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VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT NICOLAS Maduro offered asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden late Friday, giving a possible escape route to the fugitive whose revelations rocked the US government and security establishment.
In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega also gave the 30-year-old computer expert another glimmer of hope, saying that “if circumstances permit”, his government would be willing to shelter the man who has been in limbo in a Moscow airport since June 23.
How Snowden, whose passport has been revoked, could travel to either country remains unclear.
Snowden has been scrambling to evade espionage charges after disclosing a vast US electronic surveillance program to collect phone and internet data.
WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website aiding Snowden, revealed on Tuesday a list of 21 nations where he applied for asylum, including Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ireland.
On Friday it said he was seeking shelter in six more countries, writing on Twitter the countries “will not be named at this time due to attempted US interference.”
Several European countries, along with India and Brazil, have already turned down the requests, but leftist Latin American leaders have voiced sympathy for the bespectacled fugitive.
“As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden … to protect this young man from the persecution launched by the most powerful empire in the world,” Maduro said at an independence day event.
“I announced to the friendly governments of the world that we have decided to offer this international human right to protect this young man,” said Maduro, who had previously suggested he would consider offering Snowden asylum.
Ortega, also at a public event, said his government had received an asylum application at its embassy in Moscow.
“We are open, respectful of the right to asylum, and it is clear that, if circumstances permit it, we would receive Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum here in Nicaragua,” the leftist leader said.
Ecuador had been seen as the American’s best hope when he arrived at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport from Hong Kong, but the leftist government in Quito has yet to consider his application.
Maduro said Tuesday in Moscow, where he was on an official visit, that his government had not yet received an asylum request.
Snowden’s flight from justice has embarrassed the administration of US President Barack Obama and created tensions between European and Latin American nations after an incident involving the Bolivian president’s airplane.
Bolivia accused France, Portugal, Italy and Spain of denying Morales flyover rights because they believed Snowden was aboard as he returned home from Russia late Tuesday.
The Bolivian leader, who suggested that Washington pressured the Europeans to close their airspace to him, threatened to shut the US embassy.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo said his government was told that Snowden was aboard Morales’ flight, but he denied that Madrid had refused overfly rights to the Bolivian president’s aircraft and did not identify who provided the apparently faulty intelligence.
France apologized for temporarily refusing entry to Morales’s jet, with President Francois Hollande saying there was “conflicting information” about the passengers.
- AFP, 2013
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Yes my tutors insisted
Nice grounds to walk around on a good day. However, the Book of Kells, as important as it is, is a huge anticlimax for visitors who pay about 14 euro for a very limited view of it. I doubt it gets much repeat business.
@Kárl: lots of museums and tourists attractions have that problem, the Mona Lisa was disappointing AF but even if it was mind blowing I still wouldn’t have been bothered going back
@Kárl: I think the old library itself is actually much more impressive (though not worth €14)
@Karen Wellington: Got to see the Lady with an Ermine in Krakow a few years ago. It was in the Czartoryski museum, admission was for free or a just a few euros and the collection included the amazing Ottoman Turkish tents captured after the 1683 Battle of Vienna, everything looking like it was left behind by an army that retreated yesterday. None of this was behind glass, only a little rope barrier, an usher followed us around to make sure we didn’t don any of the Turkish armour.
We then went into the early renaissance paintings section, it all looked 2D and painted like an amateur, with weird fat baby Jesus. Then we turned a corner and there was the Lady with an Ermine. Looking real, 3D, glowing. It was especially startling after seeing it’s contemporaries.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2011/12/05/arts/05LEONARDO/05LEONARDO-jumbo.jpg
@Kárl: Repeat business? Who’d want to see it more than once?
@Michael Lynch: they turn the pages every few weeks so you could visit a few times and see different portions of the book.
@David Jordan: thanks David, I’ll keep it in mind if I’m ever in the area
@Kárl: Power tip get a son in there as a student and pay fees, accomodation and as a student he gets you in for free. See I fooled them…
“planning to open up its campus with a series of new pedestrian entrances.”
They would want to be careful about creating new rights of way – the old area is nice as is, been that way for hundreds of years – be shame to have it turned into a shortcut for cyclists etc.
Should be in the National Museum and viewing should be for free
@Gerard O’Donovan: the whole university? Wouldn’t fit my man.
Grand little spot. Great down by the pav on a nice day. Ah the good old days when I wasn’t half as much of a di-ck as I am now!
Walked out of the accommodation many a Saturday morning IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
@Terrence Edwards: Fake News
Truly wonderful place to visit .
Should be in the National Museum and viewing should be for free.
It’s a university not a bloody park. Surely the staff and students should come first. Who cares if people who have no reason to go in there don’t go in there. They’re solving a non-existent problem.
Yes, went to college and got engaged there
Trinity College has the smallest cemetery, in Ireland, I’m still trying to find it. Then there’s the Zoological Museum (only €2 entrance fee), in the summer, an’ the Geology Dept.
@Claire Cahill: The cemetery is on the right side of the outside of the chapel in Front Square, towards the back. Walk down the ramp to the left of the Buttery and then up the few steps at the end of the ramp on the left. Look down and to your left and you’ll see the little cemetery. There’s not a lot to see, to be honest
@Greg Kane: I think two or three of the provosts from the 17th and 18th century are buried there
@Claire Cahill: I would love to find out if the rumour is true that there are/were tunnels under the college that anatomy students used to bring in bodies from the dame street area?
@Claire Cahill:
What about the Costello “church” in Carrick-0n-Shannon where only a husband & wife are buried?
Great buildings
Next week the journal will ask:
Have you ever been on a bus?
Have you ever eaten a banana?
Do you sweep the floor in your house?
Did you ever look at a seagull?
@Seamus ó Corcoráin: haha have you ever been on a bus ? Yes no or I’m not sure
The only reason non-students go into the Trinity grounds is to rob bicycles.
Yes. Went to college, got married, first child conceived there and graduated from there.
Only went there for a job interview, didn’t get the job…
Yes, went to college and got engaged there
Yes, went to college and got engaged there
Yes, went to college and got engaged there
Yes, some of my kids were fortunate enough to have gone to college there. I’ve been very lucky to have visited the college a number of times and seen the Book of Kells, something I have a great deal of interest in. I also couldn’t help myself taking the mickey out of some American tourists once, they were convinced I had some inside knowledge. Every time we turned a corner they seemed to be there, so in the end I… err… translated for them. I’m very sorry. I know, if there’s a hell I’m going.
Trinity has had a chequered 19c past when it excluded Catholics and perhaps should not have been supported post 1921.
@Moorooka Mick: hmmm I fail to see exactly what benefit there would have been “not supporting” the college post 1921 ….one that has a history with the likes of Oscar Wilde attending , that has been there hundreds of years and has a world class old library …,,over bigotry ??? And how we wouldn’t be just as guilty if we chose to be selective over what colleges to help grow the new independent country we chose to support ?? Your comment is quite baffling !
What’s the official Church stance on walking through college grounds? Maybe he likes to have a cup of tea in the evenings instead, Ted.
just for cans in the pav and a laugh at the toffes playing cricket!
Stayed in accomodation there a number of times over the summer months when up in the mock capitol while supporting Cork GAA. Cheap and cheerful, good breakfast and great location. I’m sure there is other good stuff in a university too but never got the chance to go to one:)
@AppleToes: Could you repeat that? I didn’t quite catch you the first time.
I went to Trinity and all I got was a lousy BSc.
The coffee is authentic in a couple of the canteens, but they never serve boxty with kippers. I think this may affect intellectual life there.
Stayed in accommodation there a number of times over the summer months in the 90s,00s when up in the mock capitol while supporting Cork hurlers/footballers. Cheap and cheerful, good breakfast and great location. I’m sure there is other good stuff in a university too but never got the chance to go to one:)
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