Snowden's hopes rise on asylum offer

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has offered asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. Source: AAP

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden remained stranded in a Moscow airport for the 14th day amid rising hopes he may finally be able to leave Russia after being offered asylum by Venezuela.

The saga surrounding the fugitive former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor took a new turn late on Friday when Venezuela's leftist President Nicolas Maduro offered to grant him "humanitarian asylum".

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had only moments earlier also said his Latin American country could offer a safe haven for one of Washington's most wanted men "if circumstances permit".

Snowden, 30, had earlier been denied asylum by many of the 21 countries to which he had applied last week.

The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website, which has been supporting Snowden's cause, said he had recently applied to six additional countries it refused to name.

But it was far from clear how exactly Snowden could reach another nation from the transit zone of Russia's sprawling Sheremetyevo international airport.

He has been stripped of his passport by the US authorities and a refugee pass initially believed to have been offered to him by Ecuador has since been declared invalid.

Snowden could only take flights from Sheremetyevo and not another Moscow airport to which visiting foreign dignitaries such as Maduro have access because he cannot move beyond Russian passport control.

Maduro made his intentions clear in an address at an independence day event in Caracas.

"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.

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega voiced a slightly more toned down message only minutes earlier.

"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," Ortega said at a public event.

Ecuador had been seen as the American's best hope when he arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 after leaking secrets about the extent of the US data surveillance programme to the press.

But the leftist government in Quito has yet to consider his application.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to extradite Snowden to the US while still stressing that he would like to see him gone as soon as possible.

"Russia is not happy that he is here. If it wanted to offer him asylum, this would have been done right away," said Carnegie Moscow Centre analyst Maria Lipman.

She noted that Putin himself was a former KGB spy who cares deeply about the safety of state secrets.

"Putin does not want to help someone who reveals secrets - Putin is very serious about this," said Lipman.

"He would like to get rid of Snowden, but this is getting more and more difficult," the analyst said.

Putin has denied ever questioning Snowden about the details of the US spy network and has even suggested that doing so was not worth the effort.

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'World's biggest cocaine dealer' deported

AN Italian mafia capo alleged to be the biggest cocaine trafficker in the world will be deported to Italy on Saturday, a day after being arrested in a Colombian shopping mall, prosecutors said.

Roberto Pannunzi was detained in Bogota with a fake Venezuelan identity card in a joint operation by Colombian police together with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

"He is the biggest cocaine importer in the world," said Nicola Gratteri, deputy chief prosecutor in Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.

"He is the only one who can organise purchases and sales of cocaine shipments of 3000 kilos and up."

"Pannunzi is the only one who can sell both to the 'Ndrangheta and to Cosa Nostra. He is definitely the most powerful drug broker in the world," he said.

The 'Ndrangheta is based in Calabria and is a major player in international drug trafficking. The Sicilian mafia is known as Cosa Nostra.

Gratteri said Pannunzi was being deported since "an extradition order would have taken several months".

He is expected to land at Rome's Fiumicino airport later on Saturday.

In April, Colombia captured another suspected top mafioso, Domenico Trimboli, alleged to be a lynchpin between the Medellin drug cartel and the 'Ndrangheta.

Pannunzi had escaped from a Rome clinic where he was being held under house arrest in 2010 - repeating an earlier escape in the same way in 1999.

He was previously being detained in Colombia in 1994, when he reportedly offered the arresting officers a million dollars in cash to walk away.

Gratteri said that during Friday's arrest, Pannunzi had told the police he was ill but he said he hoped the alleged trafficker would not be granted house arrest in a hospital in Italy again.

"I hope that he is not given house arrest a third time because he could attempt a third escape.

"It's exhausting having to go around the world to find him every time he escapes," Gratteri said.

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Mubarak back in court amid Egypt unrest

LAWYERS for Egypt's ex-president Hosni Mubarak have entered a not guilty plea at his retrial for alleged complicity in the killings of protesters in 2011.

The hearing resumed on Saturday and comes coincidentally just three days after Mubarak's successor Mohamed Morsi was himself toppled amid turmoil on the streets pitting Islamists against anti-Morsi protesters.

Mubarak and seven top security chiefs are charged with incitement in the killings of protesters who rose up against him in early 2011. Along with his two sons, Mubarak is also charged with corruption.

The 85-year-old former strongman appeared in the dock behind bars on Saturday, wearing dark sunglasses and a white prison uniform.

During the televised hearing, Cairo's criminal court heard submissions by the defence before adjourning proceedings until August 17.

At the previous hearing, on June 10, cartons filled with police notebooks and videos of demonstrations on Cairo's Tahrir Square, epicentre of the 2011 revolt during which almost 850 people died, were submitted to the court.

The original trial last year on charges of complicity in killing demonstrators led to a life sentence for Mubarak and former interior minister Habib al-Adly, but an appeals court ordered a retrial, citing procedural errors.

Islamist Morsi, who was elected president after Mubarak's ouster, was deposed in a military coup on Wednesday.

Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced Morsi's overthrow in a television broadcast, citing his inability to end a deepening political crisis.

Morsi's supporters on Saturday vowed further protests against the coup, after a night of ferocious clashes that killed 30 people and injured more than 1100 nationwide.

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WA offers Noongar people $1.3b title deal

THE West Australian government has made an historic $1.3 billion offer to settle the Noongar people's native title claim over Perth and the state's southwest.

Premier Colin Barnett proposes to settle the Noongar claim with the transfer of 320,000 hectares of crown land and a massive injection of government funding.

Central to the offer is a pledge to spend $50 million a year on a perpetual trust fund for social and economic development, as well as the establishment of six regional Noongar corporations.

In announcing the offer on Saturday, Mr Barnett said if the offer was accepted it would represent the most comprehensive native title agreement in Australian history.

He said a deal could cause seismic change for the Noongar people.

"Nothing happens overnight, but we expect this arrangement will help lift outcomes in Aboriginal health, education and employment over time," Mr Barnett said on Saturday.

"It should also help produce a new generation of Noongar leaders to drive further change within their community."

The state would continue to hold mineral rights over the transferred land under the proposed deal.

Mr Barnett said the Noongar people would have six months to consider the agreement, which the government hopes to start enacting within a year.

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Search called off for American schooner

THE search has been called off for the American schooner Nina which went missing with seven people on board in the Tasman Sea.

The 21m sailing vessel was travelling from Opua in the Bay of Islands to Newcastle in Australia on May 29 with six Americans and one British man aboard.

It struck winds up to 110km/h and 8m swells and has not been heard from since June 4.

Extensive searching over the past 11 days of an area more than eight times the size of New Zealand has failed to find any trace of the schooner.

No more searching is planned unless new information comes to light, Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand operations manager John Seward said on Friday.

But radio broadcasts will continue to be made in New Zealand and Australia in the search for new information, he said.

Those on the Nina are David Dyche III, 58, and wife, Rosemary, 60, their son David Dyche IV, 17, friend Evi Nemeth, 73, Kyle Jackson, 27, Danielle Wright, 18, and Briton Matthew Wootton, 35.

The vessel is equipped with a satellite phone, a tracking device and an emergency beacon that has not been activated.

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Popes have no faith in gay marriage

THE Vatican has issued an unprecedented religious text co-written by Pope Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI in which the two popes said faith should serve the "common good" but restated their opposition to gay marriage.

Francis paid tribute to pope emeritus Benedict XVI in the encyclical, saying that the ex-pontiff had "almost completed" the text before stepping down in a historic resignation this year and that he himself had merely added "further contributions."

The 82-page text stresses that there is no contradiction between the Catholic faith and the modern world and calls for more dialogue with scientists, other religions and non-believers.

It also restates the Catholic Church's position on marriage saying it should be a "stable union of man and woman."

"This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God's own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation," reads the text.

While some passages in the encyclical have a more academic and ponderous feel characteristic of Benedict XVI, others contain the simpler expressions and brighter outlook of his successor.

Examples of Francis's input could be references to the need to protect nature and to sustainable development, as well as his oft-repeated phrase: "Let us refuse to be robbed of hope".

Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted there were "differences of style, sensibility and accent" between the two popes in the text but said there was "substantial continuity of the message".

Francis and Benedict, who both live within the walls of the Vatican City and wear the white papal vestments, met publicly on Friday at a ceremony in the Vatican for the unveiling of a new statue.

Benedict became the first pope to resign of his own free will in 700 years in February and Francis was elected to succeed him in March as the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years.

The central message of the encyclical, entitled Lumen Fidei (Light of Faith) is that faith should be considered a "common good".

"Its light does not simply brighten the interior of the Church, nor does it serve solely to build an eternal city in the hereafter, it helps us build our societies," it says.

The text also calls for a "return to the true basis of brotherhood", saying that the ideal of equality without faith "cannot endure".

In another passage the encyclical says that believers should be humble and not "presumptuous".

"As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force... Faith is not intransigent, but grows in respectful coexistence with others."

Encyclicals are papal circular letters addressed to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church that are intended to summarise a pontiff's thoughts on a particular aspect of Church life.

Some of them have gone down in history as significant landmarks in Church history.

Pope Leo XII in 1891 published Rerum Novarum in which he undertook to engage the Catholic Church in social issues, denouncing living conditions for the working class and encouraging workers to organise themselves into associations.

In 1914, Benedict XV denounced the horrors of World War I in Ad beatissimi apostolorum principis and Pius XI in Mit brennender Sorge in 1937 condemned Nazi racism.

In Paul VI's Humanae Vitae in 1968, Paul VI condemned all forms of contraception, while John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae in 1995 called for opposition to laws legalising abortion and euthanasia.

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Delhi gang-rape verdict due next week

A JUVENILES' court in New Delhi is set to hand down the first verdict next week over the gang-rape of a student in the capital which sparked mass protests, a lawyer says.

The court has been hearing the case of a teenager, aged 17 at the time of the crime, who was one of six suspects arrested after the brutal assault of the woman on a moving bus.

"Arguments will be held first and then the judgement will be out," said defence lawyer Rajesh Tiwari, saying the verdict would be delivered on July 11.

Protests erupted across India in December and January following the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus on December 16.

The crime, though far from rare in India, brought simmering anger among women about endemic harassment and violence to the surface and led the government to toughen its rape laws.

Tiwari said he was prohibited by the court from commenting on the trial or its result.

"At this stage we are barred by it from speaking on the expected verdict but after July 11 I will express my opinion," Tiwari told AFP.

The suspect cannot be named under Indian laws.

The juveniles' court can award a maximum term of three years to the suspect if he is convicted as the crime was committed when he was under 18.

Five other men were initially put on trial for gang-rape, murder and robbery among other charges and they face a maximum death penalty if convicted.

One of them, the alleged gang leader and the regular driver of the bus, died in prison in March after a suspected suicide.

The remaining four suspects are being tried in a special court set up to fast-track the case. The judge is examining the last of several hundred witnesses and is expected to deliver a verdict in the next few months.

The victim's family has been among those calling for the juvenile to be tried alongside the four other accused, who face the possibility of being hanged if found guilty of rape and murder charges.

But the Delhi-based Juvenile Justice Board accepted the school records of the teenage suspect, which states that he was born on June 4, 1995, making him 17 at the time of the crime.

The woman, a physiotherapy student, suffered massive intestinal injuries during the assault in which she was raped and violated with an iron bar.

She died 13 days later after the government flew her to a Singapore hospital in a last-ditch bid to save her life.

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Mandela reflects on his death in video

NEARLY 15 years ago Nelson Mandela was unperturbed by his own death, telling a dying teenager that he had lived his life to the full.

The video dating from 1998, broadcast by American news channel CBS on Thursday as Mandela remained in critically ill in hospital, showed the towering South African statesman visiting a 15-year-old, also named Nelson.

"Understanding the fact that I'm near the end, I remain optimistic with my morale very high, because I'm saying I have lived my life," the statesman, then 80, told the teen, who was dying of brain cancer.

In the amateur video the boy, his head shaved, smiled shyly from his bed at the peace icon, who wore one of his colourful trademark shirts.

Posters of cars adorned the wall next to where the then-president sat holding a teacup.

"If your spirit is not optimistic, your morale is not high, medicine is not very effective," the then president said.

The boy died under three months after the visit.

Broadcast as the 94-year-old nears one month in hospital, the words carry added poignancy.

According to court documents from Mandela family lawyers, filed nine days ago, doctors believed Mandela was in a "permanent vegetative state" and they advised his family to turn off his life support machine.

South Africa's presidency has since said his condition has improved and on Thursday denied he is in a vegetative state.

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Portugal government battles for survival

PORTUGAL'S leaders are scrambling to save their coalition government after being torpedoed by top resignations over the austerity policies squeezing their bailed-out nation.

Financial markets rallied on Thursday after Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho assured his European partners that he could ride out the storm which erupted after his finance and foreign ministers said they were quitting.

"I am convinced that it will be possible to find the necessary conditions to ensure the stability of the government," he told reporters in Berlin at a top-level meeting Wednesday on youth unemployment.

The Portuguese stock market's PSI-20 index showed a gain of 3.04 per cent to 5,395.48 points in morning trade on Thursday, after plunging 5.31 per cent the previous day.

Pressure on the bond market eased, too, with the Portuguese benchmark 10-year government bond yield sliding to 7.216 per cent, having spiked to 8.106 per cent Wednesday.

Markets had plunged after Foreign Minister Paulo Portas, who is also leader of the junior partner in the governing coalition, the small conservative CDS-PP party, announced he was resigning on Tuesday.

The news came a day after the shock departure of finance minister Vitor Gaspar.

But the prime minister, desperate to hold together the coalition led by his Social Democratic Party, has so far refused to accept the resignation of his foreign minister and the two have since been in talks.

The prospect of a deal emerged when the CDS-PP leadership asked Portas to meet with the premier to find "a viable solution for the government of Portugal".

A first round of talks on Wednesday evening between the prime minister and his foreign minister were described as "very constructive" by the premier's office.

They were holding a second round on Thursday morning.

Passos Coelho was reportedly hoping to be able to present a solution for the government to President Anibal Cavaco Silva at a meeting scheduled for 1600 GMT (02:00 AEST)

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China supports people's 'choice' in Egypt

CHINA says it supports the "choice of the Egyptian people" and called for dialogue after the army toppled democratically-elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, detaining him and his top aides.

But foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying sidestepped questions on Thursday as to whether her comments offered "hope" to the Egyptian leader overthrown after only a year in office.

Western powers had earlier called for a swift return to democracy.

"China respects the choice of the Egyptian people," Hua told reporters at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

"We also hope that all parties concerned in Egypt can avoid using violence and properly solve their disputes through dialogue and consultation and realise reconciliation and social stability."

China is generally suspicious of intervention in the internal affairs of other nations.

Beijing was rattled by the wave of mass protests that swept the Arab world in 2011, eventually bringing Morsi to power.

Morsi's first official trip outside the Arab world was to Beijing last August, a fact highlighted by state media.

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