"John Kerry tells fugitive Edward Snowden he's doing the right thing"

From the BBC:

US Secretary of State John Kerry has admitted that intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is probably "doing the sensible thing" as a fugitive from justice, who has "manned up" and accepted that he can never return home.

Mr Kerry added that if Mr Snowden, 30, "still believes in America, then he clearly doesn't know much about the American system of justice".

His comments come in the wake of an interview with NBC in which Mr Snowden said he sought asylum in Russia because the US revoked his passport. Mr Snowden also described himself as a trained spy, not a low-level analyst.

"There are times when even for a patriot, doing the right thing means running away," Mr Kerry said on Wednesday. "If Mr Snowden wants to come back to the United States… he knows that we'll be ready to lock him up immediately."

Mr Kerry also hoped that the former National Security Agency contractor was becoming "confused", adding "the United States wants to do great damage to this man."

"We're vaguely hoping that in a moment of loneliness, he'll be stupid enough to come back to the US," Mr Kerry said.

"Edward Snowden banned from flying to insignificant little country on other side of world"

From the BBC:

An insignificant little country thousands of miles from Hong Kong, where NSA whistleblower is currently in exile, which he has never expressed any intention of visiting, fearing a fate similar to that of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, has warned airlines not to allow an ex-CIA employee who leaked secret US surveillance details to fly there, according to reports.

The Associated Press news agency reported seeing a document from the insignificant little country - whose foreign policy seems to consist of doing absolutely everything which it thinks the USA or the EU want it to do - at a Thai airport telling carriers to stop Edward Snowden, 29, boarding any flights.

The travel alert - reported to feature the overly grand emblem of its Home Office - said Mr Snowden "is highly likely to be refused entry to our pathetic little island..."

Bangkok Airways, Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines confirmed they had received the notice, which was not supposed to be seen by the public, AP reported, although they confirmed that they had no scheduled flights to the country in question anyway as "nobody in his right mind wants to go there".