Putin on Snowden: "If he wants to remain here... he should stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners..."

"... no matter how strange this may sound coming from me."

Meanwhile:

Admitting Ecuador made a 'mistake' in helping Snowden flee Hong Kong in the first place, [Ecuador's president Rafael Correa] appeared to backtrack on previous suggestions he was welcome, adding: "Are we responsible for getting him to Ecuador? It's not logical. The country that has to give him a safe conduct document is Russia."

Asked if he would like to meet the 30-year-old, he added: "Not particularly. He's a very complicated person. Strictly speaking, Mr Snowden spied for some time."

And there's a statement purporting to be from Snowden that pretty much can't have been written by Snowden. Find the tell:

"For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum."

ADDED: The tell is "have," the use of the plural verb with United States. American don't slip into that usage, though it's strictly correct if you're following the rules of grammar. The irregular form is second-nature to Americans. So does that mean Snowden couldn't have written that? No. Meade — in conversation just now — suggested that Snowden might have deliberately adopted the form that a non-American would use. But think what that means: He wants not to be American. That runs counter to a desire to refute the accusation that he is a traitor, but it's consistent with other statements of his that stress the world as a whole, including the term "human right" in the very sentence quoted above.

AND: Let's look at the whole text of his statement, which appears at the link. Right after the above-quoted sentence, we read:

Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. 

He says "my country," but "the current government of," and the law he cites is transnational law. That sentence suggests that "the current government" is undeserving of loyalty and to be distinguished from "my country."

Snowden proceeds to call himself a "stateless person," because the current government has revoked his passport (and obstructed his "right to seek asylum"). He asserts that the current government is "afraid" of its own people:

It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

Let me paraphrase: If the American people had the information — which I risked my life to set free — they would see the current government as illegitimate.

The sign-off is:

Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013

I don't think it's too American to write the date like that. We tend to write: July 1, 2013. If you wanted to go all U.S. Constitution about it, you could write: First Day of July in the Year of our Lord two thousand and Thirteen. But "Monday 1st July 2013"? To my eye, that's either written by a non-American or an American affecting a transnational style.

Leaker Snowden tells Chinese newspaper that the U.S. government hacks into Chinese universities, businesses and politicians.

He also said: "People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my intentions."

ADDED: More here:

Senior American officials have accused China of hacking into U.S. military and business computers. Snowden’s claims of extensive U.S. hacking of Chinese computers tracks assertions made repeatedly by senior Chinese government officials that they are victims of similar cyber-intrusions.

Note that the Guardian published its first story using Snowden's leaks as President Obama was meeting with the President of China. 

So now we have some data — enough dots to connect?

Extraditing Snowden: "Hong Kong Seen as Likely to Extradite Leaker if U.S. Asks."

"When the United States does issue a warrant, the Hong Kong authorities have generally been willing to extradite suspects, said Jonathan Acton-Bond, a barrister and former magistrate who has represented clients in some of the best-known extradition cases here."

Hong Kong enforces extradition laws more than other jurisdictions in Southeast Asia, Mr. Acton-Bond said. But Hong Kong did not follow Britain’s example after the Sept. 11 attacks of lowering the standard of legal evidence required before an extradition to the United States is approved. Hong Kong also has legal protections against politically motivated extradition cases, but they have seldom been invoked....

Mr. Snowden, a 29-year-old computer technician, has said that he had access to lists of all American agents overseas and other information, but that he did not take all of the data....

Snowden said that he was careful about choosing what to release and that he chose not to hurt any particular individuals:

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest... There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

But in revealing that he has more and could hurt American agents, he is building up his bargaining position.

Back to the first-linked article (in the NYT):

While Mr. Snowden — or possibly his personal computer — might be a valuable prize for China’s intelligence agencies, experts were skeptical that China would risk harming relations with the United States by exercising its legal authority to block an extradition request from the Justice Department.

So Snowden's choice of Hong Kong was — at least implicitly — pressuring the U.S. not to seek extradition, because once China puts its hands on him, they have their hands on that laptop, with all those names or whatever it was that he took when he "did not take all of the data."

“I don’t think he’s a big enough fish that Beijing would try to intervene to affect the decision of the Hong Kong authorities one way or the other,” said Willy Lam, a specialist in Chinese government decision-making at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

He's not a big enough fish? How big can a fish get?!

"When I wear my wig, I know something big is going to happen."

"It makes me feel like I have more responsibility. I think I exude more energy than without it. It's magical."

Lawyers in Hong Kong, and the traditional wigs they love.

"It's a tradition that really dignifies our profession, especially in the context of our commitment to uphold the city's justice," says [Kevin] Tang....

The barristers' prestige emanates not only from the wig, but because they number in the hundreds, compared with the city's thousands of solicitors. Though solicitors have more training, top barristers are typically better paid and because they appear in court, have higher profiles as well. Even the Cantonese translation for barrister is "big lawyer," while the term for solicitor is simply "lawyer."

Solicitors would like to be allowed to wear the wigs.