Main News of July 6

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Former CIA employee Edward Snowden’s options appeared to be broadening Saturday as Bolivia became the third country to say that it would be prepared to offer political asylum to the fugitive intelligence expert believed to be hiding in a Russian airport, according to media reports.

* The recent decision by a number of European countries to close their airspace to Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane was made on an order from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), media quoted the Venezuelan president as saying.

 

RUSSIA

* Russia’s opposition figurehead and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny on Friday came down on the country’s “feudal system,” saying he and his colleagues would do everything possible to destroy it.

* A former Russian official linked to Moscow Region’s selective default in 2008 was detained in France over fraud charges he faces at home, Russian police said Saturday.

* An obstetrician was convicted in Moscow of causing a car crash that killed her in 2010 – the first time a person is formally ruled guilty after their death in Russian legal practice.

* One of Russia’s most iconic war memorials, the Motherland Calls statue in Volgograd, is badly in need of rebuilding work and is so unstable that it could collapse at any time, according to sculptor and restorer Vadim Tserkovnikov.

* The 2013 World University Games, or Universiade, officially began Saturday night in Kazan with an extravagant opening ceremony intended to capture Russia’s ethnic diversity and set the stage for the Sochi Winter Olympics next year.