DAY OF RECKONING II.

And he was just getting settled at Sheremetyevo Airport. NSA leaker Edward Snowden has reportedly left the Moscow airport after being granted asylum in Russia for one year, his lawyer says. Polls have shown that Russian citizens generally are in favor of Snowden. The leaker had feared that he wouldn’t be granted a fair trial if he returned to the United States. This probably won’t bolster U.S.-Russia relations.

Read it at BBC

August 1, 2013 8:08 AM

 

Even as his leaks continued with new disclosures from the computer files he downloaded, Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live — and conceivably even work — anywhere here for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of American prosecutors. Though some supporters expect him to seek permanent sanctuary elsewhere, possibly in Latin America, Mr. Snowden now has an international platform to continue defending his actions as a whistle-blower exposing wrongdoing by the American government.

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White House officials indicated that Mr. Obama was leaning against his plan to meet President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow next month after the summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations in St. Petersburg, though officials stopped short of canceling the meeting outright.
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 Cleveland Kidnapper Ariel Castro was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. In a statement to the court, Castro denied preying on his victims and blamed his actions on an addiction. “I’m not a monster. I’m a normal person. I’m sick just like an alcoholic.” He also said the home was not the house of horrors described by the women. “There was a lot of harmony in that home ... Most of the sex that went on in the house was consensual,” he said. Meanwhile, documents revealed Wednesday showed that the women kept detailed diaries of the abuse while in captivity. Here's a photo of the room that Amanda Berry and her daughter shared and another one of some of the chains used to hold the women captive.

Read it at CNN

August 1, 2013 1:15 PM
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Italy’s highest court on Thursday definitively confirmed a prison sentence for tax fraud for Silvio Berlusconi, dealing a severe blow to Italy’s most dramatic politician. But it also called for a re-examination of a ban on his holding public office, a compromise that might stave off an imminent collapse of Italy’s left-right coalition government.
The sentence the court confirmed was four years, but it was automatically reduced to one year under a law aimed at combating prison overcrowding.

The decision by the Court of Cassation was the first time Mr. Berlusconi has received a definitive conviction in 20 years of tangles with Italy’s judicial system. In the other cases brought against Mr. Berlusconi over the years — which range from tax evasion to buying judges to embezzlement — he was either acquitted on appeal or the statute of limitations ran out.

 

However, Thursday’s ruling does not automatically send Mr. Berlusconi to jail or house arrest. Mr. Berlusconi is still facing trial on charges of paying for sex with the Moroccan-born Karima el Mahroug, nicknamed Ruby Heartstealer, when she was still a minor, and abusing his office to cover it up. The same Milan appeals court that convicted the former prime minister must also formally request his arrest. Mr. Berlusconi’s lawyers could also request a suspended sentence.

 

A Senate committee must rule on whether Mr. Berlusconi must resign from public office, a procedure that could take months. Almost all lawmakers handed definitive sentences have chosen to leave Parliament of their own volition in order to avoid embarrassment.
 

The case has once again brought Mr. Berlusconi to the fore of the national conversation, where he occupies far more space and airtime than Mr. Enrico Letta, the current prime minister.