Encrypted email service thought used by Snowden shuts down

An encrypted email service believed to have been used by American fugitive Edward Snowden shut down abruptly yesterday amid a legal fight that appeared to involve US government attempts to win access to customer information.

"I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people, or walk away from nearly 10 years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit," Lavabit LLC owner Ladar Levison wrote in a letter that was posted on the Texas-based company's website yesterday.

Levison said he has decided to "suspend operations" but was barred from discussing the events over the past six weeks that led to his decision.

US President Barack Obama (L) meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G8 Summit at Lough Erne in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland on June 17, 2013. Obama cancelled a meeting with Putin planned for next month in Moscow over frustration with Russia's asylum for fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the White House said on August 7, 2013.

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JFK’s sole survivor named ambassador to Japan

President Barack Obama yesterday nominated Caroline Kennedy (pic) to become US ambassador to Japan, in the biggest foray into public service for John F Kennedy's sole surviving child.

The former first daughter, who long resisted running for public office, if confirmed will enter a limelight not seen since her childhood as she becomes the face of The United States in one of its closest allies.

Japan hailed the announcement, saying that Kennedy - a crucial early supporter of Obama's presidential bid - enjoyed the "deep confidence" of the president.

Japan "highly appreciates her nomination as reflecting the great importance the Obama administration attaches to the Japan-US alliance," a foreign ministry statement said.

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Snowden waits in airport as US presses Moscow

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden (pic) today awaited permission to leave the Moscow airport where he has been stuck for over a month, as The United States stepped up pressure on Russia to send him back home.

Reports yesterday indicated that Russian authorities were preparing to let Snowden leave the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport but then - in mysterious circumstances - he failed to emerge.

Snowden has applied for asylum in Russia and is now awaiting a document that would allow him to formally cross the border and move freely in Russia while his application is being considered - a prospect the United States has said would be "deeply disappointing".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry about Snowden's case Wednesday but it was not clear if their discussion had an impact on the fugitive's fate.

Washington wants to put the 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor on trial for revealing details of vast US surveillance programmes, but Moscow has rejected demands to hand him over.

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Juror says Zimmerman ‘got away with murder’

A juror in the trial of George Zimmerman says the former neighbourhood watch volunteer “got away with murder” when he was acquitted earlier this month in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.

The woman, who is part Hispanic and was identified in court as juror B29, said she would have liked to convict Zimmerman of murdering Martin but her hands were tied by a lack of evidence.

“You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” she said in an interview due to be aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today. “But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence,” the woman said.



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Cannibal who hacked a homeless person to death and ate his eye and brain found NOT GUILTY

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Cannibal who hacked a homeless person to death and ate his eye and brain found NOT GUILTY of murder by reason of insanity

Tyree Lincoln Smith, 35, was found not guilty of the Dec 2011 murder, by reason of insanity
He hacked homeless man Angel Gonzalez to death, and then ate his eye and parts of his brain
Smith was arrested trying to flee to Florida in Jan 2012 and charged with murder
The three-judge panel found that the defense proved he was insane at the time
Smith is likely to spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital

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Spyware claims emerge in row over Chinese dissident at NYU

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When Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States in May last year he was given a fellowship at New York University, use of a Greenwich Village apartment, and a pile of gifts from supporters, including smartphones and an iPad.

But at least two of the gadgets presented to Chen as gifts may not have been quite what they seemed: They included software intended to spy on the blind dissident, according to Jerome Cohen, an NYU professor who has been Chen's mentor, and another source familiar with the episode.

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng speaks to journalists following an appearance in New York May 3, 2013

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Stop force-feeding Guantanamo prisoners, says US senator

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US Senator Dianne Feinstein urged the Pentagon yesterday to stop force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and called the practice "out of step" with medical ethics and international norms.

Feinstein, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, sent a letter to Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, saying the Guantanamo force-feeding policy was also out of synch with policies in the civilian federal prisons.

"Hunger strikes are a long-known form of non-violent protest aimed at bringing attention to a cause, rather than an attempt of suicide," she wrote. "I believe that the current approach raises very important ethical questions and complicates the difficult situation regarding the continued indefinite detention at Guantanamo."

Speaking in Berlin yesterday, President Barack Obama said the United States would redouble efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, said he would not respond to Feinstein's letter to Hagel via the press, but added that "we will continue to treat the detainees in our charge humanely and that we will not allow them to harm themselves."

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