34 THE MYANMAR TIMES JULY 8- 14, 2013
World WORLD EDITOR: Douglas Long | dlong125 @ gmail. com
MOSCOW
Seeking Snowden in Sheremetyevo Airport
KATHY LALLY, WILL ENGLUND
EVERY year about 25 million passengers enter Sheremetyevo Airport, and usually they come out again. Not Edward Snowden. The guy made famous by telling secrets about US surveillance programs has managed to keep his own whereabouts hushhush.
Somehow he has made himself lost for two weeks in 1.6-kilometre-long transit corridor dotted with six VIP lounges, a 66-room capsule hotel, assorted coffee shops, a Burger King and about 20 Duty Free shops selling Jack Daniels, Cuban Rum, shelves of Russian vodka and red caviar that costs four times as much as it does in the city.
Unless he’ s across the runway in private Terminal A, in the watchful company of Russian officials.
Everybody wants to find him. Journalists want to interview him. The United States wants to prosecute him. And now Anna Chapman wants to marry him.
Being a spy herself – she’ s the alluring Russian redhead who was chucked out of the United States in 2010 along with nine other sleeper agents – the suspicious might wonder if it’ s what they call in the trade a honey trap, or ensnarement by romantic relationship.
“ Snowden, will you marry me?!” @ ChapmanAnna tweeted on July 3.
July 4 was a quiet day at Sheremetyevo, but a normal one with the packs of journalists tiring of the unrequited chase. Athletic teams from Mongolia and China made their way through the airport en route to university games in Kazan. Families with young children waited for flights to summer resorts.
Anastasia Shodieva was selling costume jewelry and stuffed animals at a souvenir stand near the Skoda car display where the journalists camped out last week. When asked about Mr Snowden, she had to be prompted.
“ Oh, that sort-of agent?” she asked, adding the affair made no difference to her.
The United States wants Mr Snowden on charges of theft and disclosing classified information in violation of the
‘ I don’ t understand what [ Snowden ] was thinking. Is he a little boy with no idea about the consequences?’
Svetlana Chibisova Russian tour agency manager
Former Russian spy Anna Chapman attends a congress of the pro-Kremlin youth group Molodaya Gvardiya( The Young Guard) in Moscow on December 22, 2010. Chapman wrote on Twitter on July 3,“ Snowden, will you marry me?” Photo: AFP
Espionage Act. Scores of journalists were waiting when his flight from Hong Kong landed in Terminal F on June 23. No sign of him. Others filled seats on Aeroflot to Havana – airport officials said Mr Snowden had a ticket for June 24 – and flew off, taking pictures of his empty seat.
The airport’ s half dozen buildings cover an area as big as about 100 football fields, set off a traffic-clogged road 30 kilometres( 18 miles) from the city centre. A transit zone, 1.6 kilometres long, wends its way along the sides of Terminals D, E and F, which are connected by a walkway so arriving passengers can board a connecting international flight without having to pass through passport control and customs, which requires a visa.
Terminal D, the most modern part, has soaring ceilings and a men’ s room with an age-old Russian smell to it. Tatyana Yudina, at the register of a traditional, lacquered-wood crafts souvenir stand, shrugged at the name Snowden.
Last week journalists staked out a chain called Shokoladnitsa, hoping they would find Mr Snowden drinking a US $ 7 cappuccino or drinking an $ 11 non-alcoholic mojito with $ 9 blini and red caviar. Nyet.
Russians are a little bemused at all that fuss over surveillance. Many believe the authorities can read their mail at will, listen in to their calls and sprinkle bugs around as they please.
“ Wiretapping is so common, so this is not news,” said Alina Gorchakova, a 48-year-old account manager who stopped to chat on a city street.
What doesn’ t seem normal to many is why Mr Snowden decided to reach Ecuador, his original destination, through Russia. Once he arrived here, with his US passport revoked, Ecuador has grown less enthusiastic. Russia says he can go anywhere he likes, he only needs a destination and authorised travel documents. So why doesn’ t he go? Or show his face?
And Svetlana Chibisova, a 45-year-old tour agency manager, found it strange that an American carrying US secrets would travel by way of Russia, where security agencies are very much in control.
“ I don’ t understand what he was thinking,” she said.“ Is he a little boy with no idea about the consequences?”
Often the television news doesn’ t add up, said Yuri Artemiev, a 73-year-old retired aviation engineer.
“ I don’ t like this situation,” he said.“ It looks like they wanted to get benefits from him being here and then something went wrong, as always.” – The Washington Post
CAIRO
Big challenges for
Egypt’ s next president will have to tackle a raft of problems, common laws and principles enshrined in a new constiution,
TAHRIR Square was largely empty on July 4. The smell of rotting garbage hung in the air. The crumpled banners, empty soda cans and old corncobs discarded by the Egyptians who had celebrated the ousting of their president lay smashed and strewn across the pavement.
Those Egyptians who remained spoke of hopes for an“ honest” president to replace the deposed Mohamed Morsi. They said they were optimistic that the military, bolstered by an uprising of millions, had given Egypt a new beginning – a chance to finally get the country’ s revolution right after 2½ years of misfires.
But even as the dust settled in Tahrir, a complex battery of challenges remained – first for the military that has once again assumed responsibility for the nation’ s direction, and then for whoever is bold enough to take on the job that proved so disastrous for Mr Morsi.
Egypt’ s economy is in tatters. Nearly onequarter of the work force is unemployed, and roughly half the population lives on less than US $ 2 a day. The country owes billions of dollars in debt, its foreign currency reserves nearly exhausted. Prices are spiking and shortages loom.
“ Gasoline. Traffic. Bread,” said Ahmed Fadel Abuzeid, an electrician who camped in Tahrir to bring down Mr Morsi.“ We never had the power cuts before. And we never used to have these prices.”
There are no easy fixes. Many Egyptians turned against the Muslim Brotherhoodbacked Morsi because of his poor stewardship of the economy, and experts say much of that blame was well-deserved. But Mr Morsi also inherited the legacy of an authoritarian regime that over decades had rotted from within: a bloated bureaucracy, a costly and inefficient subsidy system, and layer upon layer of corruption.
“ Whether it was going to be the Muslim Brotherhood or not the Muslim Brotherhood, whoever was going to govern Egypt was really going to have their hands full,” said Joshua Stacher, an Egypt expert and political scientist at Kent State University in Ohio.
Any solution, economists say, will require considerable pain.
“ In order to move from this stage to a stage in which we achieve economic growth will require measures that will not be popular,” said Amirah El-Haddad, a professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.
Egypt’ s next leader could well be beset by many of the same problems that doomed the last. A day after Mr Morsi’ s fall, a virtually unknown judge took over the presidency on an interim basis. But few seemed eager to make a run for a post that will be contested in elections the military has promised but has not yet scheduled.
“ I don’ t know anyone in his right mind,” said Egypt’ s foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, provoking laughter from his aides.“ Wait, wait- I’ m joking with you,” he added.“ Don’ t put that.”
The economy won’ t be the only problem confronting whoever next rules Egypt. The constitution that was ratified under Mr Morsi has now been nullified, meaning this highly polarised nation must start from scratch in developing a set of common laws and principles.
After the military’ s dramatic move on July 3, Egypt’ s new leaders will need to restore a semblance of constitutional authority, said Tom Ginsburg, a professor of comparative and international law at the University of Chicago.