We are both daughters of India, in a way: Priyanka Chopra Jonas to US VP Kamala Harris
Washington(PTI): US Vice President Kamala Harris and actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas have reflected on their Indian connections, marriage equality, and climate change, as they shared a stage during a leadership forum here.
Chopra Jonas, who is now settled in Los Angeles, was invited by the Democratic National Committee's Women's Leadership Forum last Friday to interview Harris for a fireside chat.
The actor kicked off the conversation with their Indian connection.
I think we're both daughters of India, in a way, Chopra Jonas told the room full of prominent Democrats invited to the conference from across the country.
You're a proud American-born daughter of an Indian mom and a Jamaican father. I am an Indian born of two physicians as parents and a recent immigrant to this country who totally still believes in the wholehearted...American Dream, she said.
Harris, 57, was born in Oakland California. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan migrated to the US from Tamil Nadu in India, while her father, Donald J Harris, moved to the US from Jamaica.
She is the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected US Vice President.
The US, Chopra Jonas said, s regarded as a beacon of hope, freedom, and choice for the whole world.
And these tenets are being endlessly assaulted right now, she said.
The actor, producer, and philanthropist said after working for over 20 years in films, it was only this year that she got paid equal to her male co-stars.
Chopra Jonas was most recently seen in Keanu Reeves-led "The Matrix Resurrections". She will next star in The Russo Brothers' series "Citadel" and "It's All Coming Back To Me", opposite Sam Heughan.
Chopra Jonas, 40, also touched upon the issue of marriage equality. She is married to American singer Nick Jonas, with whom she welcomed a baby girl in January 2022.
In her remarks, Harris acknowledged that right now they are living in an unsettled world.
I've been traveling around the world as Vice President. I've directly talked with 100 world leaders in person or by phone, she said, adding things that we long took for granted are now up for debate and question.
You look, for example, at Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine. We thought it was pretty well settled--the issue of territorial integrity and sovereignty -- and now that is up for some debate, given what's happening there, she noted.
Harris then quickly turned to issues in the US.
We look at our own country. We thought, surely with the Voting Rights Act and all that it stood for, we assumed and thought the issue of voting rights in America was settled, the US vice president added.
Then we had the Shelby v Holder decision. And then after the 2020 election, when more people voted and more young people voted than ever before, states around our country started systematically and intentionally making it more difficult for people to vote, Harris said.
The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to ensure state and local governments do not pass laws or policies that deny American citizens the equal right to vote based on race. On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court swept away a key provision of this landmark civil rights law in Shelby County v Holder.
We thought a woman's right--a constitutional right--to make decisions about her own body was settled. No longer, said Harris.
The US Supreme Court recently overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that had provided a constitutional right to abortion.
Agreeing with her, Chopra Jonas said, Absolutely. You're so right. There's so much to navigate right now.
The actor also touched upon the climate change issue as she acknowledged the relief efforts in hurricane-hit Florida.
Extreme weather conditions like this are becoming more frequent and more severe. And I wanted to acknowledge the administration for passing the biggest climate legislation in history earlier this year because it is a fact that America's leadership sets an example to other major economies around the world, which are truly dragging their feet when it comes to doing their bit, Chopra Jonas, the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, said.
The crisis is real, and the clock is ticking. And the urgency with which we must act is without any question, Harris responded, stressing adapting to extreme weather conditions.
On the point that you made about disparities, you know, back when I was the district attorney of San Francisco, I started one of the first environmental justice units of any District Attorney's office in the country focused on this issue, she said.
As you have described rightly, it is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making, Harris said.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
