* Putin wants former U.S. spy agency contractor to go
* Blames U.S. for blocking Snowden's passage
* Signals Snowden shifting towards main asylum requirement (Adds more quotes and detail)
By Alexei Anishchuk
GOGLAND ISLAND, Russia, July 15 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he wanted Edward Snowden to leave after three weeks holed up at a Moscow airport, but also signalled that the former U.S. spy agency contractor was moving towards meeting Russia's asylum conditions.
Snowden flew to Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport from Hong Kong on June 23 in the hope of travelling on to a country that would offer him protection from the United States after he divulged details of U.S. government intelligence programmes.
Putin said Washington had trapped Snowden by preventing him from reaching other countries that might shelter him but, wary of upsetting Moscow's former Cold War enemy, has said Russia will grant him political asylum only if he stops actions that could be harmful to the United States.
"As soon as there is an opportunity for him to move elsewhere, I hope he will do that," Putin said during a visit to Gogland Island in the Gulf of Finland.
"The conditions for (Russia) granting him political asylum are known to him. And judging by his latest actions, he is shifting his position. But the situation has not been clarified yet."
Snowden, 30, told human rights campaigners on Friday at a meeting in Sheremetyevo's transit area that he was seeking temporary asylum in Russia until he can travel safely to Latin America, where three countries have said they might take him in.
He has been unable to reach any of those countries - Nicaragua, Venezuela or Bolivia - because there are no direct flights from Moscow and he would risk having his passage barred by the United States and its allies.
The case is an increasingly awkward problem for Putin as Moscow and Washington try to improve relations and he prepares for a summit with President Barack Obama in Moscow in early September, just before a summit of G20 leaders in Russia.
"We have certain relations with the United States and we don't want you to damage our ties with your activity," Putin said, referring to Snowden.
Asked to comment on what comes next for Snowden, Putin, a former KGB spy, said: "How do I know? It's his life, his fate."
UNINVITED GUEST
He went on to distance Russia from Snowden and his political activities and, as on previous occasions when he has spoken about the case in public, avoided taking the opportunity to gloat at the United States' failure to catch him.
"He came to our territory without invitation, we did not invite him. And we weren't his final destination. He was flying in transit to other states. But the moment he was in the air ... our American partners, in fact, blocked his further flight," Putin said.
"They have spooked all the other countries, nobody wants to take him and in that way, in fact, they have themselves blocked him on our territory," he said.
Washington has revoked Snowden's passport and wants him extradited to the United States to face espionage charges.
Russia often accuses the United States of failing to practise at home what it preaches on human rights abroad, and many pro-Kremlin politicians have cast Snowden as a defender of civil rights. Putin has also accused the United States of backing protesters who have demanded an end to his long rule.
But the Kremlin has avoided parading Snowden before cameras and has repeatedly avoided embarrassing the United States over the young American's flight from U.S. justice.
Tatyana Lokshina of the American-based campaign group Human Rights Watch said after meeting Snowden on Friday that he saw no problem with Putin's asylum conditions because he believed he had done no harm to the United States. Putin did not say what prompted him to believe Snowden's stance was shifting.
Russia has made clear it regards the transit area between the airport runway and passport control as neutral territory and signalled it does not want to upset the United States further by allowing Snowden to step onto what it considers Russian soil. (Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Kevin Liffey)
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Apple Inc is investigating an accident in which a Chinese woman was killed by an electric shock when answering a call on her iPhone 5 while it was charging, the U.S. technology company said on Monday.
Last Thursday, Ma Ailun, a 23-year-old woman from China's western Xinjiang region and a flight attendant with China Southern Airlines, was electrocuted when she took a call on the charging mobile telephone, the official Xinhua news agency quoted police as saying on Sunday.
"We are deeply saddened to learn of this tragic incident and offer our condolences to the Ma family. We will fully investigate and cooperate with authorities in this matter," Apple said in an e-mail.
Apple declined to comment on details, such as whether this was an isolated case.
Ma's sister tweeted on Sina's microblog saying that Ma collapsed and died after using her charging iPhone 5 and urged users to be careful, a message that went viral on the site.
In April, Apple apologised to Chinese consumers and altered iPhone warranty policies in its second-biggest market after its after-sales service suffered more more than two weeks of condemnation by the state-run media.
ISTANBUL, June 17 (Reuters) - Turkish police detained 441 people in connection with clashes in Istanbul on Sunday between police and demonstrators protesting against the government, an official at the city's bar association said on Monday.
Throughout Sunday, police in Turkey's largest city fired water cannon and tear gas at thousands of anti-government demonstrators seeking to enter Istanbul's central Taksim Square. An official from the Ankara bar association said 56 people were detained in the capital.
DHAKA, May 9 (Reuters) - Eight people were killed when a fire swept through a clothing factory in Bangladesh, police and an industry association official said on Thursday, as the death toll from the collapse of another factory building two weeks ago climbed above 900.
The fire, in an industrial district of Dhaka, comes amid global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry following the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza, on the outskirts of the city, in the world's deadliest industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984.
"It is not clear to us how the accident happened, but we are trying to find out the cause," Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told Reuters.
On Wednesday the Bangladesh government said it had shut down 18 garment factories for safety reasons following the April 24 collapse of Rana Plaza, which housed five garment factories making clothes for Western brands. Six were cleared to re-open on Thursday after inspectors issued safety certificates.
Salvage teams were still pulling bodies from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex in Savar, around 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Dhaka, and on Thursday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 912.
Roughly 2,500 people were rescued from the building, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.
The government has blamed the owners and builders of the eight-storey complex for using shoddy building materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and not obtaining the necessary clearances.
Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of the poor South Asian country's exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.
The latest fire, in an 11-storey building in the Mirpur industrial district, broke out at a factory belonging to the Tung Hai Group, a large garment exporter.
"The factory was closed and all the workers had left the premises an hour earlier," said fire service official Bhazan Sarker.
A fire service official and BGMEA president Islam said the Bangladeshi managing director of the company and a senior police officer were among the dead. The others killed were friends and personal staff of the factory boss, officials said.
Tung Hai Group says on its website that it has more than 1,000 employees and its customers include major Western retailers including Britain's Primark, and Inditex Group of Spain. It makes products including cardigans, jumpers and pyjamas.
CLEVELAND, May 8 (Reuters) - Three young women newly freed from a decade-long kidnapping ordeal in Cleveland endured their captivity in the dungeon-like confines of a squalid house, where they were raped, starved, beaten and kept in chains by the man who abducted them, authorities said on Wednesday.
Their accused tormentor, Ariel Castro, 52, a veteran school bus driver fired from his job last fall, was formally charged on Wednesday with kidnapping and raping the women, who were rescued from his house on Monday evening shortly before his arrest.
His two brothers, initially arrested as suspects in the case, were not charged, and police said investigators had determined they had no knowledge of the abductions or captivity of the women.
The three victims, believed to have been abducted separately from the surrounding neighborhood and held prisoner for years, were found alive together when neighbors were alerted to their presence by cries for help from one of the women, Amanda Berry.
She told police that her escape two days ago was her first chance to break free in the 10 years that she was imprisoned in the house, during which time she conceived and gave birth to a daughter, now 6, and rescued along with the three women.
Additional details of their captivity emerged in a police report from the initial investigation, including that the three were held in the basement for periods of time, restrained with ropes and chains and occasionally starved, according to Cleveland City Councilman Brian Cummings, who read the report and said he was briefed by multiple sources in the police department.
Cummings said that one of the three - he did not know which - had suffered at least five miscarriages, which Castro is accused of causing by starving her for weeks and beating her in the stomach.
Freed from the house along with Berry and her daughter were Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32.
Castro, owner of the modest, two-story house, had been thought by neighbors to live there alone. Berry has said she only managed to call for help when Castro briefly left the premises on Monday.
"The only opportunity, after interviewing the young ladies, to escape was the other day when Amanda escaped," Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said at the news conference. "They don't believe that they've been outside that home for the last 10 years respectively."
Authorities said the women recalled leaving the house twice, only to go to the garage on the small lot, when they were disguised in wigs and hats.
Tomba said Berry, DeJesus and Knight had been kept separately in the house, where police have found ropes and chains.
"They were not in one room, but they did know each other and they did know each other was there," he said.
Berry's daughter was born on Dec. 25, 2006 during her mother's captivity, authorities said. A paternity test will be conducted to determine the girl's father.
TELEVISED HOMECOMINGS
As authorities readied their case against Castro, Berry and DeJesus went to their families' homes on Wednesday. Knight was in a Cleveland hospital where a spokeswoman said she was in good condition.
Berry and her daughter could be seen from an aerial television camera arriving in a convoy of vehicles at her sister's house and going in the back door.
Before Monday evening, Berry had last been seen leaving her job at a fast-food restaurant the day before her 17th birthday in April 2003. Her disappearance as a teenager was widely publicized in the local media.
DeJesus was rushed into the home she had not seen in nine years, clenched in a tight embrace by her sister Mayra. DeJesus hid her face in a yellow hooded sweat-shirt but raised her hand in a thumbs-up sign to spectators chanting "Gina. Gina."
Her mother Nancy DeJesus came outside after a little while.
"I want to thank everybody that believed," she said. "Even the ones that doubted, I still want to thank them the most because they're the ones that made me stronger, the ones that made me feel the most that my daughter was out there."
Neither Berry nor DeJesus, who vanished while walking home from school at age 14 in 2004, spoke publicly. Knight was 20 when she disappeared in 2002.
Castro, who is not a suspect in any other cases, faced arraignment on Thursday morning, the prosecutor said.
Investigators took some 200 pieces of evidence from his house, which Tomba said was "in quite a bit of disarray," but found no human remains on the site. Police were still searching a second house.
The three brothers were arrested on Monday evening within hours of the women's escape. However, there was no evidence Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50, were involved, the prosecutor said.
The two brothers would be appearing in court on Thursday on unrelated outstanding misdemeanor warrants.
"There is nothing that leads us to believe that they were involved or had any knowledge of this, and that comes from statements of our victims, their statements and the brothers' statements," Cleveland city prosecutor Victor Perez said at a news conference, adding, "Ariel would have kept everybody at a distance."
Berry can be heard naming Ariel Castro as the man she was fleeing on the frantic emergency call she made to a 911 operator after a neighbor heard her scream and helped her break through a locked screen door.
Born in Puerto Rico, Ariel Castro played bass in Latin music bands in the area. Records show he was divorced more than a decade ago and his ex-wife had since died. He is known to have at least one adult daughter and son.
In 2005, Castro was named in a complaint of domestic violence in a custody dispute with his ex-wife that accused him of breaking her nose twice, knocking out her tooth, dislocating her shoulder twice and threatening to kill her and her daughters several times.
The complaint was eventually dismissed. (Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta and Barbara Goldberg; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Bernard Orr and Eric Walsh)
BOSTON/WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon had originally planned to set off their bombs on July 4, a law enforcement official said.
The source said the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, advanced the date of their attack because they completed building bombs more quickly then they originally anticipated. The official declined to be identified and did not offer more details.
Police say the brothers detonated two bombs made with pressure-cookers in the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded 264.
An attack on Boston's packed July 4 celebrations would have carried the extra symbolism of disrupting the city's widely followed Independence Day celebrations.
News of the alleged July 4 attack plan was earlier reported by The New York Times.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts, on April 19. His brother was wounded in the shootout and captured later that day.
The remains of Tamerlan Tsarnaev were claimed on behalf of his family on Thursday. His body had been kept at a Boston facility for more than a week.
Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts, said a funeral services company retained by the family had claimed the body. Harris declined to provide details including the cause of death or where the body had been taken.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged with crimes in connection with the bombing that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted, and is being held at a prison medical facility in Devens, Massachusetts.
On Tuesday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, said through an attorney that she wished his remains to be released to the Tsarnaev family.
Russell's attorney could not immediately be reached on Thursday.
Investigators have questioned Russell as they seek clues about how the ethnic Chechen brothers allegedly built the two bombs used in the attack and whether they had help.
The suspects' parents previously lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but have since returned to Russia. Other relatives remain in the United States, including an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Maryland, who has been seen in Rhode Island in recent days.
Officials said on Thursday that three men who had been charged with interfering with the investigation of the bombing were in custody at a jail in Middleton, Massachusetts, a small town about 20 miles (30 km) North of Boston.
The three 19-year-olds - Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos - had been transported to the Essex County Correctional Facility in Middleton on Wednesday after they were charged in Boston. Authorities have described them as college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. (Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
