Venezuela Defends Snowden but Hedges on Offering Sanctuary

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By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, ANDREW ROTH and ELLEN BARRY
Published: July 2, 2013

MOSCOW — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela said Tuesday that he had not yet received an application for political asylum from Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who is on the run from the American authorities, and that he would not use his plane to ferry Mr. Snowden to Caracas ...

As an international oil and gas forum convened here on Monday, there had been speculation that President Vladimir V. Putin and Mr. Maduro would use the opportunity to negotiate terms for Mr. Snowden to leave the transit area at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where he arrived from Hong Kong nine days ago.

He had apparently intended to board a connecting flight headed for Latin America. In the interim, the United States announced that his American passport had been revoked, leaving him in a geopolitical limbo, stripped of any valid travel document and unable to leave the transit zone.

Russia enjoys warm ties with Venezuela, a major arms customer and energy partner, which sees the alliance as a way of countering the United States’ influence in Latin America ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/03/world/europe/snowden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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1. Kremlin: Snowden gives up on plan to stay in Russia

By Matt Smith and Jethro Mullen, CNN
updated 5:42 AM EDT, Tue July 2, 2013

CNN) -- Edward Snowden has abandoned his effort to seek asylum in Russia after President Vladimir Putin warned that he would have to stop leaking information about U.S. surveillance programs if he wanted to stay, a Russian official said Tuesday.

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said it had submitted asylum requests to 19 more countries for Snowden, the ex-National Security Agency computer contractor who has admitted providing secret documents on surveillance programs to reporters ...

"Snowden did voice a request to remain in Russia," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti. "Then, yesterday, hearing President Putin outline Russia's position regarding the conditions under which he could do this, he withdrew his request for permission to stay in Russia" ...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/politics/nsa-leak/index.html