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June 21 was the hottest day of the year in Hong Kong: a sweltering 34 degrees Celsius. But it was also a hot day for Edward Snowden, the leaker of U.S. secrets, hiding out in China's special administrative region. On that day in Washington, U.S. federal prosecutors officially brought charges against Snowden for unauthorized communication of classified and national defense information, both of which fell under the U.S. Espionage Act. On that day in Hong Kong, Snowden received a one-way ticket to Moscow on Aeroflot, Russia's state-controlled flag carrier. As Kommersant reported Monday, citing Russian sources, Snowden also celebrated his...

MOSCOW, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Russia has not received extradition request for fugitive U.S. intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden from the United States, the Justice Ministry said Thursday. The ministry did receive a letter from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder explaining some aspects of the U.S. position on the status of Snowden, the Interfax news agency quoted the ministry as saying in a statement. "This document did not contain requests for the extradition or deportation of this individual," the statement said. Russian business daily Kommersant reported earlier that Washington has sent an official document to Moscow requesting Snowden's extradition. U.S. ambassador...

The US is pressuring Russia to hand over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to face espionage charges. However, it routinely denies Russian requests to hand over suspected criminals living in America. “Law agencies asked the US on many occasions to extradite wanted criminals through Interpol channels, but those requests were neither met nor even responded to,” spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry Andrey Pilipchuk said on Monday. He named Ilyas Akhmadov and Tamaz Nalbandov as examples of people living in the US, who Russia unsuccessfully tried to get for prosecution. Akhmadov, a former officer in the Soviet Union’s Red Army, joined...

Members of the Russian Presidential Council for Human rights said that it would be justified if the US whistleblower Edward Snowden received political asylum in a country of his choice, including Russia. The head of Russia’s top official Human Rights Body, Mikhail Fedotov, told reporters on Wednesday that it would be just if some country grants Snowden political asylum. He added that the reports that the Venezuelan government was ready to look into such request were “raising good hope” and that it was his personal impression that the whistleblower “would get political asylum where he wants”. “He must be granted...

Edward Snowden is not booked to fly out of Moscow over the next three days, and with no valid passport, the NSA whistleblower might be stuck in airport limbo indefinitely. The hot pursuit of Snowden has ground to a halt four days after the former CIA technician, wanted in the US on espionage charges, flew into Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport from Hong Kong. Washington, which wants Snowden for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet telephone and Internet surveillance programs, charges that there is a clear legal basis for Moscow to hand him over. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who...

Not even a week ago, President Obama was at the Berlin Wall vowing to scale back the U.S. arsenal in good faith that Moscow would follow suit in “negotiated cuts.” Before that, Obama was meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Palm Springs for a bilateral sit-down that he confidently branded as a positive step forward in U.S.-China relations. Buoyed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s revelations of U.S. intelligence activities and after reportedly milking the hard drives of four laptops he carried into his Hong Kong hotel, the Chinese government defied a Washington extradition request and let Snowden leave the former...

MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russia said on Tuesday that Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee wanted by the US for leaking state secrets, had not crossed the Russian border. Snowden, who leaked details of a US surveillance program to newspapers in the US and UK earlier this month, was widely reported to have flown from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday, from where he was expected to fly to Ecuador, where he has reportedly requested asylum. “I want to say right away that we have nothing to do with Snowden, or with his attitude to the American legal...

President Vladimir Putin’s decision to allow Edward Snowden to land in Russia will have “serious consequences” for U.S.-Russian relations, Sen. Charles E. Schumer said Sunday. Mr. Schumer, New York Democrat, said on CNN that the Russian involvement in the Snowden case, coming as the former national security worker arrived in Moscow on Sunday from Hong Kong, was not the action of an ally. “The bottom line is very simple: Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria,...