Putin enjoying himself.......
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2013/07/snowden-drops-russia-asylum-bid-as-some.html
TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2013
Snowden Drops Russia Asylum Bid, As Some European Nations Insist He Apply on Their Soil
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Snowden must stop leaking the information harmful to the US before his government can consider asylum. (Huh?)
Germany, Norway, Austria, Poland, Finland and Switzerland say he must make his request on their soil, according to the latest from AP.
It looks like the Obama administration's bullying is working.
So, the list of 21 countries...becomes the list of 14 countries. That was quick.
the Republic of Austria,- the Plurinational State of Bolivia,
- the Federative Republic of Brazil,
- the People’s Republic of China,
- the Republic of Cuba,
the Republic of Finland,- the French Republic,
the Federal Republic of Germany,- the Republic of India,
- the Italian Republic,
- the Republic of Ireland,
- the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
- the Republic of Nicaragua,
the Kingdom of Norway,the Republic of Poland,the Russian Federation,- the Kingdom of Spain,
the Swiss Confederation,- the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,
- the Republic of Ecuador and
- the Republic of Iceland
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-01/edward-snowden-issues-statement-moscow
Edward Snowden Issues Statement From Moscow, Slams Obama
Via Wikileaks:
Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013
http://rt.com/news/russia-russian-asylum-snowden-493/
The Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) has refuted media reports which claim that NSA leaker Edward Snowden applied for political asylum in Russia.
The New York Times, citing “a Russian immigration source close to the matter," reported on Monday that former CIA employee Snowden asked Moscow for political asylum.
The unnamed source told the paper that a WikiLeaks activist traveling with Snowden handed his application to a Russian consulate in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.
Information in the foreign media which states that Snowden asked for asylum “is not true,” Zalina Kornilova, head of FMS press service, told RT.
The unnamed source told the paper that a WikiLeaks activist traveling with Snowden handed his application to a Russian consulate in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.
Information in the foreign media which states that Snowden asked for asylum “is not true,” Zalina Kornilova, head of FMS press service, told RT.
However, Kim Shevchenko, a consul at Sheremetyevo airport, said that Snowden did apply for asylum in Russia.
According to the official, [WikiLeaks activist] Sara Harrison - who introduced herself as Snowden’s proxy - handed him the NSA leaker’s application on Sunday evening. The diplomat said he took the envelope, contacted the Foreign Ministry, and gave the document to the Ministry’s courier.
“I can’t say what exactly was in the envelope, because I received it and did not look inside,” Shevchenko told RT. He added that he knows the file was the asylum bid based on what Harrison told him. “And I believe this is not something one would be joking about,” he observed.
This information has not been verified to RT by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Consulate employees are not entitled to make any comments on behalf of the ministry.
Earlier on Monday, Putin said that Snowden could only stay in Russia if he “stops his work aimed at damaging our American partners.” The president also observed that the whistleblower does not seem intent on putting an end to the leaks.
Russian security forces “would certainly consider Snowden’s application, should they receive it,” sources within the forces told Itar-Tass.
It would not be an obstacle that Snowden has not got a passport since the US annulled it and has no other ID: confirmation of his identity by a witness would be enough, the source said.
Under Russian law, a person can be granted political asylum if one’s life and health are in danger or if one’s rights and freedoms are violated.
The decision on the matter should be approved by the FMS, as well as the Federal Security Service, and Foreign and Internal ministries, the source explained. After that, the bid is considered by the presidential commission on citizenship and then sent to the head of state. The entire procedure may take up to several months. If a person is denied asylum, one can still remain in Russia under refugee status.
Snowden – who is wanted in the US on espionage charges after he revealed secret surveillance programs – has remained in a transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport for eight days now since he arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-01/snowden-reequests-russian-political-asylum
Snowden Requests Russian Political Asylum
While hardly coming as news to anyone who could have read the tea leaves as soon as Snowden boarded the plane from Hong Kong to Moscow, the flashing red headline that the NSA whistleblower has just applied to be Depardieu's neighbor, has just escalated the great US foreign policy snafu that started a month ago with the NSA spying revelations, and has since developed into a huge scandal involving Europe, Russia, China, Hong Kong, and virtually every other country (not to mention US citizens) that the US government is spying on.
- SNOWDEN ASKS FOR RUSSIAN POLITICAL ASYLUM: IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL
- SNOWDEN ASYLUM APPLICATION RECEIVED YESTERDAY: RUSSIAN OFFICIAL
And with Putin saying there is no chance he will return Snowden to the US, in response to Obama's demands, suddenly the balance of power shifts to Russia's favor (which by now it is almost certain, knows everything that Snowden does).
Ball is now in Putin's court. Just where he likes it.
http://rt.com/news/putin-snowden-asylum-extradite-489/The Interfax news agency says a Russian consular official has confirmed that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden asked for political asylum in Russia.Interfax cited Kim Shevchenko, the duty officer at the Russian Foreign Ministry's consular office in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, as saying that Snowden's representative, Sarah Harrison, handed over his request Sunday.Snowden has been caught in legal limbo in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23. The U.S. has annulled his passport, and Ecuador, where he has hoped to get asylum, has been coy about offering him shelter.Russia's President Vladimir Putin says Snowden will have to stop leaking U.S. secrets if he wants to get asylum in Russia, but adds that Snowden has no plan to quit doing so.
Putin: Snowden can stay in Russia if he stops damaging USA
Published time: July 01, 2013 15:03
Edited time: July 01, 2013 18:50
Edited time: July 01, 2013 18:50
President Vladimir Putin says NSA leaker Edward Snowden may stay in Russia, if he wants to, but only if he stops activities aimed against the United States.
“There is one condition if he wants to remain here: he must stop his work aimed at damaging our American partners. As odd as it may sound from me,” Putin told a media conference in Moscow.
In Putin’s opinion, Snowden considers himself “a fighter for human rights” and it seems unlikely that he is going to stop leaking American secret data.
However, Russia is not going to extradite Snowden, the president underlined.
“Russia has never extradited anyone and is not going to do so. Same as no one has ever been extradited to Russia,” Putin stated.
“Russia has never extradited anyone and is not going to do so. Same as no one has ever been extradited to Russia,” Putin stated.
“At best,” he noted, Russia exchanged its foreign intelligence employees detained abroad for “those who were detained, arrested and sentenced by a court in the Russian Federation.”
Snowden "is not a Russian agent", the president said, repeating that Russian intelligence services were not working with the fugitive American.
He said Snowden should choose his final destination and go there. Putin added that he has no idea when that is going to happen.
“If I knew, I would tell you now,” he told the media conference after the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries.
Putin and his US counterpart Barrack Obama instructed their nations’ security services – Russia’s FSB and America’s FBI respectively - to resolve the situation around the Snowden case, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council said earlier on Monday.
The former CIA employee Snowden, who is behind the biggest leak in the NSA, has been stuck in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for over a week now, after he arrived in the Russian capital from Hong Kong.
The US annulled the whistleblower’s American passport and he presently has no other documents with which he can travel.
The former CIA employee Snowden, who is behind the biggest leak in the NSA, has been stuck in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for over a week now, after he arrived in the Russian capital from Hong Kong.
The US annulled the whistleblower’s American passport and he presently has no other documents with which he can travel.
Putin suspects US spied on Russian embassies
Putin does not rule out that the US was bugging Russian diplomatic missions. The President was commenting on a scandal stirred up by new documents leaked by Snowden which revealed that the US was spying on dozens of foreign missions and embassies abroad.
“It’s none of our business that allies are eavesdropping on each other. Let them do what they want,” Putin stated.
He observed that there was nothing in the leaked data on attempts to bug official Russian representations.
“I don’t rule out that it’s possible,” Putin noted.
The US special services work on a global scale, but they also have “some kind of departmental interests.”
“Let our colleagues [special services] decide which of them is right and which is wrong and what should be done to stop it,” Putin concluded.
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