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Snowden’s Lawyer Sells Film Rights To Hollywood Director

Snowden’s Lawyer Sells Film Rights To Hollywood Director

Moscow (AFP) – Hollywood director Oliver Stone has acquired movie rights to a political thriller penned by U.S. whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s Russian lawyer, the pro-Kremlin attorney said on Wednesday.

“The rights to my book have been handed over to Oliver Stone and producer Moritz Borman,” Anatoly Kucherena told AFP.

“He (Stone) met with me, he did not meet with Snowden. The book will be published later.”

Kucherena is completing a potboiler dubbed the “Time of the Octopus” which tells the story of a U.S. whistle-blower and is loosely based on Snowden’s experiences.

One of Russia’s most high-profile lawyers, Kucherena was among a select group of public figures granted a meeting with the U.S. fugitive during his month-long stay at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport last year.

The lawyer, seen as close to the Kremlin, helped Snowden receive temporary asylum in Russia and has since acted as his spokesman and link to the outside world.

U.S. filmmaker Stone, a trenchant critic of the American political establishment, has also purchased the movie rights to another book about Snowden written by Luke Harding of The Guardian, one of the newspapers that originally published the whistle-blower’s leaks.

The newspaper said in early June that the Oscar-winning director had begun writing the screenplay, and that filming is set to start before the end of the year.

Snowden flew to Russia from Hong Kong last year after leaking a series of U.S. intelligence secrets. His U.S. passport has been revoked.

Many believe he lives in a closely-guarded compound that belongs to Russia’s security service although this has never been officially confirmed.

Washington says Snowden is welcome to return home but only to face trial for releasing top secret information it says has aided U.S. enemies.

Kucherena said earlier this month that Snowden was seeking to extend his refugee status in Russia.

Photo via Flickr

Zimmerman Painting Sells For $100,000

Washington (AFP) – A painting by George Zimmerman, whose fatal 2012 shooting of a black teenager triggered an outcry across the United States, sold for just over $100,000 on eBay.

The signed patriotic blue-hued portrayal of the Stars and Stripes flag is overlayed with the words “God, One Country, with Liberty and Justice for All” in typewriter font.

The artwork was the subject of 96 bids before finally going under the online hammer for $100,099.99 when bidding closed late Sunday.

Internet auctioneer eBay on Monday declined to provide any information about the successful bidder.

Zimmerman has said he turned to painting to “express myself, my emotions and the symbols that represent my experiences.”

“My art work allows me to reflect, providing a therapeutic outlet and allows me to remain indoors,” he said.

Zimmerman, 30, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, fatally shot Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012 as the 17-year-old unarmed high school student was walking home with iced tea and candy.

He insisted he had been following Martin on suspicion that the youth was involved in robbery, and that he shot him in an act of self-defense.

Police soon released him, prompting a national outcry that led to a jury trial for second-degree murder and manslaughter in June this year which ended with his acquittal.

More recently he faced arraignment for allegedly pointing a gun at his girlfriend, before she dropped the charges.

Said by his lawyers to be deep in debt, Zimmerman noted on his eBay listing that he created his debut canvas using house paint donated by a friend.

Meanwhile eBay confirmed it had withdrawn from its site a different painting that critiqued Zimmerman.

The second painting showed a man wearing a police uniform and a white hood of the Ku Klux Klan pointing a pistol of a black youngster holding a packet of candy.

eBay said the painting violated rules about material that promotes violence, hatred, or racial and religious intolerance.

Read A Book, Change A Life

It’s hotter than Dante’s nine rings of hell outside.

Crank up the fans, and pass the pile of books.

Most of us have triggers for childhood memories. These dog days of summer do it for me.

During the precious weeks of summer vacation, I’d pedal my bike back and forth to the library in a continuous cycle of return and borrow. I can still see skinny 10-year-old me, left foot dangling over the back of the porch swing, right foot pushing against the dusty floorboards as I floated in midair, immersed in the adventures of other people’s lives.

An early love for books changes the trajectory of lives. My own kids spent as much time in bookstores as in libraries. In my leanest years as a single mother, I never said no to a book for my son or daughter.

Sad news this week: Another national bookstore chain has failed.

Borders Group is going out of business. All 399 stores will close. In the dead of summer, too.

About 10,700 employees will lose their jobs. I’ve come to know dozens of them in Ohio over the years. To a person, they were smart and kind and full of big ideas. What a loss to the communities they served.

“We were all working hard towards a different outcome,” Borders President Mike Edwards said, “but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly
changing book industry, e-reader revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”

Borders has been in trouble for a while. It closed 200 stores in February as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.

That same month, Publishers Weekly reported that the bookstore chain owed $41 million to Penguin Group, $36.9 million to Hachette, $33.8 million to Simon & Schuster, $33.5 million to Random House and $25.8 million to HarperCollins.

Still, a lot of us refused to see this collapse coming.

Others, such as Sari Feldman, already are brainstorming ways to fill the void.

“I’m crushed for the reading community,” Feldman said Tuesday. “Borders was a place for a lot of readers to congregate. I hope they’ll find another place.”

She has a suggestion: How about your local library?

Feldman is past president of the national Public Library Association and executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Ohio. She’s been tracking the setbacks and innovations of public libraries across the country for years. Despite budget cuts, many library systems are becoming increasingly creative, she says, and returning to their roots as the go-to place for readers.

“We don’t see bookstores as competitors,” Feldman said. “They’re important in keeping people aware and enthusiastic about books. But libraries are reclaiming our core value, which is promoting books to our readers.

“We should always be at the ready to help them find their next great read.”

Public libraries always have been at the forefront of child literacy, but they also are looking for new ways to reach adults, too. Earlier this year, Feldman borrowed an idea from Multnomah County Library in Portland, Ore., and started a Facebook “Night Owls” book discussion. It convenes on Thursdays at 9 p.m. Last week’s discussion logged 85 comments.

“We have 28 branches,” she said. “Last year, 7.6 million people walked through our doors. We have lots of book groups, but some readers want to talk about books at night, from home. We did this to include them, too.”

Feldman laughed when I suggested that most of us remember the library as a place where people read but never chat.

“Libraries are not the quiet sanctuaries they used to be,” she said. “We have to set aside quiet spaces in our buildings these days. We welcome the civic engagement.”

When citizens read, their communities prosper.

“People who read are voters,” Feldman said. “They patronize museums and theaters. They’re more likely to volunteer.”

They’re also more inclined to pass on their love of reading to the next generation.

Forecasters are predicting no break soon in the heat and humidity.

What perfect weather for children to curl around books and hitch a ride.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

Pakistan Might Have Sold Nuclear Tech to North Korea

WASHINGTON (AP) — The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program claims that in the late 1990s North Korean officials paid kickbacks to senior Pakistani military figures in exchange for critical weapons technology.

Abdul Qadeer Khan has given a United States-based expert documents that appear to show North Korea’s government paid more than $3.5 million to two Pakistani military officials as part of the deal, the expert told The Associated Press Wednesday.

To back up his claim, Khan released what he said was a copy of a North Korean official’s 1998 letter to him, written in English, that purports to describe the secret deal.

Khan gave the documents to Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an authority on Pakistan’s weapons program. He did so because he has been accused by his government of running a covert nuclear smuggling operation without official knowledge or consent.

“He gave it to me because he regarded it as showing that the story, the perception that he had been a rogue operator was false,” Henderson said.

The letter, along with a statement by Khan describing the deal, suggests that at least some top-level Pakistani military officials knew early on about some of Khan’s extensive sale of nuclear weapons technology to other countries, including North Korea, Iran and Libya.

If that’s true, it could deepen the distrust between the United States and Pakistan, which are struggling to set aside their differences and cooperate in the battle against militant extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua said Thursday of the report, “It is totally baseless.”

The significance of the revelation is in dispute. Henderson said the documents prove Khan’s claims that his nuclear arms smuggling network had high-level support from the Pakistani government, but others say the letter bolsters the government’s claims it didn’t know what Khan was up to.

The Washington Post said it obtained the documents and first reported on them on its website Wednesday after a lengthy effort to authenticate them.

The letter Khan released is dated July 15, 1998, and marked “Secret.” It carries the apparent signature of North Korean Workers Party Secretary Jon Byong Ho.

The text says, “Please give the agreed documents, components, etc. to a … (North Korean Embassy official in Pakistan) to be flown back when our plane returns after delivery of missile components.”

The letter never mentions the word “nuclear.” But Khan’s written description of the events surrounding the letter makes it clear that the Workers Party official was referring to components and plans for Pakistani centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

Highly enriched uranium can be used either to make fuel for nuclear reactors or to form the explosive core of a nuclear weapon.

Jehangir Karamat, a former Pakistani military chief named as the recipient of the $3 million, said the letter was untrue. In an email to the Post from Lahore, Karamat said Khan, as part of his defense against allegations of personal responsibility for illicit nuclear proliferation, had tried “to shift blame on others.”

The other official, retired Lt. Gen. Zulfiqar Khan, called the letter “a fabrication.”

The Post said the assertions by Khan and the details in the letter could not be independently verified.

But the newspaper quoted one senior U.S. official who said the signature appeared genuine and the contents were “consistent with our knowledge” of the events described. Another intelligence official said the letter contained information known only to a handful of people.

Khan has long denied claims that he was working behind his government’s back in his covert nuclear technology sales to foreign governments.

“This is a piece of dramatic evidence that Khan did not act as a single rogue agent, but instead was operating at the instruction of others,” Henderson said. “I think the main point of this is that Pakistan used this technology to trade for diplomatic advantage.”

David Albright, an authority on nuclear proliferation with the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, disagreed, saying the letter and Khan’s narrative are evidence he acted alone.

“It shows that Khan was a rogue agent and that he colluded to provide centrifuge components to North Korea without Pakistani official approval,” Albright said.

He said that in Khan’s narrative, which has not been released, the scientist claimed he had assured the military that North Korea would not use the centrifuges for its nuclear weapons program, since it already had more advanced technology for that purpose.

Albright said the claim was false, but Pakistani military officials could have found it plausible.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.