VOA News for 03 August 2013 - 20130803
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 2013-08-03

Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
VOA NEWS  Saturday August 3rd, 2013
From Washington, this is VOA news.  Concerns over potential violence in Egypt as thousands gather in Cairo, and U.S. travelers are warned of potential terror attacks.  I'm Vincent Bruce reporting from Washington.
Tens of thousands of supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi marched through Cairo Friday to demand his reinstatement, even as the interim government threatens to break up their protest camps.
Analyst Said Sadek of the American University in Cairo tells VOA that Egyptian public opinion has turned against the Muslim Brotherhood and that the group is starting to fall apart.
"They are politically finished.  The people are against them.  I thinks the end of the Muslim brotherhood is this year.  It is totally of a role to be like communism.  Communism is over as a regime, but it still has ideas some believe in, but it does no longer have the same appeal as in the past."
Interim Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei tells The Washington Post newspaper that Egyptian leaders want to avoid bloodshed, saying being harsh is no solution.  He says the government wants to talk with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The United States has issued a travel alert for U.S. citizens worldwide that warns of an al-Qaeda terrorist threat.
The State Department said Friday that potential for terrorism is particularly strong in the Middle East and North Africa.  It says an attack could come from the Arabian Peninsula.
The warning is based on the same intelligence that has prompted the United States to close 21 of its embassies and consulates, mostly in the Muslim world, on Sunday.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf: "The Department has been apprised of information that, out of an abundance of caution and care for our employees and others who may be visiting our installations that indicates we should institute these precautionary steps."
Also Friday, Britain said it will close its embassy in Yemen on Sunday and Monday due to increased security concerns.
Further details at voanews.com.
Election returns from Zimbabwe show President Robert Mugabe's party winning in a huge majority in parliament while the opposition continues to reject the results.
The tallies from more than 80 percent of districts put Mr. Mugabe's party just a few seats short of a two-thirds majority in the House of Assembly.
However, Mugabe opponents say the polling was made fraudulent by alleged voter intimidation and government manipulation of the voter rolls.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo [said]-led AU's election observer mission says the results do seem to reflect voters' wishes.
"There are incidences that could have been avoided, but all in all, we do not believe that these incidences will amount to the result not representing the will of the people."
Senior US diplomat Uzra Zeya says human rights in China are deteriorating, accusing Beijing of harassing activists' families and repressing ethnic and religious minorities.
Uzra Zeya, acting US assistant secretary of state, followed up U.S.-China human rights dialog meeting this week [with] press conference with reporters on Friday.
As former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden settled into exile somewhere in Russia, the United States ambassador to Moscow met Friday with a high-ranking Kremlin aide to discuss "the new status" of the fugitive American leaker.
VOA's James Brooke has a report.
Ambassador Michael McFaul's meeting with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov came as the Kremlin sought to downplay Moscow's granting of one-year asylum status to the American.  Snowden is wanted in the U.S. for leaking classified documents detailing massive NSA Internet and telephone data surveillance programs.
President Vladimir Putin visited an annual youth camp and fielded questions on every topic, but Snowden.
In Moscow, Snowden's lawyer released a photo of the smiling American leaving a Moscow airport Thursday, ending nearly six weeks of confinement in the transit zone.
James Brooke, VOA news, Moscow.
The U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest point since late 2008, but the labor market only added another 162,000 jobs last month.
United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay is calling for an independent investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by Syrian rebel fighters.
And Tunisian forces launched air strikes and sent in troops Friday to surround suspected Islamist militants in the mountains near the Algerian border.
For more, visit us at voanews.com.  I'm Vincent Bruce, VOA news, Washington.