Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations

Reports in Der Spiegel that US agencies bugged European council building 'reminiscent of cold war', says German minister

guardian.co.uk, Ian Traynor in Brussels, Louise Osborne in Berlin and Jamie Doward, Sunday 30 June 2013

The Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home of the EU council – and subject
 to a US survellance programme, according to documents seen by Der Spiegel.
Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian

The prospects for a new trade pact between the US and the European Union worth hundreds of billions have suffered a severe setback following allegations that Washington bugged key EU offices and intercepted phonecalls and emails from top officials.

The latest reports of NSA snooping on Europe – and on Germany in particular – went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and organised criminals.

The German publication Der Spiegel reported that it had seen documents and slides from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden indicating that US agencies bugged the offices of the EU in Washington and at the United Nations in New York. They are also accused of directing an operation from Nato headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email networks at the EU's Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, the venue for EU summits and home of the European council.

Without citing sources, the magazine reported that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls apparently targeting the remote maintenance system in the building that were traced to NSA offices within the Nato compound in Brussels.

The impact of the Der Spiegel allegations may be felt more keenly in Germany than in Brussels. The magazine said Germany was the foremost target for the US surveillance programmes, categorising Washington's key European ally alongside China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia in the intensity of the electronic snooping.

Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, called for an explanation from the US authorities. "If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war," she was quoted as saying in the German newspaper Bild. "It is beyond imagination that our friends in the US view Europeans as the enemy."

France later also asked the US authorities for an explanation. France's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said: "These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable.

"We expect the American authorities to answer the legitimate concerns raised by these press revelations as quickly as possible.".

Washington and Brussels are scheduled to open ambitious free trade talks next week following years of arduous preparation. Senior officials in Brussels are worried that the talks would be overshadowed by the latest disclosures of US spying on its closest allies.

"Obviously we will need to see what is the impact on the trade talks," said a senior official in Brussels. A second senior official said the allegations would cause a furore in the European parliament and could then hamper relations with the US.

Robert Madelin, one of Britain's most senior officials in the European commission, tweeted that EU trade negotiators always operated on the assumption that their communications were listened to.

A spokesman for the European commission said: "We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington 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."

There were calls from MEPs for Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council – who has his office in the building allegedly targeted by the US – and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, to urgently appear before the chamber to explain what steps they were taking in response to the growing body of evidence of US and British electronic surveillance of Europe through the Prism and Tempora operations.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and leader of the liberals in the European parliament, said: "This is absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped immediately. The American data collection mania has achieved another quality by spying on EU officials and their meetings. Our trust is at stake."

Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, told Der Spiegel: "If these reports are true, it's disgusting." Asselborn called for guarantees from the very highest level of the US government that the snooping and spying is immediately halted.

Martin Schulz, the head of the European parliament, said: "I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices. 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 US authorities with regard to these allegations."

There were also calls for John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to make a detour to Brussels on his way from his current trip to the Middle East, to explain US activities.

"We need to get clarifications and transparency at the highest level," said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP. "Kerry should come to Brussels on his way back from the Middle East. This is essential for the transatlantic alliance. The US can only lead by example, and should uphold the freedoms it claims to protect against attacks from the outside. Instead we see erosion of freedoms, checks and balances, from within."

Within senior circles in Brussels, however, it has long been assumed that the Americans were listening to or seeking to monitor EU electronic traffic.

"There's a certain schadenfreude here that we're important enough to be spied on," said one of the officials. "This was bound to come out one day. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of our member states were not doing the same to the Americans."

The documents suggesting the clandestine bugging operations were from September 2010, Der Spiegel said.

A former senior official in Brussels maintained that EU phone and computer systems were almost totally secure but that no system could be immune to persistent high-quality penetration operations.

"I have always assumed that anyone with a decent agency was listening, hacking if they could be bothered," he said. "It doesn't bother me much. Sometimes it's a form of communication."

Der Spiegel quoted the Snowden documents as revealing that the US taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany a month. "We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we do it too," Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.

On an average day, the NSA monitored about 20m German phone connections and 10m internet datasets, rising to 60m phone connections on busy days, the report said.

Officials in Brussels said this reflected Germany's weight in the EU and probably also entailed elements of industrial and trade espionage. "The Americans are more interested in what governments think than the European commission. And they make take the view that Germany determines European policy," said one of the senior officials.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green party MEP and a specialist in data protection, told the Guardian the revelations were outrageous. "It's not about political answers now, but rule of law, fundamental constitutional principles and rights of European citizens," he said.

"We now need a debate on surveillance measures as a whole looking at underlying technical agreements. I think what we can do as European politicians now is to protect the rights of citizens and their rights to control their own personal data."

Talking about the NSA's classification of Germany as a "third-class" partner, Albrecht said it was not helping to build the trust of Germans or other Europeans. "It is destroying trust and to rebuild that, [the US] will need to take real action on legislation," he said.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that at least six European member states have shared personal communications data with the NSA, according to declassified US intelligence reports and EU parliamentary documents.

The documents, seen by the Observer, show that – in addition to the UK – Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy have all had formal agreements to provide communications data to the US. They state that the EU countries have had "second and third party status" under decades-old signal intelligence (Sigint) agreements that compel them to hand over data which, in later years, experts believe, has come to include mobile phone and internet data.

Under the international intelligence agreements, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is defined as 'first party' while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy 'second party' trusted relationships. Countries such as Germany and France have 'third party', or less trusted, relationships.

The data-sharing was set out under a 1955 UK-USA agreement that provided a legal framework for intelligence-sharing that has continued.

It stipulates: "In accordance with these arrangements, each party will continue to make available to the other, continuously, and without request, all raw traffic, COMINT (communications intelligence) end-product and technical material acquired or produced, and all pertinent information concerning its activities, priorities and facilities."

The agreement goes on to explain how it can be extended to incorporate similar agreements with third party countries, providing both the UK and the US agree.

Under the third party data-sharing agreements each country was given a codename. Denmark was known as Dynamo while Germany was referred to as Richter. The agreements were of strategic importance to the NSA during the cold war.

However, Simon Davies, an intelligence expert and project director at the London School of Economics who writes the Privacy Surgeon blog, suggested the NSA's role had been given a sharper focus following amendments to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa).

In an interview published in full last night on Davies' blog, former NSA director General Michael Hayden said: "The changes made to Fisa in 2008 were far more dramatic – far more far-reaching than anything President Bush authorised me to do."

Davies told the Observer that confirmation of the secret agreements showed there was a need for the EU to investigate.

"It's clear that the European parliament must intervene at this point through a public inquiry," Davies said. "MEPs should put the interests of their citizens above party politics and create meaningful reforms."

The covert data-sharing relationship between leading European countries and the US was first outlined in a 2001 report by the European parliament.

The report stated: "Germany and the United Kingdom are called upon to make the authorisation of further communications interception operations by US intelligence services on their territory conditional on their compliance with the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights)."

One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire,

which according to a 2007 document is 'implanted on the Cryptofax

at the EU embassy, DC'. Photograph: Guardian

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NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data, secret files reveal

Matthew’s Message - June 11, 2013 - (Matthew channelled by Suzanne Ward)

“.. This is an appropriate place to address questions that many readers have asked: How can US President Obama defend the National Security Agency’s collection of data from citizens’ private telephone conversations and Internet records? Why did he sign the Monsanto Protection Act? Congressional actions are public knowledge, but what goes on behind closed doors is not known, and we shall tell you what is relevant to these two situations.

President Obama defended NSA’s data gathering, which was authorized in the Patriot Act passed during George W. Bush’s administration, on the authentic basis that it has led to discovering and thwarting numerous terrorist plans. What the president cannot say—and Bush never would—is that the most extensive terrorist acts that met failure and most of the lesser plots that also got shot down were those devised by the CIA faction under Illuminati control.

Neither can Obama disclose that ETs are working in the NSA and other agencies in that country and in several others. They are collecting and analyzing information on all Illuminati activities around the globe and using it to weaken their operations and obtain evidence for prosecution. When this has served its purpose—bringing to its final moment the Illuminati reign—the Patriot Act and also Homeland Security will come to an end.

As for the Monsanto Protection Act, Illuminati spokespersons told the president that if he vetoed it, Congress would override it. Furthermore, they would intensify their efforts to overturn the Affordable Healthcare Act, block legislation that could relieve some immigration issues, and doom attempts to resolve international conflicts by rational discussions instead of belligerent confrontation.

That is the “down-to-Earth” reason, you could say, that Obama signed the bill, but there is another facet of this that the Illuminati bloc doesn’t know. Despite their threats, the president was not going to sign the Act—he did so because ETs close to him advised it. Their higher perspective was that citizens’ outrage at this insidious bill needs to motivate them to force its nullification. The people must exercise their right and responsibility to demand that their elected officials end stubborn partisanship, stop letting lobbyists’ money dictate their votes on legislation, and start serving the best interests of the country.

By no means does this apply only to the United States! Governments in every country must start serving the needs of their people because this goes to the very heart of Earth’s Golden Age and soul evolvement! ..”

Brazil congressman Natan Donadon jailed for corruption

BBC News, 28 June 2013

Related Stories

• Brazil Senate passes corruption law
• Brazil protesters win concessions
• Brazilians protest near stadium

Natan Donadon was financial director
of the Rondonia State Assembly

A Brazilian congressman sentenced to 13 years in jail for corruption has given himself up after two days on the run.

Natan Donadon is the first serving congressman to be jailed in Brazil since military rule came to an end in the 1980s.

Mr Donadon was convicted three years ago of siphoning off nearly $4m (£2.6m) from the State Assembly in Rondonia, in Brazil's Amazon region.

The Supreme Court threw out an appeal on Wednesday and ordered his arrest.

"For the first time in Brazilian history a congressman is arrested after losing a final appeal," said analyst Ricardo Roqueti from the Max Weber Centre in the capital, Brasilia.

"Other politicians were detained before, but either they were released later or they were struck off before serving a sentence," said Mr Roqueti.

Congress has begun proceedings to expel Mr Donadon, who on Thursday was thrown out of his centrist PMDB party, which is part of the governing coalition,

Mr Donadon gave himself up to federal police agents at a bus stop in Brasilia and has now been taken to the Papuda penitentiary.

His brother, Marcos Donadon, a politician in the Rondonia State Assembly, has been convicted of the same crime.

He was arrested on Wednesday at an airport in Rondonia, reportedly as he attempted to escape to neighbouring Bolivia.

'Heinous crime'

The Brazilian Congress has become a focal
point for anti-corruption protests

Earlier this week, Brazil's Senate approved a proposal that introduces tougher punishment for corruption.

According to the proposed bill, which needs to approved by the lower house of Congress, corruption would become a "heinous crime" and those found guilty of it would not be eligible for parole or amnesty.

Public anger against corruption and impunity has prompted millions of Brazilians to take to the streets in the past month.

The protests began in the city of Sao Paulo when local authorities put up transport fares by 10%.

But the demands for the fare hikes to be revoked turned into a nationwide movement, which turned violent in several cities.

Protesters have been demanding better public health care, transport and state education.

Many complain about the high costs of preparations for next year's football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Huge protests are due to take place on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro, where the Brazilian football team face Spain in the final of the Confederations Cup - a dress rehearsal for the 2014 World Cup.

Defiant Ecuador drops US trade deal over Snowden case

Google – AFP, Alexander Martinez (AFP), 27 June 2013

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa (R) talks to Communications Minister

Fernando Alvarado in Quito, June 22, 2012 (AFP/File, Rodrigo Buendia)

QUITO — A defiant Ecuador dropped out of a trade pact with the United States on Thursday, claiming it had become an instrument of "blackmail" as Quito considers asylum for fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

The leftist government also offered the United States $23 million in "economic aid" for "human rights training" to prevent attacks on people's privacy, torture and extrajudicial executions.

"Ecuador unilaterally and irrevocably renounces these preferential customs tariff rights," Communications Minister Fernando Alvarado said, reading a government statement.

"Ecuador does not accept pressure or threats from anyone, and does not trade on principles or make them contingent on commercial interests, even if those interests are important," he said.

The government of leftist President Rafael Correa said that while it had received the preferential rights in exchange for its cooperation in the war on drugs, they had become a "new instrument of blackmail."

The preferential trade program, which covers key Ecuadoran exports such as fresh-cut roses, fruits , vegetables and tuna, was set to expire on July 31 unless the US Congress renewed it.

The arrangement, which dates back to the early 1990s, originally benefited four Andean nations, and Ecuador was the last country still participating in it. But analysts have warned that Washington may refuse to renew it if Quito grants asylum to Snowden.

The United States is Ecuador's main trade partner, buying 40 percent of the Andean nation's exports, or the equivalent of $9 billion per year.

The 30-year-old Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who embarrassed the government of US President Barack Obama by revealing details of vast Internet and phone surveillance programs, has requested asylum from Ecuador.

Ecuador has said it could take as little as one day or as long as two months to decide whether to grant asylum to Snowden, who remained Thursday in the transit area of a Moscow airport after fleeing Hong Kong.

Snowden's exit from Moscow appears complicated, as the United States has revoked his passport and a senior Ecuadoran foreign ministry official denied claims by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks that Quito had given him a travel document.

An online publication of the Ecuadoran presidency said Washington has put "explicit and implicit" pressure on Quito over Snowden's asylum petition as well as its decision to shelter WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at its London embassy and its ties with "nations considered 'enemies' of the United States."

The official publication, El Ciudadano, added that the US embassy has urged Ecuador to hand over Snowden if he sets foot in the Andean nation.

Political Issues Minister Betty Tola meanwhile warned that prosecuting Snowden "could contravene" a regional human rights pact that the United States has not ratified.

Related Articles:

Biden and Correa discuss Snowden

Fugitive Snowden in Moscow, seeks Ecuador asylum

Brazil president proposes referendum on reform

Yahoo – AFP, June 25, 2013

Brazil president proposes referendum on reform

BRASILIA (AFP) - President Dilma Rousseff proposed a referendum on political reform, scrambling to defuse unprecedented social unrest in Brazil that sparked two weeks of nationwide street protests.

She also offered to earmark $25 billion for public transport in response to protesters' exasperation with substandard public services and inadequate mass transit systems in the world's seventh largest economy.

The proposals from Rousseff come after demonstrations that have rattled her leftist government, bringing 1.2 million people into the streets on Thursday alone to demand a better quality of life.

Late Monday, street demonstrations persisted with about 10,000 taking to the streets of Porto Alegre in the south and another 2,000 protesting in Rio de Janeiro. Demonstrators in seven smaller cities like Teresina led to scuffles with authorities.

Following crisis talks with protest leaders, and then state governors and city mayors, Rousseff earlier suggested a referendum on the establishment of a constituent assembly tasked with crafting political reform.

"My government is hearing the democratic voices of the streets which are demanding change," she said.

The protests in Brazil initially focused on a hike in transport fares before mushrooming to encompass a variety of gripes including criticism of the huge cost of staging the 2014 World Cup and demands for an end to corruption.

The wave of demonstrations coincides with the Confederations Cup tournament being held in six Brazilian host cities as a dry run for next year's World Cup. Brazil has spent $15 billion to stage the two events.

Rousseff called for 50 billion reais ($25 billion) to be allocated in new investments "to improve public transport in our country," with the construction of metro systems the priority.

Buses are, however, the most common means of transport used by the country's 194 million people, while rising prosperity means an ever increasing number of private cars clog the streets of most major cities, creating traffic chaos.

Rousseff also stressed the need for fiscal responsibility and for boosting investments in health and education as demanded by the throngs who have taken to the streets over the past two weeks.

She has called for the use of oil royalties to boost education and proposing the recruitment of foreign doctors to bolster health services.

After the talks, representatives of the Free Pass Movement (MPL) -- which successfully forced authorities in several cities to cancel the fare hikes -- said they were open to dialogue but vowed to carry on with protests.

In a brief but noisy protest in Rio, Brazilian dentists were to the fore.

Bearing banners reading "public health should not be a business," a dozen members of the Dentists Take Action group explained their purchasing power was shrinking fast.

"Brazilian people don't like to march like this but power is now starting to come into the hands of the people," one of the group, Cristina Pinho, told AFP.

"It's like John Lennon said - 'power to the people'," she yelled, pointing to two Beatles badges on her coat.

A referendum in Brazil can only be called by Congress, where Rousseff's ruling Workers Party (PT) lacks an absolute majority and governs with a coalition of parties.

Education Minister Aloizio Mercadante told reporters that Congress would decide on a referendum date. Lawmakers are also to work out details of the proposed reform.

The last constituent assembly in Brazil was convened in 1986 in the wake of the 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

A poll by the Ibope institute released on Sunday showed that 46 percent of those who took to the streets had done so for the first time.

However, despite criticism of the high cost of the World Cup, 67 percent said they approved of Brazil hosting a tournament it has won five times, Ibope said.

FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke insisted Monday that football's world governing body had "never received any official offer" from any country to stand in as Cup hosts, amid the unrest and as Brazil races to get ready.

Meanwhile, two women who had taken part in a small protest in the central town of Cristalina died Monday after being run over by a motorist who ran through a blockade.

That brought to four the death toll in the protests, which began on June 11 in Sao Paulo. Unrest spread quickly and the vast country was engulfed in protest.

Since protests reached a high point on Thursday, they have generally been smaller and calmer. Calls for a general strike next Monday were circulating on social media networks.

Related Articles:

Brazil Senate toughens punishments for corruption - New

Brazil Congress rejects controversial amendment

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff touts reform referendum

For Rousseff, tough questions on protesters' demands abound


"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. …”

For Rousseff, tough questions on protesters' demands abound

Deutsche Welle, 24 June 2013

The world has turned its gaze to Brazil for several reasons this month. The Confederations Cup, a prelude to next year's World Cup, is underway. But protesters seeking divergent goals continue to take to the streets.

Locals, visitors, the government and teams alike were expecting to celebrate a football extravaganza here. Instead, President Dilma Rousseff has rolled up her sleeves and gotten to work during the Confederations Cup, which runs through June 30 and serves as a dress rehearsal for next year's World Cup.

While the players are hitting the fields, Brazil's president is sitting down with governors and officials from the country's major cities to take stock of the demonstrators' demands.

Glittering stadiums, grimy schools

Regardless of what emerges from the talks, it seems the president will be unhappy with the result. The protests that have rocked Brazil for more than a week have delivered a shock to the political class, Rousseff included.

Despite the sweeping economic boom in Brazil in recent years that has lifted millions out of poverty and into the middle class as well as establishing the country as a serious player on the international stage, other things have visibly been neglected. Few seem to have considered investing the newfound wealth in education or healthcare. That's why Brazil's major cities now feature dazzling temples to soccer that stand just a small distance from run-down primary schools.

While stadiums were being erected, many Brazilians were dying due to a lack of adequate health care. What's at stake is more than just inattentiveness to these problems. For many protesters hitting the streets, corruption is the other huge issue they want to see addressed.

Protestors are calling for Rousseff to
improve services and fight corruption

The new middle class

"O gigante acordou," meaning "The giant has awakened," is a rallying cry for many protesters, who include students, secretaries, teachers and corporate leaders in places like Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza.

Notably absent are politicians and parties. When flag-waving members of Rousseff's ruling Worker's Party sought to join in on a march, they were shouted down with boos and whistles. It's clear that many Brazilians are frustrated with the political establishment, viewing it as interchangeable with corruption and economic weaseling.

The protest movement's demands do not fit neatly into a single ideology. One could say they represent the calls of a new middle class that wants to see its rights secured and that wants to know what is happening to the tax money it is paying.

Words instead of deeds

Dilma Rousseff, a former left-wing guerilla fighter, has promised to listen to the protesters' message. She has made a point of addressing the nation in a benevolent and compassionate tone, signaling acceptance of the movement while making suggestions and announcing talks. Thanks to her high level of approval in Brazil, that alone may have been enough in the past to appease the country. But now it seems that beautiful speeches are no longer enough.

Hasty promises to draft a national plan for reforming public transportation, improve administration and bring foreign doctors to Brazil have not been enough to calm the demonstrators.

"What's that supposed to do?" said one frustrated doctor in Rio de Janeiro. "We don't need people from abroad. There are enough doctors here. They just don't have enough opportunities to help people."

"It's good that she spoke," said one student in Sao Paulo after a televised speech from the president. "But she doesn't really have anything to say."

One observer said Rousseff's
address was full of empty words

Looking for a breakthrough?

But Rousseff maintains that dialogue is the best strategy. Her problem is finding the right person to talk to. The protesters have very little organization and no political leader. And the movement's demands are so divergent and often so defined by local issues that they cannot be discussed at a single negotiation table in Brasilia, the country's capital.

The influential daily "Folha de Sao Paulo" urged the president to seek a major success in a highly sensitive area, like in education - a tall order, indeed. Doing so will take money, and suddenly financing seems rather scarce. The economy is no longer growing at a blistering rate, but inflation is rising. Some experts are beginning to whisper that the big boom has now subsided. And Brazil's finance minister has signaled that the country's coffers are no longer quite so full.

It is no wonder, then, that Brazil's president is not exactly in the mood for partying at the Confederations Cup. She has a clear dilemma on her hands.

Fugitive Snowden in Moscow, seeks Ecuador asylum

Yahoo – AFP, Anna Smolchenko and Anna Malpas (AFP), 23 June 2013

A woman walks past a banner displayed in support of former US spy

Edward Snowden in Hong Kong on June 18, 2013.

Former US spy Edward Snowden arrived Sunday in Russia, requesting asylum in Ecuador to escape the US legal authorities after leaking sensational details of cyber-espionage by Washington.

Snowden, the target of a US arrest warrant issued Friday after he blew the lid on massive secret surveillance programmes, arrived in Moscow on a direct flight from Hong Kong and was expected to head to South America via Cuba.

The Hong Kong government said earlier it had "no legal basis" to prevent Snowden leaving because the US government had failed to provide enough information to justify its provisional arrest warrant for the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor.

Snowden, 30, landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on a scheduled Aeroflot flight at 5:05 pm (1305 GMT), an AFP correspondent at the airport said.

He did not emerge into the main terminal area where crowds of journalists quizzed his jet-lagged and bewildered fellow passengers if they had seen the fugitive ex-agent on the flight.

Airport officials said Snowden in fact never crossed the border and would spend the night in the Vozdushny Express "capsule hotel" inside the departures area ahead of his next flight.

Russian media reports cited sources within Aeroflot as saying he would fly onwards to Cuba on Monday. The SU 150 flight to Havana leaves at 1005 GMT.

Reports initially said he would then fly to the Venezuelan capital Caracas but Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said he had requested Quito for asylum, indicating he would head there.

Ecuadurian Foreign Minister Ricardo

Patino (R) and Wikileaks founder Julian 

Assange (L) appear at the window of the

 Ecuadorian embassy in central London

 on June 16, 2013

Ecuador has been sheltering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is wanted by Sweden, at its London embassy for the past year. The website said it had help organise Snowden's safe exit.

--- 'Transit passenger Snowden' ---

A source at Sheremetyevo told Interfax that "transit passenger" Snowden was still at the airport. "His next flight is to Cuba, he is on the territory of the airport complex where he has to be."

"He would not be able to leave the airport even in a diplomatic car -- he has neither a standard nor a diplomatic visa," the official added.

AFP correspondents also said they saw a diplomatic car at VIP arrivals with the flag of Ecuador. The Ecuadorean ambassador to Moscow was reportedly at the airport to meet Snowden.

WikiLeaks claimed credit for helping to arrange asylum for the man behind one of the most significant security breaches in US history.

"Mr Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by US and UK intelligence agencies, has left Hong Kong legally," WikiLeaks said in a statement.

On its Twitter feed WikiLeaks said Snowden "is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks."

"Mr Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed," it added.

Former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, legal director of Wikileaks, condemned the pursuit of Assange and Snowden was an "assault against the people".

Wikileaks confirmed that Snowden was accompanied by a British citizen named Sarah Harrison, whom it described as a "journalist, and legal researcher" working with the WikiLeaks legal team.

--- 'No legal basis to stop him leaving' ---

Snowden's latest interview on Sunday contained new revelations about US cyber-espionage against Chinese targets, drawing a stinging response from China's official news agency Xinhua which branded Washington an espionage "villain".

In the latest revelations in the South China Morning Post, Snowden said the NSA was hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to gather data from millions of text messages.

He said US spies have also hacked the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing -- home to one of six "network backbones" that route all of mainland China's Internet traffic -- and the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which operates one of the Asia-Pacific region's largest fibre-optic networks.

Snowden abandoned his high-paying job in Hawaii and went to Hong Kong on May 20 to begin issuing a series of leaks on NSA eavesdropping of phones and computer systems, triggering concern from governments around the world.

US President Barack Obama's administration, which on Friday unveiled charges including theft and espionage against Snowden, has insisted on the legality of the vast surveillance programme and said it has foiled a number of extremist plots.

White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon had said on Saturday that the charges presented a "good case" for Hong Kong to extradite him and that "we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case".

But the government of Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) under Chinese rule that has maintained its own British-derived legal system, said it had informed Washington of Snowden's exit after determining that the documents provided by the US government did not fully comply with Hong Kong legal requirements.

"As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong," it said in a statement.

The charges against him include theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information, and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorised person.

The Snowden files (AFP Graphic)

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Helicopter crash kills Nicaragua air force chiefs

BBC News, 21 June 2013

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• Nicaragua profile

Key members of Nicaragua's air force, including the chief of staff, are among 10 people killed in a helicopter crash.

The helicopter was returning from a military base in the north-west when it came down near a lake west of the capital Managua. The cause is unknown.

Air force Chief of Staff Colonel Manuel Lopez was killed in the crash, the Nicaraguan army said.

The air defence chief and the head of air force counter-intelligence were also among the dead, the army said.

The soldiers had reportedly been at a training session in the north-west town of La Paz Centro and were returning to the capital when the crash happened.

Army officials said an investigation was under way.

Neymar counter-attacks in word and deed

Google – AFP, Yann Bernal (AFP), 20 june 2013

Brazil's forward Neymar celebrates after scoring against Mexico at the

Castelao Stadium in Fortaleza, on June 19, 2013 (AFP/File, Yuri Cortez)

FORTALEZA, Brazil — Targeted by protesters as a symbol of football's disconnection from reality, Brazil superstar Neymar went on the counter-attack by chiding the government and then sinking Mexico on the pitch in the Confederations Cup.

Lauded ever since his debut as a teenager for Santos, the Brazilian club made famous by his illustrious predecessor, Pele, the prodigious attacker has long been accustomed to being the centre of attention.

Typically, it is praise from male football supporters and howls from his female fan club, nicknamed the 'Neymarzetes', that he attracts.

When he has received criticism, it has tended to focus on the gulf between his dazzling displays for Santos and his rather more prosaic performances for Brazil. But on Wednesday, the critics moved the goal-posts.

The mass protests that have rolled across Brazil since last week, initially against public transport price increases, have widened their scope.

Brazil's forward Neymar (C) is greeted 

by the crowd in Fortaleza, on June 19,

2013 (AFP, Juan Barreto)

Now, as well as calling for better funding in health and education, the demonstrators have begun to denounce the vast sums invested by the government in the Confederations Cup and next year's World Cup.

And a slogan was coined on Wednesday as some 15,000 people marched in Fortaleza, prior to Brazil's match with Mexico: "Brazil wake up, a teacher is worth more than Neymar!"

The 21-year-old forward, who joined Spanish super club Barcelona at the start of the month in a deal reportedly worth $75.3 million (57 million euros) had initially kept his silence.

But after 250,000 people took to the streets of Brazil on Monday, national team stars David Luiz, Hulk, Dani Alves and Fred spoke out in support of the movement, and Neymar was quick to follow suit.

Neymar, though, went even further than his team-mates, attacking the government in a manner rare for a high-profile sportsperson.

"Saddened by all that is occurring in Brazil," he wrote on his Instagram account.

"I always had faith that it would not be necessary to come to the point of having to take to the streets to demand better conditions for transport, health, education and security. All this is the OBLIGATION of the government."

He went on, seeking to underline that he, too, is a part of the Brazilian people.

"My parents worked hard to be able to provide my sister and me with a minimal quality of life," he said.

"Today, with the success that you give me, it may seem like demagoguery on my part -- but it's not the case -- to pick up the torch of the demonstrations that have swept the whole of Brazil.

"But I am BRAZILIAN and I love my country!! I have family and friends who live in Brazil!! It's also for that that I want a Brazil that is more just, more safe, in better health and more honest!!!

"The only possibility I have to represent and defend the country is to play ball on the pitch. And starting from this match against Mexico, I'll go onto the pitch inspired by this movement."

He stuck to his word.

Having previously scored a fine opening goal in Brazil's 3-0 win over Japan, he broke the deadlock against Mexico with a sumptuous left-foot volley and then completed a man-of-the-match display by brilliantly teeing up Jo for the second goal in a 2-0 win.

His performance earned glowing praise from coach Luiz Felipe Scolari

"Neymar is a player who all of us, in Brazil, know could be one of the three best in the world, at only 21," said 'Felipao', who was nonetheless unwilling to discuss the unique context of Neymar's virtuoso display.

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