Obama: Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden: The latest blow to improving relations came Wednesday when Obama, annoyed with Putin's decision to grant temporary asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, cancelled a face-to-face summit with the Russian leader. While U.S. and Russian foreign and defence ministers will sit down in Washington later this week, Obama won't be going to Moscow next month, according to Times Colonist. "We looked at the utility of the summit in light of a number of issues and a number of challenges that we've encountered and decided that it did not make sense to have that bilateral summit in Moscow in September," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters returning with Obama Wednesday on Air Force One from a trip to California and WASHINGTON - The common ground between the U.S. and Russia and Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin has been shrinking steadily in spite of the much-touted "reset" of relations between the old Cold War foes. And it just got even smaller. The Snowden decision was only the latest in disputes that the White House cited for a lack of "recent progress." The U.S. and Russia have been at odds over the Syrian civil war, Russia's domestic crackdown on civil rights, a U.S. missile defence plan for Europe, trade, global security, human rights, even adoptions of Russian children by Americans. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.