Snowden in Russia in search of safe haven

Former US spy Edward Snowden yesterday arrived in Russia from Hong Kong, reportedly on his way to Venezuela, escaping the clutches of US justice at least for now in a shock development sure to infuriate Washington.
Snowden, the target of a US arrest warrant issued Friday after he blew the lid on massive secret surveillance programmes, arrived in Moscow on a direct flight operated by Russian flag carrier Aeroflot.
The Hong Kong government said earlier it had "no legal basis" to prevent Snowden leaving because the US government had failed to provide enough information to justify its provisional arrest warrant for the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor.
Meanwhile, the US Justice Department yesterday said that it will seek the cooperation of law enforcement authorities in countries where former NSA computer technician Edward Snowden may travel.
Julian Assange's WikiLeaks operation claimed credit for helping to arrange asylum for the man behind one of the most significant security breaches in US history.
According to WikiLeaks, unidentified diplomats are escorting Snowden in his bid to secure political asylum in a country yet to be disclosed.
Snowden, 30, landed at Sheremetyevo airport in the north of Moscow at 5:05pm (1305 GMT) but there was no immediate official confirmation of where he would head next, an AFP correspondent at the airport said.
Russian media reports citing sources within Aeroflot said he would fly to Cuba today and then board a flight to the Venezuelan capital Caracas. The South China Morning Post suggested that Iceland or Ecuador may be his ultimate port of call.
"Russian law enforcement agencies have nothing against him and we have no orders to detain him," one law enforcement source told the state news agency Ria Novosti.
Snowden's latest interview contained new revelations about US cyber-espionage against Chinese targets, drawing a stinging response from China's official news agency which branded Washington an espionage "villain".
In the latest revelations published by the Sunday Morning Post, the former National Security Agency contractor said the US agency was hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to gather data from millions of text messages.
Snowden abandoned his high-paying job in Hawaii and went to Hong Kong on May 20 to begin issuing a series of leaks on NSA eavesdropping of phones and computer systems, triggering concern from governments around the world.