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Monday, July 22, 2013

Video of Navalny’s Return to Moscow

A screenshot from the Russian activist Aleksei Navalny's blog showed supporters greeting him at a train station in Moscow on Saturday. A screenshot from the Russian activist Aleksei Navalny’s blog showed supporters greeting him at a train station in Moscow on Saturday.

As he reported on his own blog over the weekend, the Russian opposition activist Aleksei Navalny was greeted by hundreds of supporters at a train station in Moscow on Saturday, one day after he was he was released from jail in the city of Kirov.

Speaking after a turbulent 48 hours â€" during which he was sentenced to five years in prison on what he insists are politically motivated charges, and then released pending an appeal, after demonstrators decorated the Russian Parliament with stickers bearing his name during street protests â€" Mr. Navalny promised to spend the next seven weeks campaigning to get elected Moscow’s mayor, even as he fights to have his prison sentence overturned.

Video of Aleksei Navlny’s remarks to supporters in Moscow on Saturday, subtitled by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Reuters video of the scene at the train station, subtitled and posted online by the American-financed news network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, showed the anti-corruption blogger telling his supporters: “We have a big and difficult electoral campaign in front of us, seven weeks of non-stop work, and this is only the beginning.”

Mr. Navalny also led the crowd in one of his signature chants, “We are the power!” which was heard outside the Duma during last week’s protests. That part of his remarks was not included in a video edit posted online by the state news agency RIA Novosti.

Footage of Aleksei Navalny’s return to Moscow from the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

More video of the scene, on the Russian news site Lenta.ru, showed that the police made a determined effort to keep the arrival from turning into a full-fledged rally, even making it difficult for well-wishers to hand flowers to the activist.

As the Radio Free Europe blogger Brian Whitmore noted, in YouTube video recorded from the press scrum around the opposition leader, after Mr. Navalny thanked his supporters for the protests following his conviction â€" saying, “You have destroyed the main privilege that the Kremlin has claimed, its alleged right to arrest anyone in court and cause that person to disappear. It’s because of you that we were released the next day. Thank you! We are a huge mighty force and I am glad that we are realizing this and I am glad to be one with you.” â€" a voice in the crowd could be heard clearly shouting “We are citizens!”

YouTube video of Aleksei Navalny’s remarks on Saturday at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station.

As Masha Lipman explained in a post for The New Yorker’s news blog, the scene at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station had “historical resonances,” even if this was not quite St. Peterburg in 1917.

On two occasions in recent decades, men who beat the system returned to Moscow by train. In December, 1986, Andrey Sakharov, released by Mikhail Gorbachev, was met by a modest crowd as he arrived from his exile in the city of Gorky. On July 23, 1994, it was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s turn to get off the train after he’d been arrested and then expelled from his country.

To become mayor of the Russian capital, Mr. Navalny faces an uphill struggle. He will not only have to get his conviction overturned, but, as Julia Ioffe explained in The New Republic, defeat the relatively popular incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, who served for years as President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff. Despite those long odds, his team of young campaign volunteers are pressing ahead with their effort to blanket the Russian capital with posters for their candidate.



Video of Navalny’s Return to Moscow

A screenshot from the Russian activist Aleksei Navalny's blog showed supporters greeting him at a train station in Moscow on Saturday. A screenshot from the Russian activist Aleksei Navalny’s blog showed supporters greeting him at a train station in Moscow on Saturday.

As he reported on his own blog over the weekend, the Russian opposition activist Aleksei Navalny was greeted by hundreds of supporters at a train station in Moscow on Saturday, one day after he was he was released from jail in the city of Kirov.

Speaking after a turbulent 48 hours â€" during which he was sentenced to five years in prison on what he insists are politically motivated charges, and then released pending an appeal, after demonstrators decorated the Russian Parliament with stickers bearing his name during street protests â€" Mr. Navalny promised to spend the next seven weeks campaigning to get elected Moscow’s mayor, even as he fights to have his prison sentence overturned.

Video of Aleksei Navlny’s remarks to supporters in Moscow on Saturday, subtitled by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Reuters video of the scene at the train station, subtitled and posted online by the American-financed news network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, showed the anti-corruption blogger telling his supporters: “We have a big and difficult electoral campaign in front of us, seven weeks of non-stop work, and this is only the beginning.”

Mr. Navalny also led the crowd in one of his signature chants, “We are the power!” which was heard outside the Duma during last week’s protests. That part of his remarks was not included in a video edit posted online by the state news agency RIA Novosti.

Footage of Aleksei Navalny’s return to Moscow from the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

More video of the scene, on the Russian news site Lenta.ru, showed that the police made a determined effort to keep the arrival from turning into a full-fledged rally, even making it difficult for well-wishers to hand flowers to the activist.

As the Radio Free Europe blogger Brian Whitmore noted, in YouTube video recorded from the press scrum around the opposition leader, after Mr. Navalny thanked his supporters for the protests following his conviction â€" saying, “You have destroyed the main privilege that the Kremlin has claimed, its alleged right to arrest anyone in court and cause that person to disappear. It’s because of you that we were released the next day. Thank you! We are a huge mighty force and I am glad that we are realizing this and I am glad to be one with you.” â€" a voice in the crowd could be heard clearly shouting “We are citizens!”

YouTube video of Aleksei Navalny’s remarks on Saturday at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station.

As Masha Lipman explained in a post for The New Yorker’s news blog, the scene at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station had “historical resonances,” even if this was not quite St. Peterburg in 1917.

On two occasions in recent decades, men who beat the system returned to Moscow by train. In December, 1986, Andrey Sakharov, released by Mikhail Gorbachev, was met by a modest crowd as he arrived from his exile in the city of Gorky. On July 23, 1994, it was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s turn to get off the train after he’d been arrested and then expelled from his country.

To become mayor of the Russian capital, Mr. Navalny faces an uphill struggle. He will not only have to get his conviction overturned, but, as Julia Ioffe explained in The New Republic, defeat the relatively popular incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, who served for years as President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff. Despite those long odds, his team of young campaign volunteers are pressing ahead with their effort to blanket the Russian capital with posters for their candidate.



Today’s Scuttlebot: The Secret Service Sells Fake IDs and Exes in Texts

The technology reporters and editors of The New York Times scour the Web for important and peculiar items. Monday's selections feature an odd tale of how the Secret Service established and operated a counterfeiting factory to catch cyber criminals, and an essay about why the social media generation never really breaks up with one another.

Witness Accounts of New Violence in Egypt

Video recorded by the Egyptian newspaper El Badil showed men identified as supporters of Egypt’s deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, firing handguns into Tahrir Square, where Morsi opponents were gathered for a protest.

Clashes between opponents and supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi erupted in downtown Cairo and a province just north of the capital on Monday, killing three people and injuring dozens more in an outburst of deadly violence that ended several days of relative calm. Violence between supporters and opponents of the ousted president has gripped Egypt since his removal from power on July 3.

State media reports said that one person died in the fighting in Tahrir Square and dozens more were wounded, while two people were killed in the province of Qalyubeya, just north of the capital, according to Ahram Online, an English-language Web site affiliated with the flagship state newspaper.

Morsi opponents and journalists on the scene said that the violence began when a group of the deposed president’s supporters attacked anti-Morsi protesters in Tahrir Square, a version of events the Muslim Brotherhood disputed on its official Twitter feed, saying its supporters were the ones who were attacked. Neither claim could be independently verified.

Ed Giles, an Australian photojournalist based in Cairo, said he witnessed the violence erupt on Monday while walking with a large group of Morsi supporters as they crossed a bridge in downtown Cairo.

In a Twitter update, Mr. Giles said that the large group marched to the United States Embassy near Tahrir Square, but that a smaller group of Morsi supporters stayed behind and began to attack Morsi opponents holding a rally of their own in Tahrir.

For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood claimed that its supporters were the true victims of violence by “police and thugs,” an argument the group advanced through its official Twitter feed, @IkhwanWeb. The group said the violence took place not in Tahrir Square, but outside the American Embassy in the nearby neighborhood of Garden City.

Video uploaded to YouTube on Monday by El Badil, an independent Egyptian newspaper, showed men identified as Morsi supporters standing on the outskirts of Tahrir Square throwing rocks and firing guns in the direction of the square. The video appeared to support Mr. Giles’s account.

Haitham Tabei, a reporter for Agence-France Presse who was at the scene of the clashes, posted a series of pictures to Twitter that showed fighting and damage in the downtown Cairo neighborhood of Garden City, which is home to both the British and American embassies. Mr. Tabei’s Twitter updates were all written in Arabic.

Mr. Tabei posted a picture that he said showed three young male Morsi opponents, one carrying a long club, leading a Morsi supporter away in a head lock.

Another picture posted by Mr. Tabei showed what he said was a group of men attempting to assist someone who had been hit with bird shot fired by Morsi supporters.

A journalism student in Cairo named Aaron Rose, who described himself as an intern with the Daily News Egypt, an independent English-language publication, also posted a series of pictures from the clashes to Twitter.

Mr. Rose’s pictures suggest that Morsi opponents may have come to Tahrir Square carrying weapons, including handguns and knives. Mr. Rose also said that he observed Morsi opponents and members of the country’s security forces cooperating as they fought against Morsi supporters.



Witness Accounts of New Violence in Egypt

Video recorded by the Egyptian newspaper El Badil showed men identified as supporters of Egypt’s deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, firing handguns into Tahrir Square, where Morsi opponents were gathered for a protest.

Clashes between opponents and supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi erupted in downtown Cairo and a province just north of the capital on Monday, killing three people and injuring dozens more in an outburst of deadly violence that ended several days of relative calm. Violence between supporters and opponents of the ousted president has gripped Egypt since his removal from power on July 3.

State media reports said that one person died in the fighting in Tahrir Square and dozens more were wounded, while two people were killed in the province of Qalyubeya, just north of the capital, according to Ahram Online, an English-language Web site affiliated with the flagship state newspaper.

Morsi opponents and journalists on the scene said that the violence began when a group of the deposed president’s supporters attacked anti-Morsi protesters in Tahrir Square, a version of events the Muslim Brotherhood disputed on its official Twitter feed, saying its supporters were the ones who were attacked. Neither claim could be independently verified.

Ed Giles, an Australian photojournalist based in Cairo, said he witnessed the violence erupt on Monday while walking with a large group of Morsi supporters as they crossed a bridge in downtown Cairo.

In a Twitter update, Mr. Giles said that the large group marched to the United States Embassy near Tahrir Square, but that a smaller group of Morsi supporters stayed behind and began to attack Morsi opponents holding a rally of their own in Tahrir.

For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood claimed that its supporters were the true victims of violence by “police and thugs,” an argument the group advanced through its official Twitter feed, @IkhwanWeb. The group said the violence took place not in Tahrir Square, but outside the American Embassy in the nearby neighborhood of Garden City.

Video uploaded to YouTube on Monday by El Badil, an independent Egyptian newspaper, showed men identified as Morsi supporters standing on the outskirts of Tahrir Square throwing rocks and firing guns in the direction of the square. The video appeared to support Mr. Giles’s account.

Haitham Tabei, a reporter for Agence-France Presse who was at the scene of the clashes, posted a series of pictures to Twitter that showed fighting and damage in the downtown Cairo neighborhood of Garden City, which is home to both the British and American embassies. Mr. Tabei’s Twitter updates were all written in Arabic.

Mr. Tabei posted a picture that he said showed three young male Morsi opponents, one carrying a long club, leading a Morsi supporter away in a head lock.

Another picture posted by Mr. Tabei showed what he said was a group of men attempting to assist someone who had been hit with bird shot fired by Morsi supporters.

A journalism student in Cairo named Aaron Rose, who described himself as an intern with the Daily News Egypt, an independent English-language publication, also posted a series of pictures from the clashes to Twitter.

Mr. Rose’s pictures suggest that Morsi opponents may have come to Tahrir Square carrying weapons, including handguns and knives. Mr. Rose also said that he observed Morsi opponents and members of the country’s security forces cooperating as they fought against Morsi supporters.



British Royal Family Announces Birth of a Son

As my colleague Sarah Lyall reports on Twitter, the British royal family announced that the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son at 4:24 p.m. local time in London on Monday.

In a press release sent to news organizations, which pre-empted plans for the official announcement, officials announced that the baby weighs 8lbs 6oz.

The BBC has live video coverage of the scene outside Buckingham Palce, where a formal proclamation of the birth was just placed on a wooden easel.



Norwegian Woman, Sentenced After Reporting Rape in Dubai, Is ‘Pardoned’

A Norwegian woman who reported that she was raped in Dubai but then was sentenced to a 16-month jail sentence on charges including extramarital sex said on Monday that she had been “pardoned” and was free to leave the country.

Dubai, one of six principalities in the United Arab Emirates, is keen on preserving an image as a good place for foreign companies to do business and investment. The rape case attracted attention after the woman, Marte Deborah Dalelv, 24, said the Dubai police detained her instead of helping after she reported that a colleague raped her during a business trip to the emirate in March, according to news reports, including this one from The Associated Press.

She later faced trial and was sentenced last week to the prison term by a Dubai court on charges including drinking alcohol.

In the wake of her allegations, online petitions called for boycotts of the emirate, and the case was given broader attention when shared on Twitter via #ReleaseMarte and in a Facebook page set up to support her. The Norwegian government had complained to the authorities in Dubai, and on Monday the foreign affairs minister, Espen Barth Eide, reported on his Twitter feed that Ms. Dalelv had been “pardoned,” a choice of words that was criticized for its implication that she had committed a crime.

In audio of an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Ms. Dalelv said that in a meeting on Monday, the public prosecutor told her: “You have been pardoned. He told us that it is from the ruler of Dubai. It is unbelievable. It is a very, very good day.”

She said she had been given her passport back and believed she would be able to leave on Tuesday, after paperwork was completed. “It has been really, really tough,” she said. “It has just been going on for so long, but I am just so happy that finally I can go home.”

The Norwegian broadcaster NRK quoted her on its Web site as saying after the news of the pardon: “I am very, very happy. Now I am free. Finally.”

News of her pardon was shared online and welcomed by rights groups and nonprofit organizations. The deputy head of the nonprofit organization Partnership for Change, Jonas Borchgrevink, said on his Twitter feed @jonasMGA that public pressure might have come to bear on the case.

Ms. Dalelv was quoted as saying in press reports based on the Norwegian broadcaster NRK that her attacker was given a 13-month jail sentence for extramarital sex and alcohol consumption.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, linked to a Gulf News article that quoted Ms. Dalelv’s lawyer, Mahmoud Azad Abu Gareda, as saying that her accused rapist, a 33-year-old man who was her boss, and who was jailed for 13 months, had also been pardoned.

The Emirates Center for Human Rights said in a statement that the laws needed to be changed.

Ms. Dalelv had been working in interior design for a Qatari company of Wissam al-Mana, the husband of the American pop star Janet Jackson. A letter published on another Norwegian news Web site showed that Mr. al Mana had signed a letter dated April 2013, terminating her employment, citing misconduct.

On July 20, the company, Al Mana Interiors, defended its position in ending her employment.

Company representatives have been supportive and in communication with Marte throughout her ordeal. Only when Ms. Dalelv declined to have positive and constructive discussions about her employment status, and ceased communication with her employer, was the company forced to end our relationship with her. The decision had nothing to do with the rape allegation, and unfortunately neither Ms. Dalelv nor her attorneys have chosen to contact the company to discuss her employment status.

Ms. Dalelv’s father, Stefar Toregier Furesund, told the NTB news agency last Thursday that his daughter reported a rape on March 6 to the authorities, who confiscated her passport and money and went on to prosecute her instead.

“She called after four days in jail and told me that she had been raped and was in jail,” Mr. Furesund was quoted as saying. “In my view, this is completely absurd. It’s a natural reaction to go to the police when you have been raped. You don’t expect to be sent to jail yourself,” he said about the verdict, which was passed down last Wednesday and also included perjury charges.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



Books, Brioche and Baby Clothes: The Royal Merchandise

Lydia Leith, a British designer, created items to commemorate the birth of the royal baby.Getty Images Lydia Leith, a British designer, created items to commemorate the birth of the royal baby.

LONDON â€" British retailers, hotels and ceramic factories are betting on the arrival of the royal baby to improve the otherwise gloomy economic situation.

Dave Lockett, the owner of Edwardian China, a pottery manufacturer, said his company would paint the name and date of birth of the new royal on more than 10,000 commemorative plates and other ceramics that were prepared weeks ago.

“We made them pretty generic so that it could be either a boy or girl,” said Mr. Lockett, hired extra staff to cope with the order load. “Then it was just a matter of waiting for the big day.”

Britons are expected to spend more than £243 million (or $420 million) on merchandise, other goods and party food in July and August to celebrate the royal baby, according to the Center for Retail Research. That would compare with £163 million spent on souvenirs alone for William and Kate’s wedding in April 2011.

Not knowing the name or gender of the royal baby has not prevented retailers from already selling royalty-inspired teacups, baby clothes and sweets. The department store Harrods has been selling a cup and a plate with the gender-neutral message “The first baby of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge 2013.” One online retailer is selling a royal baby pacifier while another is promoting a purple velvet diaper cover by saying that it was “inspired by royalty” and that “pretty soon Kate and William will be sleep deprived, too.”

Krispy Kreme is selling doughnuts with white baby feet glazing, and Roberts Bakery, a British family-owned brand, created a special brioche for the occasion. The loaves, with a gold leaf crust and dried apricots, glazed cherries and pineapple inside, costs £30 each to produce, the company says, and will be given away to 50 winners of a contest once the baby is born.

Bookstores are also hoping for some royal help. “Shhh! Don’t Wake the Royal Baby,” by Martha Mumford, tells the story of a baby who just cannot fall asleep in the hustle and bustle of Buckingham Palace.

Benedetta Fullin, marketing manager at St. James’s Hotel in London, said the hotel’s special offer for royal baby showers has been “very popular, with about two baby showers thrown per week so far this month.” The offer includes a Ralph Lauren gift voucher and a spa treatment for mothers-to-be.

For £10,089 for three nights, new parents can stay in the nursery suite at Marriott’s Grosvenor House hotel in London. “Designed with a royal baby in mind,” the hotel says the package includes one evening of child minding and a “dedicated baby concierge” to deal with emergencies such as extra nappies.

But not everyone has been as excited about the arrival of the royal baby. About 82 percent of Britons don’t plan to celebrate the infant’s arrival in any way, according to a poll of more than 8,000 people by Kantar Retail. “We fear that projections of a robust boost to the retail sector arising from the birth might be wide of the mark,” Kantar said, adding that the amount of 2012 London Olympics merchandise that remained unsold “suggests that British shoppers might be suffering from event fatigue.”

Helen Dickinson, director general of the British Retail Consortium, said that even if consumers fail to flock in large numbers to buy baby merchandise, the royal baby - like the recent sunny weather here - might still help Britain’s economy by making consumers feel better. “The temporary lift in the general mood helps,” she said.



How the Royal Birth Will Be Announced

A video report from The Telegraph, explaining how the royal birth will be officially announced, featuring by Alastair Bruce OBE, an expert on the British monarchy who served as an adviser to the producers of “The King’s Speech” and “Downtown Abbey.”.

LONDON â€" Too sniffy, too hidebound, too fusty? Or just the right touch for the birth of a child destined one day to inherit the crown of one of the world’s most longest-surviving monarchies?

To some, Buckingham Palace’s decision to announce the royal birth with a framed proclamation mounted on a gold-trimmed wooden easel, planted at a conspicuous point inside the palace gates, will be seen as symptomatic of the stuffy protocols that have for too long bound Britain’s royal court.

For the first royal heir in direct line of descent to be been born in the 21st century, the palace chose a tradition that has been used to announce royal births and deaths since the 18th century.

The last time the easel was used was for the birth on June 21, 1982, in the same wing of St. Mary’s Hospital a mile and a half from the palace, of Prince William, first-born son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. William, of course, is the father of the new baby, and second in line to the throne after Charles. The newborn child now stands third in line, replacing William’s younger brother, Prince Harry. (Archival images of the easel in use three decades ago have gone into circulation on Twitter, including one used on the inevitable @RoyalEasel parody feed.)

In announcing plans to make the birth public with a formal letter on Buckingham Palace stationery, signed by the attending obstetricians and carried to the palace by a palace vehicle accompanied by police outriders, royal officials acknowledged that there were swifter and more efficient ways of breaking the news â€" and promised that they, too, would be used, but not for the drama of the initial proclamation.

In a briefing for reporters a month before the birth, they said the announcement in the palace forecourt would be followed, swiftly, by an “electronic press release” giving additional details about the birth, as well as by posts on the royal Twitter feed. “It is very important that it will not be announced first on Twitter, although it will be announced on Twitter in due course,” a royal spokesman said.

“We wanted to retain some of the theater of the notice,” he said. “It is quite important to us that this is done properly, and with the degree of dignity that the event demands. This is the birth of a child who will be in line to the throne. It is a rare occasion and nice to be able to do it with some historical precedence.”

Those who regard the easel’s use in the age of live television and the Internet as arcane may see it as a measure of how far the Windsors have fallen behind other European monarchies â€" “the bicycle monarchies,” as traditionalists in Britain have called them, after the cycle-to-work habits of the Dutch royal family â€" in adapting to a populist age.

Some, no doubt, will see the old-fashioned mode of announcement as inauspicious for an infant destined, in time, to carry the banner for the monarchy â€" perhaps for its very survival â€" against those who would like to abandon the thousand-year-old history of kings and queens and see it replaced by a republic with a non-hereditary head of state.

Others will accept that that the easel is an simple way of reaffirming royal tradition, serving the institution of majesty in much the same way, and at much lower cost, as other, more elaborate traditions that remain an essential part of royal pomp and ceremony â€" the gilded carriages, the ermine-trimmed robes, the trumpet fanfares, and much else besides.

In the term used by the palace spokesman, it is all part of the theater of monarchy its magic, to use the term favored by the 19th-century scholar Walter Bagehot, who wrote what many still regard as the seminal work on the subject. And monarchists would argue that many of the monarch’s “subjects” â€" still another archaism commonly used in Britain’s official lexicon â€" would miss it if the drive for modernization were ultimately to strip the theater and the magic away.



Wait for Royal Baby Lets a Nation Revel in Nostalgia

It is hard not to be struck by the frantic enthusiasm the monarchy still seems to inspire in 21st-century Britain.

Awaiting the birth of a child who will be third in line to the throne, commuters fill in know-your-royal-baby quizzes and shops sell “Born to Reign” onesies. The Museum of London has an exhibition called “A Royal Arrival,” displaying the embroidered infant skull cap once worn by Charles I and a nursing robe used by Queen Victoria.

This is a country where citizens are also known as “subjects,” where lawyers wear period-drama wigs in court and where by law, all swans, whales and sturgeons are the property of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

But more than three-quarters of her majesty’s subjects are quite happy to keep in place the system of inherited privilege and power that in turn keeps her in Buckingham Palace, a proportion that has remained pretty stable over the decades.

According to the polling company Ipsos Mori, support for abolishing the monarchy stood at 18 percent in 1969, 18 percent in 1993, 19 percent in 2002 and 18 percent in 2011. This, the pollsters say, is probably the most stable trend they have ever measured.

At a time of economic hardship and falling confidence in other institutions, from Parliament to the financial sector to the media, this popularity is remarkable. “The royals are unbelievably resilient, and you have to give them credit for it,” said Maya Jasanoff, history professor at Harvard University and an expert on the British Empire.

Despite all the quirky anachronisms, the House of Windsor seems to have modernized its image just enough to maintain the population’s loyalty, Ms. Jasanoff said. The turbulent 1990s that saw Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorce, Diana killed in a car crash with her lover and a brief slump in the queen’s popularity as the palace struggled to manage this news flow might ultimately have helped to turn the royal family into something more human, more modern and “more normal,” Ms. Jasanoff said.

At the same time the monarchy provides to a nation troubled by austerity and bouts of nostalgia for a more glamorous past a sense of continuity, she said. The queen, who was crowned in 1953, is the most visible living link Britons have to World War II, a part of history that remains a defining moment for modern British identity.

“In America we’ve made the Constitution our source of stability,” Ms. Jasanoff said. “The monarchy is a source of stability.”



Whether a Boy or a Girl, Third in Line to the Throne

Asked by a 10-year-old schoolgirl whether she wanted her great grandchild to be a boy or a girl, Queen Elizabeth II last week said that she would not mind either.

Video of Queen Elizabeth II responding to a question from a schoolgirl about the royal baby wait.

For the first time in the history of the British monarchy the issue of the baby’s sex is constitutionally irrelevant, too, at least in terms of succession.

The new royal infant will be third in line to the throne whether it is a boy or a girl, thanks to a recent legal change, ending hundreds of years during which male heirs had precedence over elder sisters, sometimes with notable historical consequences.

Tradition is at the heart of the British monarchy, which tends to embrace change only when it sees it as the best way to preserve the status quo.

So, while the idea of equality in the laws of succession has been debated for years, (with at least 11 recent failed efforts by individual lawmakers to press change) the issue gained little momentum until Prince William married in April 2011, raising the prospect of a new royal heir.

In October 2011, Britain agreed with the 15 other Commonwealth countries that also have the British monarch as head of state that women should have equal succession rights.

Last December, that turned into a more formal pledge to legislate that was announced around the time that the Duchess of Windsor’s pregnancy was made public. For the British, this task was not straightforward because male primogeniture, which gives younger brothers the right to become monarchs ahead of their elder sisters, was based on many pieces of common law not simply one act of Parliament.

Still, Britain has pushed the changes through as has Canada, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to the British government, which says that not all of the other nations need to legislate under their constitutional arrangements.

Britain’s change applies only to rights of succession to the British throne, not to hereditary peerages â€" inherited titles that sometimes come with estates â€" though there are plans for equality there, too. The legislation also removed a ban on the monarch marrying a Catholic, ending an embargo that did not apply to other faiths like Islam or Judaism.

At the same time, changes were made to a rule laid down by George II forcing all his descendants to seek the consent of the monarch before marrying. In line with Britain’s cautious approach to constitutional fiddling, that requirement has not been scrapped completely and will still apply to a number of the sovereign’s closest relatives.



Whether a Boy or a Girl, Third in Line to the Throne

Asked by a 10-year-old schoolgirl whether she wanted her great grandchild to be a boy or a girl, Queen Elizabeth II last week said that she would not mind either.

Video of Queen Elizabeth II responding to a question from a schoolgirl about the royal baby wait.

For the first time in the history of the British monarchy the issue of the baby’s sex is constitutionally irrelevant, too, at least in terms of succession.

The new royal infant will be third in line to the throne whether it is a boy or a girl, thanks to a recent legal change, ending hundreds of years during which male heirs had precedence over elder sisters, sometimes with notable historical consequences.

Tradition is at the heart of the British monarchy, which tends to embrace change only when it sees it as the best way to preserve the status quo.

So, while the idea of equality in the laws of succession has been debated for years, (with at least 11 recent failed efforts by individual lawmakers to press change) the issue gained little momentum until Prince William married in April 2011, raising the prospect of a new royal heir.

In October 2011, Britain agreed with the 15 other Commonwealth countries that also have the British monarch as head of state that women should have equal succession rights.

Last December, that turned into a more formal pledge to legislate that was announced around the time that the Duchess of Windsor’s pregnancy was made public. For the British, this task was not straightforward because male primogeniture, which gives younger brothers the right to become monarchs ahead of their elder sisters, was based on many pieces of common law not simply one act of Parliament.

Still, Britain has pushed the changes through as has Canada, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, according to the British government, which says that not all of the other nations need to legislate under their constitutional arrangements.

Britain’s change applies only to rights of succession to the British throne, not to hereditary peerages â€" inherited titles that sometimes come with estates â€" though there are plans for equality there, too. The legislation also removed a ban on the monarch marrying a Catholic, ending an embargo that did not apply to other faiths like Islam or Judaism.

At the same time, changes were made to a rule laid down by George II forcing all his descendants to seek the consent of the monarch before marrying. In line with Britain’s cautious approach to constitutional fiddling, that requirement has not been scrapped completely and will still apply to a number of the sovereign’s closest relatives.



Live Video of Royal Baby Watch in London

The Telegraph’s live video stream from outside St. Mary’s Hospital in London where Duchess of Cambridge was admitted early on Monday.

As our colleague Alan Cowell reports, the Duchess of Cambridge, the former Kate Middleton, entered St. Mary’s Hospital in London early on Monday to prepare for the birth of her first child and was “in the early stages of labor,” the royal family announced in a brief message.

As millions in Britain and around the world wait, impatiently, for more news, The Lede will have dispatches from reporters in London and news of the reaction online, where professional and amateur royal watchers have been engaged in the Internet’s version of nervous pacing in the hall for more than a week.

Several British news organizations, including The Telegraph, are broadcasting or streaming live video from outside the hospital, where cameras are trained on the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s in Paddington.



The Five Stages of the Royal Baby Wait

On royal-baby watch outside the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s hospital in central London, where journalists have dutifully waited for more than two weeks, one was tempted to think of the past two and a half weeks as the five stages of boredom: denial (“It might be born early?”), anger (“I wish this baby would hurry up!”), bargaining (there was plenty of betting in the hospital yard on anything from the baby’s gender to its name, likely godparents and birth weight), depression (“this is soul-destroying,” one photographer remarked darkly after yet another day without news) â€" and finally, going into Week 3, acceptance mixed with a good dose of British wit.

In recent days, a number of bright-colored stickers have gone up on the metal barriers fencing in the television cameras and photographers-in-waiting perched on aluminum ladders of varying heights: “Please don’t feed the photographers!” one hand-written orange sign read. Underneath a plastic clock on a concrete pillar inside the enclosure a pink sign proclaimed “The Great Kate Wait.” Some optimistic hacks even appeared to be preparing for life-after-the-royal-birth. “Post-partum-ladder sale,” a long pink sticker announced on the back part of the make-shift scaffolding. “All prices exclude VAT,” or value-added tax. Some ladders bore star-shaped price tags: “Only 4,300 pounds!” a particularly tall one said, and: “As seen on TV!”

One television presenter was seen knitting in between her regular stand-ups, while several sound engineers and camera operators read travel adventure books and mystery novels. For many photographers, used to traveling to war zones, this assignment was plainly “dull.” But as one remarked, he had gotten a tan in the unusual July heat and was getting to see his own children every night. Many agreed with Queen Elizabeth II, who said this week that she hoped the baby would arrive “soon” because she wanted to go on vacation.

A cousin of the queen, Margaret Rhodes, might have spoken for many here when she was asked in an interview with CNN last week whether she was excited about the impending royal birth. “Not really,” Ms. Rhodes answered. “Well, you know, everyone has babies, and it’s lovely but I don’t get wildly excited about it.”



Daily Report: A Mobile Facebook for Phones in the Developing World

MENLO PARK, Calif. â€" Facebook has been quietly working for more than two years on a project that is vital to expanding its base of 1.1 billion users: getting the social network onto the billions of cheap, simple “feature phones” that have largely disappeared in America and Europe but are still the norm in developing countries like India and Brazil, Vindu Goel reports in The New York Times.

Facebook soon plans to announce the first results of the initiative, which it calls Facebook for Every Phone. More than 100 million people, or roughly one out of eight of its mobile users worldwide, now regularly access the social network from more than 3,000 different models of feature phones, some costing as little as $20.

Many of those users, who rank among the world’s poorest people, pay little or nothing to download their Facebook news feeds and photos, with the data usage subsidized by phone carriers and manufacturers.

Facebook has only just begun to sell ads to these customers, so it makes no money from them yet. But the countries in which the phone software is doing the best â€" India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and Vietnam â€" are among the fastest-growing markets for use of the Internet and social networks, according to the research firm eMarketer.



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