VOA News for 17 July 2013 - 20130717
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 17/07/2013

Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
VOA NEWS  Wednesday July 17th, 2013
From Washington, this is VOA news.  Egypt swears in a new government.  High joblessness ahead for Europe.  I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
Members of Egypt's new military-backed government were sworn in Tuesday.
Edward Yeranian reports from our Middle East bureau in Cairo.
The new Egyptian interim cabinet was sworn in before interim President Adly Mansour in a ceremony at the presidential palace.  The new ministers vowed to defend Egypt's constitution, its republican form of government and its borders.
Veteran economist Hazem el-Beblawi, who heads the new cabinet, was the first to be sworn in.  Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the military leader who was key in ousting President Mohamed Morsi, continues in his post and becomes first deputy prime minister.
The 35-member cabinet includes three women, several Christians and several figures who are Islamists.
Edward Yeranian for VOA news, Cairo.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Nour Party refused to participate.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry began a new round of talks in Jordan Tuesday in his quest to revive Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Secretary Kerry met in Amman with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh ahead of a meeting later with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Aid groups and United Nations officials are pleading with the Syrian government and armed opposition groups to allow access to unarmed civilians, saying crimes against humanity "are the rule" as fighting rages on in the Syrian civil war.
Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, is warning the fighting in Syria endangers the entire Middle East.  He spoke to the U.N. Security Council from his office in Geneva.
"The danger that the Syrian conflict could ignite the whole region is not an empty warning.  Measures must be taken now to mitigate the enormous risks of spillover and to support the stability of Syria's neighbors so as to keep the situation from escalating into a political, security and humanitarian crisis that would move far beyond the international capacity to respond."
Mr. Guterres urged Syria's neighboring countries to keep their borders open for refugees.
The United States says it stands ready to cooperate with Panama, should the Central American nation request assistance regarding a North Korean-flagged ship it stopped while attempting to pass through the Panama Canal with suspected missile parts.
Panama's President, Ricardo Martinelli, says authorities stopped the ship on suspicion it was carrying drugs, but instead found what is believed to be "sophisticated missile equipment."  President Martinelli says the ship was coming from Cuba.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says joblessness will remain high in European and other developed nations, stalling economic recovery and job prospects, especially among the youth.
Lisa Bryant has details.
Given this year's spate of grim economic news, the latest jobs report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development may not come as a big surprise.  Overall, it predicts unemployment will fall only slightly in 2014 among the OECD's 34 members, leaving about 48 million people out of work.
At a call-in press conference from Paris, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria described the jobless situation as a crisis, particularly for young people in countries like Italy, Spain and Greece, where half or more are out of work.
Lisa Bryant for VOA news, Paris.
The Mexican government says the head of the country's notorious Zetas drug trafficking cartel was captured.
Miguel Angel Trevino, known by ethnic name "Z-40," was caught by Mexican Marines Monday while riding in a pickup truck near the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
A government spokesman says they also seized about $2-million in cash and several guns.
A coalition of U.S. political advocacy and religious groups filed suit contesting the legality of the government's surveillance of Americans' telephone records.
It claims the spying by the country's clandestine National Security Agency is "an illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance."
The lawsuit is the sixth filed against the government seeking to end its vast collection of phone and Internet records in the aftermath of former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaking details of two secret NSA surveillance programs last month.
Snowden remains encamped for a fourth week at a transit zone of a Moscow airport.
I'm Ray Kouguell, VOA news.  These and other stories are on our website at voanews.com.