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Obama Cancels Meeting with Putin Over Snowden Asylum Tensions

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By Dan Roberts. Relations between the United States and Russia deteriorated further on Wednesday when Barack Obama abandoned a presidential summit with Vladimir Putin that was due to be held next month, amid fury in Washington over Moscow’s decision to grant asylum to the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The White House confirmed that it had decided to snub the Russian leader by pulling out of the planned bilateral meeting in Moscow, but is expected to take part in the broader G20 meeting of international leaders in St Petersburg.

Moscow reacted coolly to the decision, which had been widely expected after Putin infuriated the Obama administration by granting temporary sanctuary to Snowden, who fled to Moscow after the Chinese government allowed him to leave Hong Kong, rather than heed US calls for his arrest.

In a statement, the White House said that it had concluded there was “not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda” to hold a US-Russia summit. It cited a lack of progress on arms control, trade, missile defence and human rights, and added: “Russia’s disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship. Our co-operation on these issues remains a priority for the United States.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the decision to abandon the summit was made after a unanimous decision by the White House national security council. A meeting between defence secretary Chuck Hagel, secretary of state John Kerry and their Russian counterparts will go ahead in Washington on Friday as planned. Read more from this story HERE.

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Rep. Steve King: Obama Too Weak for Putin Meeting

By Greg Richter. President Barack Obama doesn’t have a strong hand or the dominant personality needed to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that’s why the United States backed out of a September one-on-one meeting, says Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

“If they neither fear you nor respect you it’s going to be awfully hard to talk them into letting (NSA leaker Edward) Snowden come back into the United States in our custody,” King said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity.”

Even a dominant personality with a weaker hand would allow Obama to walk away with something, he added. Read more from this story HERE.

NSA’s Surveillance Goes “Exponentially Beyond what it had Previously Disclosed”

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Photo Credit: APNSA warned to rein in surveillance as agency reveals even greater scope

By Spencer Ackerman. The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform “a second or third hop query” through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

“Hops” refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.

Inglis did not elaborate, nor did the members of the House panel – many of whom expressed concern and even anger at the NSA – explore the legal and privacy implications of the breadth of “three-hop” analysis.

But Inglis and other intelligence and law enforcement officials testifying before the committee said that the NSA’s ability to query the data follows rules set by the secret Fisa court, although about two dozen NSA officials determine for themselves when those criteria are satisified. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APObama loses support for renewal of surveillance; NSA phone program will expire next year

By Stephen Dinan. The lawmaker who wrote the USA Patriot Act said Wednesday that, as it stands, the House will never renew the provisions that the Obama administration uses to collect Americans’ phone records, meaning the government’s surveillance program will be cut off some time next year.

Both Democrats and Republicans told top administration officials that they reject President Obama’s claim that the law allows the intelligence community to collect the phone numbers, time, date and duration of calls made by Americans, and they said Mr. Obama needs to change the way he is running the program if he wants to keep it intact.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who was chief author of the Patriot Act in 2001, said Congress specifically tried to limit the law’s uses when it renewed the provisions under Section 215 of the act that allow the government to collect data from businesses without obtaining a warrant.

In that renewal Congress added in the word “relevant” to try to limit what the government was pursuing. But Mr. Sensenbrenner said the intelligence community has expanded, not limited, its data-gathering efforts after Congress tried to reel them in.

“Section 215 expires at the end of 2015 and unless you realize you’ve got a problem, that is not going to be renewed. There are not the votes in the House to renew Section 215,” he said. “It’s got to be changed and you have to change how you operate Section 215. Otherwise, in a year or a year and a half, you’re not going to have it anymore.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Washington ExaminerVladimir Putin: Snowden saga won’t harm US-Russia relationship

By Brian Hughes. Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Wednesday that an already frosty relationship between his government and the United States would not be damaged if Russia granted asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.

“Bilateral relations, in my opinion, are much more important than the squabbles around the activities of the security services,” Putin told reporters in eastern Siberia.

“We warned Mr. Snowden that any of his activities that cause damage to U.S.-Russian relations are unacceptable to us.”

Snowden, the former government contractor who disclosed details about U.S. phone and Internet surveillance programs, applied for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday. A lawyer representing Snowden told Russia’s Interfax news agency on Wednesday that the ex-CIA official could leave Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in the next few days.

The Obama administration has repeatedly warned the Putin regime not to give Snowden refuge since he faces a trio of espionage charges back on U.S. soil. If his application were approved, Snowden could stay in Russia for up to a year. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Speaks With Putin Amid Tensions Over Snowden

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Photo Credit: Jedimentat44By Fox News. President Obama spoke Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid escalating tensions between the two countries over NSA leaker Edward Snowden but there was no indication they reached any accord on the fugitive’s future.

Snowden, surfacing for the first time in weeks, held a meeting with human rights groups earlier Friday at the Moscow airport, where he’s been stuck in the transit zone since he left Hong Kong last month.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the meeting amounted to a “propaganda platform” for Snowden, and criticized Russia for its handling of the affair.

“It’s also incompatible with Russian assurances that they do not want Mr. Snowden to further damage U.S. interests,” he said.

The Russian government so far has rebuffed calls to return Snowden to the U.S. to face multiple federal charges. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APInside the Ring: More NSA leaks

By Bill Gertz. U.S. intelligence officials are braced for more disclosures of National Security Agency eavesdropping secrets from renegade contractor Edward Snowden, who is seeking asylum in Venezuela.

New details from Mr. Snowden, who was still in a Moscow airport transit lounge on Wednesday, appeared Sunday. Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine and Brazil’s O Globo newspaper published new details about NSA electronic intelligence gathering, including two code names for programs that had not been made public before.

In an email interview with video maker Laura Poitras and journalist Jacob Appelbaum, Mr. Snowden revealed that the NSA works with German intelligence and other Western governments to track down terrorists and other criminal suspects.

“We [NSA] warn the others when someone we want to catch is using one of their airports, and they then extradite him to us,” he stated. “We can have obtained the information for that, for example, from the monitored cellphone of the girlfriend of a suspected hacker who has used it in an entirely different country that has nothing to do with the matter.”

Mr. Snowden said the NSA’s Foreign Affairs Directorate is the main liaison. Read more from this story HERE.

Russia’s Putin Signs ‘Gay Propaganda’ Ban Into Law

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill punishing people for homosexual “propaganda”, an official publication showed Sunday, in a move critics fear will fuel hate crimes.

In another controversial step, Putin also signed a bill imposing jail terms and fines on those who offend religious believers, seen as a response to last year’s anti-Putin stunt by the punk band Pussy Riot in a Moscow cathedral.

Rights activists and Western governments have criticised both bills as part of an unprecedented crackdown on dissenting voices after Putin returned to the Kremlin last year.

The anti-propaganda law introduces fines of up to 5,000 rubles ($156) for citizens who disseminate information aimed at minors “directed at forming nontraditional sexual setup” or which may cause a “distorted understanding” that gay and heterosexual relations are “socially equivalent”, the official publication of the bill showed.

Read more from this story HERE.

New England Patriots Owner: Putin Stole My $25k Super Bowl Ring, Bush Wouldn’t Help Me Get it Back

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Photo Credit: AP

Kraft: Putin stole Bowl ring

By NY Post. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft revealed the real story behind a 2005 meeting with Vladimir Putin, during which the Russian president pocketed his Super Bowl ring, worth more than $25,000. Kraft, at the time, claimed the diamond-encrusted bauble was a gift, but he now admits Putin stole it, and the White House intervened when he demanded it back.

Kraft explained the incident happened while Sandy Weill and other business execs were in St. Petersburg. “I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out”…

But Kraft really wanted the 4.94-carat bauble back, he said Thursday, admitting he’d gotten a call from the George W. Bush-run White House, saying, “‘It would really be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.” (In fact the Soviet Union had collapsed 14 years earlier.) Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: NY Post

Kraft: Patriots inked Tebow to improve ‘spirituality’

By Bart Hubbuch. It turns out the Patriots signed Tim Tebow in part because their owner thinks the team’s “spirituality” was lacking.

That was the surprising word yesterday from Robert Kraft, who is more than happy to fill in the numerous blanks left by tight-lipped coach Bill Belichick when it comes to explaining New England’s surprise decision this week to sign the polarizing ex-Jets quarterback.

“For me personally, having Tim Tebow on this team, he’s someone who believes in spirituality, he’s very competitive, works hard and has a great attitude,” Kraft said at a charity event at Gillette Stadium honoring his late wife.

“He’s a winner, and the fact that spirituality is so important to him is very appealing to me.”

Kraft also labeled Tebow’s openly religious nature as “an added dimension” that helped convince the Patriots to sign him to a two-year deal (with no guaranteed money) after five weeks on the NFL unemployment line. Read more from this story HERE.

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Russian president: I did not steal Super Bowl ring

By Alla Eshchenko and Faith Karimi. Russia’s president is fighting back: No, he did not steal a Super Bowl ring. And no, he’s not rocking the diamond-encrusted prize on his finger, either.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman denied that the leader kept a Super Bowl ring that New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft wanted back.

Both sides agree that the ring, with its 124 diamonds, changed hands during Kraft’s visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2005.

The New York Post reported on remarks made by Kraft, 72, at a New York awards gala Thursday.

“I took out the ring and showed it to (Putin). And he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,'” Kraft said, according to the New York Post. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.” Read more from this story HERE.

Putin May Grant Asylum to NSA Leaker Snowden

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Russia would consider granting asylum to the American who has exposed top-secret U.S. surveillance programs, if he were to ask for it, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stopped short of saying Moscow would accept Edward Snowden, but pro-Kremlin lawmakers spoke out in favor of the idea, tapping into a lingering Cold War rivalry with the United States and a vein of anti-American sentiment Putin has often encouraged.

“Promising Snowden asylum, Moscow takes upon itself the defense of people persecuted for political reasons,” Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, said on Twitter.

“There will be hysteria in the United States. They recognize this as their right alone,” he said.

Putin and other Russian officials have often accused the United States of hypocrisy, saying it tries to impose standards of human rights, freedom, and democracy on other nations while falling far short of them itself.

Read more from this story HERE.

Larry King to Join RT News – Russia Today – Funded by Russian Government

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Photo Credit: Edward Headington

Long time talker Larry King, former CNN host and radio talk personality, is joining the lineup on Russia Today TV with his own politcal gab show as well as another show already launched on Hulu TV.

Award-winning interviewer Larry King will host a mold-breaking political talk show on RT from next month, speaking to both leading establishment figures, and those who are not afraid to go against the grain.

“I have always been passionate about government and issues that impact the public, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to talk politics with some of the most influential people in Washington and around the country,” says King.

King’s career has spanned 56 years and more than 50,000 interviews, but he says the show will break new ground. The veteran broadcaster will not shy away from causing controversy, or using his authority to give a chance to hear voices other media ignore.

“I have interviewed every US president since Nixon, and lest people forget, I helped usher Ross Perot into the national conversation during the 1992 presidential contest. I appreciate the importance of providing a platform to those with real alternative visions for our country’s future,” says the host.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Promised to Assist US Even Before Discovering Bombings' Chechen Connection

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Photo Credit: Radio_TV_IBS_Liberty

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his country’s help with the investigation into Monday’s attack in Boston even before Friday’s revelation that the two suspects are Chechen.

News reports said the two suspects are brothers of Chechen origin, but have lived in the United States for several years after immigrating legally. The news comes at a time of high tensions between the United States and Russia, which is reeling from the Obama administration’s decision to publicly blacklist 18 Russian officials last week and continues to support President Bashar Assad in Syria.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a firefight with police, is believed to have been born in Russia near Chechnya. His brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is still on the run and was born in Kyrgyzstan, much farther to the east near the border with China.

Read more from this story HERE.

Putin Orders Ban On Adoptions By Foreign Same-Sex Couples

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Photo Credit: RIA Novosti/Aleksey Nikolsky

President Putin is against the adoption of Russian orphans by foreign same-sex couples, Russian media reveal. The government and the Supreme Court have reportedly been requested to come up with amendments to the law by July 1.

Most likely the order will be fulfilled by the Ministry of Education and Science, which deals with issues concerning orphans and adoptions, according to Izvestia daily. But the ministry says it has not yet received instructions on the matter.

Tensions over the issue arose in mid-February, after the French National Assembly approved a sweeping bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

Soon after that children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov vowed he would do everything possible to ensure that Russian orphans are only adopted by traditional, heterosexual families.

In February, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that it planned to verify the possible “psychological damage” inflicted on Russian orphan Yegor Shabatalov.The boy was adopted by an American woman, who lived in a same-sex marriage with another US citizen. However, she concealed her relationship from Russian authorities when she filed the adoption request.

Read more from this story HERE.

Putin Turns Black Gold Into Bullion As Russia Out-Buys World

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Photo Credit: Alexsey DruginynWhen Vladimir Putin says the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly, he’s not just talking. He’s betting on it.

Not only has Putin made Russia the world’s largest oil producer, he’s also made it the biggest gold buyer. His central bank has added 570 metric tons of the metal in the past decade, a quarter more than runner-up China, according to IMF data compiled by Bloomberg. The added gold is also almost triple the weight of the Statue of Liberty.

“The more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency,” Evgeny Fedorov, a lawmaker for Putin’s United Russia party in the lower house of parliament, said in a telephone interview in Moscow.

Gold, coveted by Russian rulers including Tsar Nicholas II and the Bolshevik leader whose forces assassinated him, Vladimir Lenin, has soared almost 400 percent in the period of Putin’s purchases. Central banks around the world have printed money to escape the global financial crisis, sapping investor appetite for dollars and euros and setting off a scramble for safety.

In 1998, the year Russia defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt, it took as many as 28 barrels of crude to buy an ounce of gold, Bloomberg data show. That ratio tumbled to 11.5 by the time Putin first came to power a year later and in 2005, after it touched 6.5 — less than half what it is now — the president told the central bank to buy.

Read more from this story HERE.