US President Barack Obama used his speech at the UN General Assembly to demand the world take action on the crisis in Syria. Syria and renewed talks on Iran’s nuclear program are set to dominate the annual meeting.

President Obama defended his threat of force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime at the annual UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, saying Damascus must face consequences after the use of chemical weapons.

"There must be a strong Security Council resolution to verify that the Assad regime is keeping its commitments, and there must be consequences if they fail to do so," Obama said to the world leaders.

His remarks come as the US and Russia negotiate a UN Security Council resolution in connection with an agreement by Damascus to give up its chemical weapons.

The US-Russia brokered deal was struck following a push by Obama for a military strike on Syria.

Obama denounced critics who questioned whether Assad carried out the August 21 chemical attack outside Damascus, which the US says killed more than 1,400 people.

"It is an insult to human reason - and to the legitimacy of this institution - to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack," he said.

"Nevertheless, a leader who slaughtered his citizens and gassed children to death cannot regain the legitimacy to lead a badly fractured country," he said of Assad.

Obama cautioned, however, that military action would not achieve lasting peace and that any nation, including the US, should not determine who will lead Syria.

Renewed talks on Iran

Obama also used his time in front of the Assembly to welcome the new Iranian government's pursuit of what he called a "more moderate course," in relation to stalled negotiations over its nuclear program.

"The roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe the diplomatic path must be tested," Obama said.

On Monday, the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, announced that Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, would join talks with six key nations due to "energy and determination" shown by Tehran for fresh talks.

The foreign ministers of the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are set to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

The meeting between the six powers and Iran will be the first since April, when discussions on how to reduce fears that Tehran might use its nuclear technology to create weapons stalled at a meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The UN Security Council has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and sanctions from the US and its allies have had a crippling effect on Iran's economy.

Obama did not say whether he will meet with Iran's new moderate conservative President Hasan Rouhani. Even a handshake would mark the first such encounter between US and Iranian leaders in over 30 years.

Obama faces criticism over NSA

Despite the focus on Syria and Iran, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff used her opening speech at the General Assembly to criticize Obama and the US National Security Agency (NSA) over reports it had spied on Brazilian government communications.

She announced Brazil would adopt legislation and technology to protect it from illegal interception of communications.

Last week, Rousseff called off a high-profile state visit to Washington scheduled for October over the reports.

"Meddling in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and, as such, it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations," Rousseff said to the gathering of world leaders.

President Obama was en route to the UN during her speech and therefore not present.

hc/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)

• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism 
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-​secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-​operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-​secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

The documents show that:

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

• The agency already had pre-​encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;

• Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;

• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;

• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.

The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-​operation with the NSA to meet their customers’ privacy concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion.

In a statement, Microsoft said: “When we upgrade or update products we aren’t absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands.” The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data “only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers”.

In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have “direct access” through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans’ communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

Since Prism’s existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their systems.

Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to privacy with the slogan: “Your privacy is our priority.”

Similarly, Skype’s privacy policy states: “Skype is committed to respecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications content.”

But internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-​operation between the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing.

The latest documents come from the NSA’s Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described by Snowden as the “crown jewel” of the agency. It is responsible for all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships such as Prism.

The files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats on Microsoft’s Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the service in July last year.

Within five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats

A newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: “MS [Microsoft], working with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal” with the issue. “These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012.”

Two months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the Outlook.com portal.

Another newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-​encryption access to Outlook email. “For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption.”

Microsoft’s co-​operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013 describes how the company worked “for many months” with the FBI – which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley on Prism – to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud storage service SkyDrive.

The document describes how this access “means that analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO for this – a process step that many analysts may not have known about”.

The NSA explained that “this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response”. It continued: “This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established.”

A separate entry identified another area for collaboration. “The FBI Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email aliases, which may affect our tasking processes.”

The NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million global users.

One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. “The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete ‘picture’,” it says.

Eight months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in February 2011.

According to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general.

The NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and collection began on 6 February. “Feedback indicated that a collected Skype call was very clear and the metadata looked complete,” the document stated, praising the co-​operation between NSA teams and the FBI. “Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful addition of another provider to the Prism system.”

ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. “In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps,” he said. “It’s hard to square Microsoft’s secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-​profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google.”

The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies.

The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that “enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism”.

The document continues: “The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…” As a result, the author notes: “these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!”

In its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said:

We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes.

Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren’t valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate.

Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That’s why we’ve argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.

In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said:

The articles describe court-​ordered surveillance – and a US company’s efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy.

They added: “In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate.”

–

• This article was amended on 11 July 2013 to reflect information from Microsoft that it did not make any changes to Skype to allow Prism collection on or around July 2012.

Seine Enthüllungen seien wichtig für Deutschland - deshalb soll Edward Snowden eine Aufenthaltserlaubnis bekommen. Das fordern die grünen Spitzenkandidaten Katrin Göring-Eckardt und Jürgen Trittin in einem Brief an Kanzlerin Angela Merkel, der SPIEGEL ONLINE vorliegt.

Berlin - Der Druck auf die Bundesregierung, sich für den Aufenthalt vonEdward Snowden in Deutschland einzusetzen, wächst: In einem Brief an Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel fordern die grünen Spitzenkandidaten Katrin Göring-Eckardt und Jürgen Trittin, dass der NSA-Enthüller in der Bundesrepublik Zuflucht findet.
Snowden befindet sich zur Zeit im Transitbereich eines Moskauer Flughafens. Washington fordert nach den bahnbrechenden Enthüllungen über die Spionagetätigkeiten der NSA und ähnliche Aktivitäten britischer Nachrichtendienste seine Auslieferung. Ein Asylangebot Russlands hat Snowden zurückgewiesen, inzwischen ersucht er auch in Deutschland Aufenthalt.

Mit "Schutz für Edward Snowden" ist der Brief von Göring-Eckardt und Trittin überschrieben, der SPIEGEL ONLINE vorliegt. "Wir appellieren an Sie, Edward Snowden eine Aufenthaltserlaubnis nach §22 des Aufenthaltsgesetzes zu erteilen", schreiben sie. Die Bundesregierung könnte auf Basis dieses Paragrafen die Aufnahme Snowdens in Deutschland genehmigen.

Die Begründung der Grünen-Politiker: "Edward Snowden hat Deutschland einen Dienst erwiesen, indem er Praktiken enthüllt hat, die gegen elementare Grundrechte verstoßen und einen schweren Vertrauensbruch zwischen Verbündeten darstellen." Deutschland habe ein eigenes Interesse daran, "dass Herr Snowden unmittelbar über die gegen unser Land gerichtete Praxis der USA und Großbritanniens berichten kann", heißt es weiter.

Deshalb sei eine Aufnahme Snowdens in Deutschland zwingend. "Es bestehen, wie dargelegt, 'dringende humanitäre Gründe', und das 'politische Interesse der Bundesrepublik Deutschland' gebietet eine entsprechende Aufnahmeerklärung", schreiben die Grünen-Politiker.

Von einer Auslieferung an die USA sollte die Bundesregierung für diesen Fall absehen, heißt es in dem Brief an Merkel: "Sie sind angesichts des politischen Charakters der Taten, die Herrn Snowden vorgeworfen werden, mehr als berechtigt, ein Auslieferungsverfahren abzulehnen."

Quelle: Der Spiegel

Putin: Snowden 'must stop leaking US secrets ' to stay in Russia

(CNN) -- European officials reacted with fury Sunday after a report that the U.S. National Security Agency spied on EU offices.

The European Union warned that if the report is accurate, it will have tremendous repercussions.

"I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations," European Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a statement. "If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with regard to these allegations."

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger "said if the accusations were true it was reminiscent of the Cold War," ministry spokesman Anders Mertzlufft said, adding that the minister "has asked for an immediate explanation from the United States."

The German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that "the U.S. placed bugs in the EU representation in Washington and infiltrated its computer network. Cyberattacks were also perpetrated against Brussels in New York and Washington."

The information came from secret documents obtained by Edward Snowden, which the paper "has in part seen," according to the report. "A 'top secret' 2010 document describes how the secret service attacked the EU's diplomatic representation in Washington."

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said he had not seen the report and "would not comment on unauthorized disclosures of intelligence programs. The intelligence community would be the most appropriate to do that."

Rhodes added that "those are some of our closest intelligence partners, so it's worth noting that the Europeans work very closely with us. We have very close intelligence relationships with them."

U.S. intelligence officials have not responded immediately to the report.

European Union spokeswoman Marlene Holzner, in a e-mail to CNN, said, "We have immediately been in contact with the U.S. authorities in Washington DC and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports. They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."

Snowden, who has acknowledged leaking classified documents, is in Russia and seeking asylum in Ecuador.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden asked Ecuador "to please reject" the request for asylum, according to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, "The sooner he selects his final destination point, the better both for us and for himself."

A top Russian lawmaker said Sunday that Russia must not hand Snowden over to the United States.

"It's not a matter of Snowden's usefulness to Russia, it's a matter of principle," Alexei Pushkov -- who heads the international affairs committee at the Duma, the lower house of parliament -- said on Twitter.

"He is a political refugee and handing him over is morally unacceptable," he said.

"I witnessed the abuse regularly. However I was told it was not a problem. "

The whistleblower Edward Snowden is fleeing from America and leaving a trail of revelations. He is the victim of a global hunt, that remembers at  a thriller of the Cold War mixed with the technology of the 21st Century.

Intellettuali, accademici, ex funzionari, leakers, attivisti e artisti, tra cui Noam Chomsky e Oliver Stone, chiedono al presidente dell'Ecuador, Rafael Correa, di concedere asilo a Edward Snowden.

"Le rivelazioni di Snowden  hanno mostrato in che misura allarmante il governo degli Stati Uniti spia i propri cittadini e le persone di tutto il mondo", comincia la lettera firmata anche da Daniel Ellsberg, John Cusack, Naomi Klein, Danny Glover e John Pilger.

"Invece di concentrarsi sul pericolo per la libertà e la privacy dei cittadini, che queste rivelazioni portano alla luce e le riforme che sarebbero necessarie per tutelare i diritti dei cittadini, l'amministrazione Obama, il Congresso degli Stati Uniti e molti media concentrano la loro rabbia sul messaggero, il filtro coraggioso che, con grande rischio personale, ha deciso di farsi avanti e di informare il pubblico americano su ciò che viene fatto in loro nome e quello che fanno per loro ", si legge nella lettera che è aperta a più imprese .

I firmatari sostengono che l'amministrazione Obama "ha processato più il doppio degli infiltrati, sotto l'Espionage Act, rispetto  ai presidenti precedenti insieme." Si evidenzia  a tal proposito il caso di Bradley Manning , il soldato che è attualmente sotto processo per aver fornito a Wikileaks centinaia di migliaia di file del Dipartimento di Stato americano .

"Molti di noi hanno chiesto l'anno scorso di concedere l'asilo politico a Julian Assange, fondatore di Wikileaks," scrivono a Correa, cosa che in effetti accadde a Assange  poco più di un anno fa,  presso l'Ambasciata dell'Ecuador a Londra.

"Il trattamento di Manning dal suo arresto dimostra che Snowden potrebbe essere soggetto a qualcosa di crudele e inusuale, se fosse sotto custodia degli Stati Uniti. C'è il grande pericolo che Snowden non possa ricevere un equo processo negli Stati Uniti, un elemento citato nella sua richiesta di asilo. Il caso di Manning mostra anche che, il diritto costituzionale di Snowden di ricevere un processo 'veloce', non può essere garantito ", continua la lettera.

I firmatari concludono: "Non ci sono prove che le sue rivelazioni abbiano rappresentato una minaccia per la sicurezza nazionale degli Stati Uniti, o che quella sia stata la sua intenzione. Tuttavia, invece di promuovere riforme atte a tutelare i diritti delle persone negli Stati Uniti e in tutto il mondo, la nuova amministrazione Obama cerca di mettere a tacere coloro che portano questi abusi alla luce. Questi sono atti di repressione politica. Sarebbe pertanto corretto concedere il diritto di asilo politico ".

MOSCOW (AP) — Yes, he's at a Moscow airport, and no, you can't have him.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the first official acknowledgment of the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Tuesday and promptly rejected U.S. pleas to turn him over.
Snowden, who is charged with violating American espionage laws, fled Hong Kong over the weekend, touching off a global guessing game over where he went and frustrating U.S. efforts to bring him to justice.
Putin said Snowden is in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport and has not passed through Russian immigration, meaning he technically is not in Russia and thus is free to travel wherever he wants.
After arriving Sunday on a flight from Hong Kong, Snowden registered for a Havana-bound flight Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn't board the plane.
Speculation has been rife that Russian security services have been talking to Snowden and might want to keep him in Russia for a more thorough debriefing, but Putin denied that.
"Our special services never worked with Mr. Snowden and aren't working with him today," Putin said at a news conference during a visit to Finland.
Because Moscow has no extradition agreement with Washington, it cannot meet the U.S. request, he said.
"Mr. Snowden is a free man, and the sooner he chooses his final destination the better it is for us and for him," Putin said. "I hope it will not affect the businesslike character of our relations with the U.S. and I hope that our partners will understand that."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that the U.S. wants Russia to show respect for the rule of law and comply with common practices when it comes to fugitives from justice.
Putin's staunch refusal to consider deportation shows his readiness to further challenge Washington at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are already strained over Syria and other issues, including a Russian ban on adoptions by Americans.
"Just showing America that we don't care about our relations, we are down to basically a Cold War pattern: The enemy of your government is our friend," said Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center.
"The Russian administration has not come that far, but we don't know what it's up to," she said.
Despite Putin's denial, security experts believe Russia's special services wouldn't miss the chance to question a man who is believed to hold reams of classified U.S. documents and could shed light on how the U.S. intelligence agencies collect information.
Igor Korotchenko, director of the Center for Global Arms Trade and editor of National Defense Magazine, said Snowden would be of particular interest because little is known about digital espionage.
"The security services would be happy to enter into contact with Mr. Snowden," Korotchenko said.
Russia also has relished using Snowden's revelations to turn the tables on the U.S. over its criticism of Russia's rights record.
Putin compared Snowden to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been given asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, saying that both men were labeled criminals but consider themselves rights activists and champions of freedom of information.
"Ask yourself a question: Should people like that be extradited so that they put them in prison?" he said. "In any case, I would prefer not to deal with such issues. It's like shearing a piglet: a lot of squealing and little wool."
In an apparent reference to claims that Russia could have played a role in Snowden's exit from Hong Kong, Putin said his arrival in Moscow was a "complete surprise" and dismissed such accusations as "ravings and sheer nonsense."
"He doesn't need a visa or any other documents, and as a transit passenger he has the right to buy a ticket and fly wherever he wants," Putin said.
Snowden, 30, is a former CIA employee who later was hired as a contractor for the NSA. In that job, he gained access to documents that he gave to newspapers the Guardian and The Washington Post to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.
Snowden also told the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." He is believed to have more than 200 additional sensitive documents in laptops he is carrying.
Russian news media had reported that Snowden remained in a transit zone at the airport, which is separate from regular departure areas. He has not been seen by any of the journalists who have been roaming Sheremetyevo in search of him, furthering speculation that he had been secreted away.
The Interfax news agency, citing an unidentified airport official, said Snowden could be staying in a room in the transit zone normally reserved for flight crews and other personnel.
Legally, an arriving air passenger only crosses the border after clearing Russian immigration checks.
Earlier Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected the U.S. push to turn over Snowden, but he wouldn't specify his whereabouts, saying only that he hadn't crossed the Russian border.
Kerry called for "calm and reasonableness."
"We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is a fugitive from justice," Kerry said at a news conference in Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. has revoked Snowden's passport.
A representative of WikiLeaks has been traveling with Snowden, and the secret-spilling organization is believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum. Assange, the group's founder, said Monday that Snowden was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.
A high-ranking Ecuadorean official told The Associated Press that Russia and Ecuador were discussing where Snowden could go, saying the process could take days. He also said Ecuador's ambassador to Moscow had not seen or spoken to Snowden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
The Kremlin has previously said Russia would be ready to consider Snowden's request for asylum.
Some observers said Snowden's revelations have provided the Kremlin with propaganda arguments to counter the U.S. criticism of Russia's crackdown on opposition and civil activists under Putin.
"They would use Snowden to demonstrate that the U.S. government doesn't sympathize with the ideals of freedom of information, conceals key information from the public and stands ready to open criminal proceedings against those who oppose it," Konstantin Remchukov, the editor of independent daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Putin has accused the U.S. State Department of instigating protests in Moscow against his re-election for a third term in March and has taken an anti-American posture that plays well with his core support base of industrial workers and state employees.
____

Huuhtanen reported from Naantali, Finland. Associated Press writers Lynn Berry in Moscow and Michael Weissenstein and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this story.

By Thomas Grove and Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - China and Russia rejected U.S. accusations they helped a former U.S. spy agency contractor escape prosecution in the United States, deepening a rift between powers whose cooperation may be essential in settling global conflicts including the Syrian war.

Despite public outrage, however, there was a sense Moscow andWashington sought to limit damage over Edward Snowden, whose flight from justice has embarrassed President Barack Obama. After tough U.S. statements a day earlier, Secretary of State John Kerryurged "calm and reasonableness" on Tuesday.

Snowden, charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, left Hong Kong for Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday. The U.S. State Department said diplomats and Justice Department officials were talking to Russia, suggesting they sought a deal to secure his return to face espionage charges.

An airport source said the 30-year-old American, who has asked for asylum in Ecuador, had flown in on Sunday and had been booked on a flight to Cuba on Monday but had not got on board.

Journalists camped out at the airport have not spotted him inside, or leaving, the transit area, and say a heavy security presence has been relaxed for the past 24 hours. He has not registered at a hotel in the transit zone, hotel sources say.

A receptionist at the Capsule Hotel "Air Express", a complex of 47 basic rooms furnished predominantly with grey carpets and grey walls, said Snowden had turned up on Sunday, looked at the price list and then left.

U.S. officials admonished Beijing and Moscow on Monday for allowing Snowden to escape their clutches but the United States' partners on the U.N. Security Council, already at odds with Washington over the conflict in Syria, hit back indignantly.

"The United States' criticism of China's central government is baseless. China absolutely cannot accept it," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing, also dismissing U.S. criticism of Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, for letting Snowden leave.

FSB INTEREST?

In the first comment on the affair by a senior Russian officials since Snowden arrived, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied suggestions Moscow had helped Snowden in any way, including by allowing him to fly into Sheremetyevo.

"He chose his itinerary on his own. We learnt about it ... from the media. He has not crossed the Russian border," he said. "We consider the attempts to accuse the Russian side of violating U.S. laws, and practically of involvement in a plot, to be absolutely groundless and unacceptable."

There is growing speculation in the Russian media that Snowden may be talking to the FSB security service, a successor of the Soviet-era KGB, and could be involved in a prisoner swap.

"Lavrov always chooses his words carefully," said a Russian security source. "From his statement you can deduce the following: that he (Snowden) is either outside Russia or still in the transit zone. He is a tasty morsel for any, any secret service, also for ours."

Deputy parliamentary speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky has proposed Snowden be exchanged for Viktor Bout, a Russian jailed in the United States for drug trafficking, requests for whose extradition have been ignored.

Fallout from a protracted wrangle over Snowden could be far-reaching, as Russia, the United States and China hold veto powers at the U.N. Security Council and their broad agreement could be vital to any settlement in Syria.

International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Tuesday he was pessimistic an international conference on Syria could take place in July as hoped and urged Russia and the United States to help contain a conflict which has killed almost 100,000 people.

Kerry said there was no cause to raise tensions over "something that is frankly basic and normal as this."

"It is accurate there is not an extradition treaty between Russia and the United states, but there are standards of behavior between sovereign nations," he said, in Jeddah.

Lavrov's insistence Snowden had not entered Russia implies he has not left the airport transit area, used by passengers flying from one non-Russian airport to another without going through passport control or requiring an entry visa.

The transit area is Russian sovereign territory, but it could be argued that in staying there Snowden had not formally entered the country - a move that could implicate President Vladimir Putin in helping a fugitive. Russia appears, at least for the moment, reluctant to take such a step.

REFUGEE DOCUMENT

Interfax news agency quoted a source "in the Russian capital" as saying Snowden could be detained to check the validity of his passport if he crossed the Russian border.

Snowden is travelling on a refugee document of passage provided by Ecuador, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said.

Snowden, whose exposure of the surveillance raised questions about civil liberties in the United States, flew to Moscow after being allowed to leave Hong Kong even though Washington had asked the Chinese territory to detain him.

Snowden, until recently a contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency, had been expected to fly to Havana from Moscow on Monday and eventually go on to Ecuador, according to sources at the Russian airline Aeroflot.

There is no direct flight from Moscow to Quito, which has said it was considering Snowden's asylum request. The Quito government has been sheltering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at its London embassy for the past year.

U.S. officials said intelligence agencies were concerned they did not know how much sensitive material Snowden had and that he may have taken more documents than initially estimated which could get into the hands of foreign intelligence.

(Additional reporting Gabriela Baczynska and Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Alexandra Valencia in Quito, Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Katya Golubkova in Havana, Writing by Elizabeth Piper and Timothy Heritage, editing by Ralph Boulton)

MOSCOW (AP) — A plane took off from Moscow Monday headed for Cuba, but the seat booked by National Security Agency leakerEdward Snowden was empty, and there was no sign of him elsewhere on board.

An Aeroflot representative who wouldn't give her name told TheAssociated Press that Snowden wasn't on flight SU150 to Havana. AP reporters on the flight couldn't see him.

The Interfax news agency also quoted an unidentified Russian security source in Moscow as saying that Snowden wasn't on the plane.

The airline said earlier Snowden registered for the flight using hisU.S. passport, which American officials say has been annulled.

Snowden arrived in Moscow on Sunday from Hong Kong, where he had been hiding for several weeks to evade U.S. justice. Ecuador is considering Snowden's asylum application.

After spending a night in Moscow's airport, the former National Security Agency contractor — and admitted leaker of state secrets — had been expected to fly to Cuba and Venezuela en route to possible asylum in Ecuador.

Snowden, also a former CIA technician, fled Hong Kong to dodge U.S. efforts to extradite him on espionage charges. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government had received an asylum request, adding Monday that the decision "has to do with freedom of expression and with the security of citizens around the world." The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks also said it would help Snowden.

Ecuador has rejected the United States' previous efforts at cooperation, and has been helpingWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange avoid prosecution by allowing him to stay at its embassy in London.

Snowden gave documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, often sweeping up information on American citizens. Officials have the ability to collect phone and Internet information broadly but need a warrant to examine specific cases where they believe terrorism is involved.

Snowden had been in hiding for several weeks in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a high degree of autonomy from mainland China. The United States formally sought Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong to face espionage charges but was rebuffed; Hong Kong officials said the U.S. request did not fully comply with their laws.

The Justice Department rejected that claim, saying its request met all of the requirements of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Hong Kong. During conversations last week, including a phone call Wednesday between Attorney General Eric Holder and Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen, Hong Kong officials never raised any issues regarding sufficiency of the U.S. request, a Justice representative said.

The United States was in touch through diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries that Snowden could travel through or to, reminding them that Snowden is wanted on criminal charges and reiterating Washington's position that Snowden should only be permitted to travel back to the U.S., a State Department official said. Snowden's U.S. passport has been revoked.

U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said, "Given our intensified cooperation after the Boston marathon bombings and our history of working with Russia on law enforcement matters — including returning numerous high-level criminals back to Russia at the request of the Russian government — we expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged."

Still, the United States is likely to have problems interrupting Snowden's passage. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, but does with Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even with an extradition agreement though, any country could give Snowden a political exemption.

The likelihood that any of these countries would stop Snowden from traveling on to Ecuador seemed remote. While diplomatic tensions have thawed in recent years, Cuba and the United States are hardly allies after a half-century of distrust. Another country that could see Snowden pass through, Venezuela, could prove difficult, as well. Former President Hugo Chavez was a sworn enemy of the United States and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, earlier this year called President Barack Obama "grand chief of devils." The two countries do not exchange ambassadors.

Snowden's options aren't numerous, said Assange's lawyer, Michael Ratner.

"You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."

It also wasn't clear Snowden was finished disclosing highly classified information.

Snowden has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

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Associated Press White House Correspondent Julie Pace and Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Matthew Lee and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, Lynn Berry in Moscow, Kevin Chan in Hong Kong and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

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Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

As the international manhunt for Edward Snowden continues to unfold like a social-media-fueled spy novel—ping-ponging from Hong Kong to Moscow and, perhaps soon, Havana, Caracas and Quito—angry U.S. officials in Washington appeared on the Sunday morning talk-show circuit to talk about the accused National Security Agency leaker-turned-asylum-seeking fugitive.

“I believe he hurt our nation," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on "Fox News Sunday." "He compromised our national security program. The freedom trail is not exactly China-Russia-Cuba-Venezuela, so I hope we’ll chase him to the ends of the Earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there’ll be consequences if they harbor this guy.”
“If they want to be part of the world community," Graham added, "want a good relationship with the United States, they should hold this fellow and send him back home for justice."
According to Russian news agencies, Snowden landed in Moscow on a flight from Hong Kong, where he was met by officials from the Ecuadoran embassy. Snowden, who is reportedly staying at an airport hotel, is said to be en route to Ecuador via Cuba and Venezuela.

WikiLeaks, which has been assisting Snowden since he blew the whistle on NSA's surveillance program, said that the former government contractor is "being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from WikiLeaks." Ricardo Patiño Aroca, Ecuador's foreign minister, confirmed on Twitter that the government theree had indeed "received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden."

“Mr. Snowden is delusional,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee said. “If he thinks that he’s going to find a country with a better human rights record in Moscow or in Havana or in Caracas, and I think he’s in for a rude awakening if that’s what he’s got in mind.”

"Every one of those nations is hostile to the United States," Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on NBC's "Meet The Press." "When you think about what he says he wants and what his actions are, it defies logic."
The Obama administration, Rogers said, "should use every legal avenue we have to bring him back to the United States."

And if Snowden "really believes he did something good," Rogers added, "he should get on a plane, come back, and face the consequences of his actions."

"If he cozies up to either the Russian government, the Chinese government, or any of these governments that are perceived still as enemies of ours," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said on CNN, "I think that that will be a real problem for him in history."
On CNN's "State of the Union," New York Sen. Charles Schumer placed some of the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Putin always seems almost eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States—whether it is Syria, Iran and now of course with Snowden," Schumer said. "Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways."
New York Rep. Peter King agreed, suggesting the United States put diplomatic sanctions on Putin. "We need to keep the pressure on Russia," King said. "We can't let this happen."
“I think it is important for the American people to realize that this guy is a traitor, a defector," King said earlier on Fox News. “He’s not a hero."
On CBS' "Face The Nation," California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said, "I think we need to know exactly what he has. He could have a lot, lot more that may really put people in jeopardy."
On ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander said Snowden's leak had done “irreversible and significant damage.”

“It’s clearly an individual who has betrayed the trust and confidence we had in him,” Alexander said. “This is an individual who is not acting, in my opinion, with noble intent.”

Source: The Ticket

Wikileaks ha pedido al exjuez de la Audiencia Nacional Baltasar Garzón que, al igual que hizo con Julian Assange, se encargue de coordinar al equipo de abogados de Edward Snowden, el exanalista de la CIA que denunció el espionaje masivo de EEUU y Reino Unido y al que están ayudando. Según fuentes de ese equipo consultadas por EL PAÍS, el exmagistrado aún no ha aceptado el encargo, a la espera de hablar con Snowden y conocer bien el caso.

Un comunicado de Wikileaks da por hecho que Garzón se incorpora, citando palabras del exmagistrado. "El equipo de Wikileaks y yo estamos interesados", asegura el actual director legal de la organización y abogado de Julian Assange, "en preservar sus derechos y protegerle como persona. Lo que se le ha hecho al exanalista de la CIA y a Julian Assange -por realizar o facilitar revelaciones de interés público- es un asalto al pueblo".

El fundador de Wikileaks solicitó a Garzón que coordinara su defensa en julio del pasado año y este aceptó tras reunirse con él en la embajada de Ecuador en Londres, donde lleva un año recluido, el pasado 19 de julio. El exjuez asumió la tarea pro bono. "Creo en su inocencia y en su causa. Para mí es evidente que la petición desde Suecia [le reclaman por denuncias de violación y abusos sexuales] es la excusa para juzgarle en EE UU por revelar informaciones que afectan a las instituciones norteamericanas en un proceso similar a los que se están produciendo desgraciadamente en el área de terrorismo. La fiabilidad de ese juicio es nula. Assange no tendría un juicio justo en EE UU porque no sería un juicio por hechos delictivos reales, sino una pura represalia política por las informaciones que dio. Si no le conceden el asilo, pediremos en los tribunales internacionales que se garanticen sus derechos", declaró en una entrevista a El País el 5 de agosto del año pasado.

Por su parte, el ex magistrado ha llevado al Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos una demanda contra la sentencia del Tribunal Supremo que le inhabilitó durante 11 años por las escuchas del caso Gürtel.

Fuente: elpais.com