VOA NEWS

October 6, 2014

From Washington, this is VOA news. A new work week begins in Hong Kong with major streets still blocked by protesters, and a British millionaire is set to go on trial in South Africa on charges of murdering his wife. I'm Michael Lipin reporting from Washington.



Major streets in Hong Kong remained blocked Monday morning as pro-democracy activists ignored an ultimatum from leader Leung Chun-ying to leave their protest sites.

There was no sign of an imminent crackdown by the police.

Late Sunday, the protesters took down some of the barricades that they had set up near the government headquarters last week in a move aimed at allowing civil servants to return to work.

Protester Do Chan was defiant: "I'm against any kind of withdrawal or tendency to surrender. I think withdrawing, I mean shaking hands with the police, is a very ugly gesture of surrender."

Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents have been staging a round-the-clock protest on the streets since last Sunday, demanding a right to choose the candidates for the city's next leadership election in 2017.

The Chinese government has ruled out such a right.



South Africa is set to open the murder trial of a British millionaire charged with orchestrating the killing of his wife while they were on a honeymoon in the country.

In the trial that opens on Monday, 34-year-old Shrien Dewani is accused of hiring a group of hit men to carry out the murder. He denies any involvement in his wife's killing.

Britain extradited Dewani to South Africa in April after a three-year legal battle.

His wife Anni was shot dead in Cape Town in November, 2010, just days after the couple's wedding in India.



This is VOA news.



The top U.S. disease prevention official is trying to reassure Americans that the country will not suffer a significant outbreak of Ebola. But as VOA's Michael Bowman reports, the official told a U.S. television network on Sunday that U.S. hopes of preventing a spread of Ebola also depend on actions taken by African authorities.

At present, a Liberian man in Dallas, Texas, is the only confirmed active Ebola case known in the United States. But swift responses to recent false alarms show a national medical community on high alert, including the mobilization of a disease control unit to meet an incoming international flight on which an African man had become ill, as it turns out, with something other than Ebola.

The Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tom Frieden, says there is no cause for panic.

"Here in the U.S., I remain quite confident we will not have a widespread outbreak. We will stop it in its tracks. We have got infection control in hospitals and public health that tracks and isolates people if they get symptoms."

Ultimately, Ebola must be controlled at its source.

"I am quite concerned, the longer this goes on in these three West African countries, the greater the possibility that other countries in Africa are going to have to fight this on their territory, as well. Until the outbreak is controlled in Africa, we cannot get the risk here to zero.

Michael Bowman, VOA news, Washington.



Results from Brazil's presidential election show that incumbent Dilma Rousseff has not won the absolute majority that she needed to avoid a runoff vote later this month.

With 97 percent of the results tallied in Sunday's first round, Ms. Rousseff had 41 percent of the vote, while pro-business social Democrat and former state governor Aecio Neves was in second place with 33 percent.

If the results are confirmed, a second round runoff election will be held on October 26th.

President Rousseff has enjoyed strong support from Brazil's working class. Thanks to generous social welfare programs implemented during the two terms of her popular predecessor and political mentor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.



Eastern Ukraine has experienced some of its fiercest fighting of a six-month war between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists.

Ukraine's military accused the separatists of carrying out attacks in the area of Donetsk Airport on Sunday in violation of a cease-fire aimed at stopping the fighting that has killed more than 3,500 people since April.

Donetsk Airport is seen by Kyiv and the rebels as a key to the control of the region. Fighting has continued there even as the truce is held in other areas of eastern Ukraine.



I'm Michael Lipin in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.