Snowden says he will seek asylum in Russia(2)

Snowden told his visitors that he has no problem meeting that condition, said Tatyana Lokshina of Human Rights Watch, because he believes he has not caused any harm to the United States with his revelations.

It’s not clear the Kremlin would be in line with those semantics. “As far as we know, he has considered and continues to consider himself a human rights champion and a defender of the rule of law and democracy and that he did not plan to abandon these activities,” Peskov said at a briefing.

“He is a patriot of his country,” said Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of parliament from the ruling United Russia party and the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, who was the Soviet foreign minister under Joseph Stalin.

Nikonov said he thinks Snowden will have to remain at the airport while his request — which has yet to be filed — is considered. The meeting Friday was repeatedly interrupted by flight announcements, he said, and Snowden joked, “I’m used to that by now.”

Lokshina reported that Snowden feels safe at the airport, but it has become clear he “couldn’t stay indefinitely.” On her way to the meeting, she got a phone call from a U.S. diplomat who, she said, asked her to relay to Snowden that the United States does not consider him a whistleblower — a category that has a fairly precise legal definition.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki denied that human rights representatives had been asked to convey a message to Snowden. “At no point did .?.?. any official from the U.S. government ask anyone to convey a message to Mr. Snowden,” she said.

The State Department expressed “disappointment” that Russia allowed human rights activists into the airport transit zone “despite the government’s declaration of Russia’s neutrality.”

“Our concern here is that he’s been provided with this opportunity to speak in a propaganda platform .?.?. that Russia has played a role in facilitating this, that others have helped elevate it,” Psaki said.

Snowden, she said, is “not a whistleblower. He’s not a human rights activist. He’s wanted on a series of serious criminal charges brought in the Eastern District of Virginia in the United States.”

In the statement he read from at the meeting, Snowden attacked the “historically disproportionate aggression” of the United States in trying to prevent his access to asylum in Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicaragua, according to a transcript provided by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization that is helping him.

“I believe,” he said, after talking about his revelations, “in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: ‘Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.’?”

Snowden said he was formally accepting “all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future.” He cited, for example, Venezuela’s offer of asylum, but he said that “some governments” in Western Europe and North America were interfering with his “right to enjoy that asylum,” making it impossible for him to travel.

Several Latin American leaders have accused the United States of pressuring European countries to keep Snowden from reaching the region, including an incident in which Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane was apparently prevented from crossing the airspace of some European nations on suspicion that Snowden was hiding aboard.

Snowden’s visitors gathered at 4:30 p.m. in the arrivals hall of the airport’s Terminal F, a dingy, aging relic of the Soviet era. They were mobbed by television camera crews, starved of a glimpse of Snowden for the past 19 days. Then airport officials led them on a long march past tourists just in from Thailand, right by a restaurant called Franklin’s Roll & Burger displaying a large American flag, up one escalator and down another, until they reached the gleaming Terminal E.

Down to the ground floor, into a back area nearly empty except for a woman placidly embroidering, then along a long blank pale green wall, to a door marked “Staff Only.” The airport had set up a meeting room that allowed the visitors not to cross passport control, from their side, or Snowden from his. A hot, jostling mob of journalists waited while the meeting took place. Then they pounced when the visitors re-emerged.

Kathy Lally and Natasha Abbakumova in Moscow, and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

Justice Department To Review George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin Case

The Justice Department says it is looking into the shooting death of Trayvon Martin to determine whether federal prosecutors should file criminal civil rights charges now that George Zimmerman has been acquitted in the state case.

 

The department opened an investigation into Martin's death last year but stepped aside to allow the state prosecution to proceed.

In a statement Sunday, the Justice Department said the criminal section of the civil rights division, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office for the Middle District of Florida are continuing to evaluate the evidence generated during the federal probe, in addition to the evidence and testimony from the state trial.

The statement said that, in the government's words, "experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation."

Snowden says he will seek asylum in Russia(1)

The fugitive document-leaker Edward Snowden surfaced, even if behind closed doors, at Sheremetyevo International Airport on Friday afternoon, and in announcing to a group of visitors that he plans to seek asylum in Russia, he ensured that a problem neither Moscow nor Washington wants is not about to go away.

Snowden had hoped to go to Latin America, but as that prospect has come to appear more difficult, he is facing the more immediate challenge of getting out of the airport after nearly three weeks there. He told his guests that he sees Russian asylum as a short-term solution, in hopes that he can later make his way to Venezuela, Nicaragua or Bolivia, which have offered him asylum.

Russia has been ambivalent at best about his presence here, as an unwelcome complication in already strained relations with the United States. But by late evening, Russian authorities seemed to be making the best of a difficult situation, as a line of officials sought out the media and voiced their support for asylum.

If asylum is granted, the Obama administration would be forced to decide how to react without ruining relations with Moscow entirely.

Snowden told his guests, they reported afterward, that he likes Sheremetyevo Airport well enough, but that he can’t stay cooped up forever. Russian officials said it may take them two or three more weeks to decide.

Snowden has been out of public sight since he arrived here from Hong Kong on June 23, a step ahead of American efforts to have him sent back to the United States for revealing classified information about data collection programs run by the National Security Agency.

But Thursday night he sent e-mail invitations to a group of defense lawyers, pro-Kremlin politicians and human rights advocates to meet him the next day at the airport. There he read a statement critical of the United States and told them of his hopes for Russian asylum.

And in a comment that seemed to raise more questions than answers, he repeated claims that as an NSA contractor, he “had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time.”

The White House said in a statement Friday that President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone about Snowden’s status and “a range of security and bilateral issues.”

Until now, Russia has been eager not to prolong Snowden’s stay, though it has been unwilling to return him to the United States. Moscow’s relations with Washington are complicated enough, politicians here have said, without a professed whistleblower and fugitive from prosecution standing between them.

“I do not want a human fate to hinge on the relations between two countries,” said Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights commissioner and a participant in the meeting, “but at the same time it would be undesirable if relations between two countries hinged on one man’s will.”

The Kremlin insisted again that if he is to stay, Snowden must agree “to fully stop activities causing damage to our American partners and Russian-American relations,” in the words of Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.

Mexico tops Canada in Gold Cup, will play Martinique

Raul Jimenez scored off of a corner kick late in the first half, and Marco Fabian converted a penalty early in the second as Mexico bounced back from an opening-game loss to beat Canada 2-0 in a CONCACAF Gold Cup group-stage game Thursday night.

Mexico, which lost 2-1 to Panama last Sunday, climbed back into contention in heading into Sunday's Group A finale against Martinique in Denver. Those two teams are tied with 3 points each.

Panama, a 1-0 winner over Martinique in Thursday's first game at CenturyLink Field, leads the group with 6 points ahead of its Sunday game against Canada, which was eliminated.

Hong Kong Horse Bets Hit Record as Races Draw Young Punters

Horse racing bets in Hong Kong reached a record HK$93.8 billion ($12.1 billion) in the past season as the race organizers poured wine and hosted concerts to attract younger punters to its events.

Revenue in the 2012/13 season rose 9 percent from a year earlier, surpassing the previous record set in the 1996/97 season, Hong Kong Jockey Club said in a statement on its website. The 83 races drew over two million attendees, according to the statement.

The racing year was “one of the best seasons we’ve had, ever,” said Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, chief executive officer at the Jockey Club. The club’s strategy “helped to grow our base of racing fans significantly,” he said.

The Jockey Club added new restaurants, and hosted music and wine-tasting events to its Wednesday night races to attract a young professional crowd to a pastime that began after the British developed the race track at Happy Valley in 1841. The club is the city’s sole provider of horse racing, football betting and lotteries, and contributed HK$11 billion to Hong Kong’s tax revenue.

The club faces increasing competition and higher operating costs, according to the statement. Net profit margin was HK$4.09 billion, short of the HK$4.5 billion achieved in the 1999/2000 season as Internet betting poses a threat to its monopoly in the city.

The Jockey Club invested almost HK$3 billion in the past two to three years to upgrade facilities, Engelbrecht-Bresges said. That has helped lure younger crowds as four in every 10 attendees at the Wednesday night races are in their 20s and 30s, and six in 10 on theme party nights, according to its annual report.

Hong Kong’s economy expanded 2.8 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, or 4.1 percent if not adjusted for inflation. Visitors to the city increased 16 percent to 48.6 million last year, helping boost retail sales to a record HK$47 billion in December.

To attract the growing ranks of Chinese high rollers, the Jockey Club runs a clubhouse in Beijing, two kilometers from the Forbidden City.