Gay marriage decision time: Supreme Court rules on two major cases

Live coverage from SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court is expected to finally release its decisions in two highly anticipated same-sex marriage cases Wednesday morning, wading into the controversial issue of gay marriage for the first time in the court's history.

The justices could use the cases to issue a broad ruling guaranteeing the right to marriage to same-sex couples--or to shut down gay rights advocates' claims of wrongful exclusion from the institution of marriage altogether.

The nine justices waited until the final day of the term to release opinions in the two cases—Perry v. Hollingsworth and Windsor v.United States.

At 9:00 a.m., the experts at SCOTUSblog—SCOTUS stands forSupreme Court of the United States—will begin analyzing what the Court might do in the liveblog below, and when a decision is handed down, this liveblog will likely be the first place to break the news.

In the Perry case, the court is expected decide whether California voters discriminated against gay people when they voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2008. In Windsor, the court is weighing whether the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act—which limits all federal marriage benefits to opposite sex couples--violates the constitutional rights of same-sex couples. The justices could also dodge the issue in one or both cases, instead deciding them on technical or procedural grounds.

The Court will begin issuing opinions at 10 a.m. ET.

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Ecuador tells U.S. to send its position on Snowden in writing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ecuador said on Wednesday the United States must "submit its position" regarding Edward Snowden to the Ecuadorean government in writing as it considers the former U.S.spy agency contractor's request for asylum.

Ecuador, in a statement from its embassy in Washington, said it would review the request "responsibly."

"The legal basis for each individual case must be rigorously established, in accordance with our national Constitution and the applicable national and international legal framework. This legal process takes human rights obligations into consideration as well," the statement said.

"This current situation is not being provoked by Ecuador," the embassy said.

Snowden, 30, a former employee of the U.S. contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, appears to be still in hiding at a Moscow airport awaiting a ruling on his asylum request from the tiny South American nation's leftist government.

He fled to the Russian capital from Hong Kong on Sunday, evading a U.S. request that he be extradited to face charges that he stole and leaked details of secret U.S. government surveillance programs.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has not flinched in the past from taking on western powers.

His government is already embroiled in a dispute with Britain and the United States over its sheltering of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at its embassy in London.

In its statement on Wednesday, the embassy said it "strongly rejects" statements made by U.S. government officials that it said contained detrimental, untrue and unproductive claims about Ecuador. It did not elaborate on those statements.

Ecuador, the statement said, has signed human rights agreements and is committed to the rule of law and the fundamental principles of international law.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Susan Heavey; Editing by Vicki Allen)

As Gaza heads for water crisis, desalination seen key

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - A tiny wedge of land jammed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean sea, theGaza Strip is heading inexorably into a water crisis that the United Nations says could make the Palestinian enclave unliveable in just a few years.

With 90-95 percent of the territory's only aquifer contaminated by sewage, chemicals and seawater, neighborhood desalination facilities and their public taps are a lifesaver for some of Gaza's 1.6 million residents.

But these small-scale projects provide water for only about 20 percent of the population, forcing many more residents in the impoverished Gaza Strip to buy bottled water at a premium.

"There is a crisis. There is a serious deficit in the water resources in Gaza and there is a serious deterioration in the water quality," said Rebhi El Sheikh, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).

The Gaza Strip, governed by the Islamist group Hamas and in a permanent state of tension with Israel, is not the only place in the Middle East facing water woes.

A NASA study of satellite data released this year showed that between 2003 and 2009 the region lost 144 cubic km of stored freshwater - equivalent to the amount of water held in the Dead Sea - making an already bad situation much worse.

But the situation in Gaza is particularly acute, with the United Nations warning that its sole aquifer might be unusable by 2016, with the damage potentially irreversible by 2020.

Only five to 10 percent of the aquifer's water is presently deemed safe to drink, but even this can mix with poor quality water during distribution, making it good only for washing.

"The tap water from the municipality is not fit to drink, and my husband is a kidney patient," said Sahar Moussa, a mother of three, who lives in a cramped, ramshackle house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, near the Egyptian border.

She spends 45 shekels ($12.50) each month - a large sum for most Palestinians in the area - to buy filtered water that she stores in a 500-litre plastic tank.

Further complicating the issue is Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, which activists say has prevented the import of materials needed for repairs on water and waste facilities. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent arms from reaching Hamas, which is opposed to the existence of the Jewish state.

The United Nations estimates that more than 80 percent of Gazans buy their drinking water.

"Families are paying as much as a third of their household income on water," said June Kunugi, a special representative of the U.N. children's fund UNICEF.

SALT AND SEWAGE

With no streams or rivers to speak of, Gaza has historically relied almost exclusively on its coastal aquifer, which receives some 50-60 million cubic meters of refill each year thanks to rainfall and runoff from the Hebron hills to the east.

But the needs of Gaza's rapidly growing population, as well as those of the nearby Israeli farmers, means an estimated 160 million cubic meters of water is drawn from the compromised aquifer each year. As the levels sink, seawater seeps in from the nearby Mediterranean.

This saline pollution is made worse by untreated waste, with 90,000 cubic meters of raw sewage allowed to flow into the shallow sea waters each day from Gaza, according to U.N. data.

Even with the aquifer, regular running tap water is a luxury unknown to many Gazans. Locals across the territory say that during the summer months water might spurt out of their taps every other day, and the pressure is often so low that those living on upper floors might see just a trickle.

Many families have opted to drill private wells drawing from water deep underground.

Authorization is required but rigid restrictions means most households dig their wells in secret. Hired laborers erect large plastic sheets to try and hide their work from prying neighbors.

"As you can see, this is like a crime scene," said a 45-year-old father of six, who gave his name as Abu Mohammed.

A clothes merchant from Gaza city, he paid his clandestine, 7-strong crew 12,700 shekels ($3,513) to drill a well and came across water at a depth of 48 meters. "We begin the work after sunset and ... cover the sound of digging with music," he said.

A senior Israeli security official estimates that as many as 6,000 wells have been sunk in Gaza, many without authorization.

While Israel shares the polluted aquifer, which stretches all the way to Caeserea, about 60 km north of Tel Aviv, the problem is less acute than in Gaza which is downstream. In addition, Israel can access water from the Sea of Galilee and the mountain aquifer that also spans the West Bank.

POWER FAILURE

As Gaza borders the sea, the obvious answer is desalination.

Gaza already hosts 18 small plants, one treating seawater and the others water from brackish wells - most of them supplied by UNICEF and the OXFAM charity.

The Palestinian Water Authority has started work on two new seawater desalination plants and is planning to construct a third, larger facility, which is designed to produce 55 million cubic meters of water a year.

But with funding for the $450 million project still uncertain, construction is not due to start until 2017.

By that time, cash-strapped Gaza may not have enough electricity available to power the energy-intensive plants. The United Nations estimates that Gaza already needs an additional 100 megawatts of production capacity, even before the big water facility is built.

Israel is trying to drum up aid for the territory, the senior security official said, alarmed at the prospect of a looming water catastrophe and possible humanitarian crisis on its doorstep in a few years.

"We have talked to everyone we know in the international community because 1.4 million people will be without water in a few years," he said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

He said Israel, a leader in the desalination industry, was helping to train a handful of Gazans in the latest water technology, which the Palestinian Water Authority confirmed.

Sheikh called on international donors to help fund energy, water and sewage projects, warning of disaster if nothing happened.

"A small investment is needed to avoid a bigger one and it is a humanitarian issue that has nothing to do with politics or security," he said.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Crispian Balmer and Sonya Hepinstall)

Supreme Court strikes federal marriage provision

American University students Sharon Burk, left, and Molly Wagner participate in a rally for rights for gay couples in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, after the court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California by holding that defenders of California's gay marriage ban did not have the right to appeal lower court rulings striking down the ban. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Arriving at the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, on a final day for decisions in two gay marriage cases are plaintiffs in the California Proposition 8 case, from left, Paul Katami, his partner Jeff Zarrillo, and Sandy Stier and her partner Kris Perry. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — In significant but incomplete victories forgay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a provision of a federal law denying federal benefits to married gay couples and cleared the way for the resumption of same-sex marriage in California.

The justices issued two 5-4 rulings in their final session of the term. One decision wiped away part of a federal anti-gay marriage lawthat has kept legally married same-sex couples from receiving tax, health and pension benefits.

The other was a technical legal ruling that said nothing at all about same-sex marriage, but left in place a trial court's declaration that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. That outcome probably will allow state officials to order the resumption of same-sex weddings in the nation's most populous state in about a month.

The high court said nothing about the validity of gay marriage bans in California and roughly three dozen other states.

The outcome was not along ideological lines.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia.

"We have no authority to decide this case on the merits, and neither did the 9th Circuit," Roberts said, referring to the federal appeals court that also struck down Proposition 8.

In the case involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by the court's liberal justices.

"Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways," Kennedy said.

"DOMA's principal effect is to identify a subset of state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal," he said.

Some in the crowd outside the court hugged and others jumped up and down just after 10 a.m. EDT Wednesday when the DOMA decision was announced. Many people were on their cell phones monitoring Twitter, news sites and blogs for word of the decision. And there were cheers as runners came down the steps with the decision in hand and turned them over to reporters who quickly flipped through the decisions.

Chants of "Thank you" and "USA" came from the crowd as plaintiffs in the cases descended the court's marbled steps

Kennedy was joined by the court's four liberal justices.

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, and Scalia dissented.

Same-sex marriage has been adopted by 12 states and the District of Columbia. Another 18,000 couples were married in California during a brief period when same-sex unions were legal there.

Ecuador: Decision on Snowden could take months

MOSCOW (AP) — Ecuador could take months to decide whether to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowdenand would need to take into consideration its relations with the U.S. when doing so, an official from the Latin American country said Wednesday.

Speaking during a visit to Malaysia's main city, Kuala Lumpur, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino compared Snowden's case to that of Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy groupWikiLeaks, who has been given asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

"It took us two months to make a decision in the case of Assange, so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time," Patino told reporters.

Snowden, who is charged with violating American espionage laws, fled Hong Kong over the weekend and flew to Russia. He booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn't board the plane.

Russia acknowledged his arrival only on Tuesday, when President Vladimir Putin said Snowden was still in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovconfirmed that he remained there on Wednesday.

"He hasn't violated any of our laws, he hasn't crossed our border, he is in the transit zone of the airport and has the right to fly in any direction he wants," the state news agency ITAR-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying.

Asked if Ecuador would provide protection to Snowden while considering his request for asylum, Patino said through a translator that if Snowden "goes to the embassy, then we will make a decision."

Patino refused to say what criteria his government would use to decide, but added that it would "consider all these risks," including concerns that helping Snowden would hurt trade with the U.S. and damage Ecuador's economy.

WikiLeaks gave a terse update on Snowden's condition earlier on Wednesday, saying in a statement posted to Twitter that Snowden was "well."

WikiLeaks says that one of its staffers, Sarah Harrison, was traveling with Snowden, but the statement gave no indication if the update came from her, from Snowden, or from some other source.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson did not immediately return a call and a text seeking further comment.

In a conference with reporters on Monday, Assange said that he was limited in what he could say about Snowden due to security concerns. He denied reports that Snowden was spending his time at the airport being debriefed by Russian intelligence officers.

In another development in the Snowden story, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon said Wednesday that he had decided not to represent the leaker. A statement from his law firm provided no further explanation.

Garzon, who has fought on WikiLeaks' behalf, became famous for indicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 and trying to put him on trial for crimes against humanity. He was suspended from office in Spain for overstepping his powers by starting an investigation into killings committed on behalf of former Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.

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