BREAKING: Venezuela Offers Asylum to US Secret Leaker Eric Snowden

(Telegraph) Venezuela and Nicaragua offer Edward Snowden asylum
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has offered to give "humanitarian asylum" to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"As head of state of the Boliviarian 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," Mr Maduro said at an independence day event.
Moments earlier in Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega said his government was willing to give asylum to the US fugitive, offering a glimmer of hope to Mr Snowden, who has been in limbo at Moscow's international airport since June 23.
He said the Nicaraguan embassy in Moscow received Mr Snowden's application for asylum and that it is studying the request.
"We have the sovereign right to help a person who felt remorse after finding out how the United States was using technology to spy on the whole world, and especially its European allies," Mr Ortega said.
Mr Snowden has applied for asylum in 27 countries as he tries to evade American justice for disclosing a vast US electronic surveillance program.

But his bids have been rebuffed by several European nations as well as Brazil and India.
The 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor, however, has received more sympathy from leftist governments in Latin America.
The offers came amid the ongoing fallout over the rerouting of Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane in Europe earlier this week amid reports that Mr Snowden might have been aboard.
Spain on Friday said it had been warned along with other European countries that Mr Snowden was aboard the Bolivian presidential plane, an acknowledgement that the manhunt for the fugitive leaker had something to do with the plane's unexpected diversion to Austria.
It is unclear whether the United States, which has told its European allies that it wants Mr Snowden back, warned Madrid about the Bolivian president's plane. US officials will not detail their conversations with European countries, except to say that they have stated the US's general position that it wants Mr Snowden back.
President Barack Obama has publicly displayed a relaxed attitude toward Mr Snowden's movements, saying last month that he wouldn't be "scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker."
But the drama surrounding the flight of Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose plane was abruptly rerouted to Vienna after apparently being denied permission to fly over France, suggests that pressure is being applied behind the scenes.