi two weeks ago prompts mass protests Indian police charged six men with murder on Saturday, hours after a woman who was gang-raped and thrown from a moving bus in Delhi nearly two weeks ago died in a Singapore hospital. Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six will face the death penalty if convicted. The announcement came as thousands of Indians gathered to mourn and protest the death of the 23-year-old medical student. The woman, who has not been named, sustained serious internal injuries after being violated with an iron barduring the attack, which took place on 16 December and triggered mass demonstrations calling for better protection for women against sexual violence. She died late on Friday in the Singapore hospital where she was being treated. Her family had been keeping a bedside vigil after she suffered severe organ failure. She was flown to Singapore from India two days ago as her condition worsened. "We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully … Her family and officials from the High Commission of India were by her side," Kelvin Loh, the chief executive of the Mount Elizabeth hospital, said in a statement. Authorities in India have reacted with statements of grief, calls for calm and a huge security operation. Amid an outpouring of anger and sorrow in cities across the nation, large numbers of police were deployed in Delhi to prevent demonstrators reaching parliament, the president's residence and the India Gate war memorial. The official residences of ministers, top officials and Sonia Gandhi, the president of the ruling Congress party, were also heavily guarded and metro stations were shut. President Pranab Mukherjee said the victim was "a true hero and symbolises the best in Indian youth and women". He called on "everyone to maintain peace and calm". Silent demonstrations are being planned in most major cities of India. Media have dubbed the woman "Braveheart" and "India's daughter". "I just want to be here to say how much she meant to all of us and how much we want nothing of this to ever happen again to any lady. Attitudes in this country must change now. There should be security," said Beena Subramaniam, a 24-year-old student who had traveled to Delhi's Janta Mantar observatory, where protests were being permitted. The huge deployment of the security forces reinforced the impression of many that the government was out of touch with public emotion. "They are not joining with us, they are keeping us away," said Neeraj Kumar, 28, a small businessman on his way to the demonstration. Protests last weekend turned violent with police using water cannon, teargas and baton charges to disperse demonstrators close to parliament. The case has provoked calls for the chemical castration of rapists and even public hanging. The government has set up a commission to recommend new measures. One is likely to be the publication on the internet of a registry of sex offenders. Others include fast-track courts and a higher proportion of women police officers. "We have already seen the emotions and energies this incident has generated. These are perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change," prime minister Manmohan Singh said. Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister of Delhi, said that she felt ashamed "not just as [chief minister], but as a citizen of India". The case has provoked an unprecedented debate on sexual violence towards women in India. Sexual harassment – known locally as "Eve-teasing" is endemic and often accepted. A series of rapes in rural areas in the state of Haryana, adjacent to Delhi, earlier this year provoked suggestions from politicians and community leaders that much sexual violence was consensual and that the age of marriage should be lowered. Women who report rapes are repeatedly ignored or harassed themselves by police. The belief that women are responsible for sexual assault is widespread. In the wake of the most recent incident, dozens of other rapes, often by multiple assailants, have been reported by media across India. Many feature minors. "These are not an isolated incidents. The outrage now should lead to reforms in both system and attitude, so that victims are not blamed, humiliated or suffering silently," said Meenakshi Ganguly, the regional director of Human Rights Watch said. In one incident reported this week, police jeered and laughed when a 17-year-old in Patiala, in the north-western state of Punjab, attempted to report a gang rape. She later committed suicide. Two officers have now been sacked and one suspended. The victim in the Delhi case is from a modest family from the north of India who sold their ancestral land to fund her medical training. She was returning from watching a film at 9pm when she and her 28-year-old male friend accepted a lift in the bus. Public transport in Delhi is grossly inadequate and though the wealthy can afford cars, usually chauffeur-driven, few others can. "Rape and sexual assault are the fasting growing crimes in India. Women's organisations have been raising this issue for so long and no one has acted," Brinda Karat, a veteran member of parliament, told NDTV, a local channel. Karat said that the right response was not "patriarchal, patronising assurances that we will make you safe by [having you] stay in your own homes" but a concerted campaign to "ensure that women have equal rights in every public space, the workspace, cinemas, malls, the metro, buses, the street - everywhere".
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