i'm richelle carey. our top story on al jazeera, syria's war. >> i was elected to end wars and not start them. >> president obama says he's not itching for military action but will confront syria. the state department ordered u.s. diplomats to leave lebanon citing security concerns. discouraging news on the u.s. labor front as the government releases new employment numbers.

president obama made one last push at the g-20 summit for action in syria. he said he's encouraged by his meetings with world leaders. >> it was unanimous that chemical weapons were used, a unanimous conclusion that chemical weapons were used in syria. i would say that the majority of the room is comfortable with our conclusion that assad, the assad government was responsible for their use. >> but the host of the this year's g-20, russia, president vladimir putin says the divisions between himself and president obama are still there. >> translator: everyone has their own opinion, but there was a dialogue. we hear each other. we understand each other's arguments, and i don't agree with his arguments and he doesn't agree with my arguments.

>> as obama gets ready to head back to washington mike viqueira has more. >> reporter: president bim head back to washington soon. he came here seeking support for his plan in syria. the group is split about 50/50, but now comes the more important count, congress. the president announced at his press conference he was going to address the nation from the white house on tuesday night in the face of very strong public opposition. the president laid out his case in that press conference yet again. we can expect many of the same points on tuesday night. international norms have been violated, long-standing treaties against the use of chemical weapons. the united states security council while he prefers to work through the body, it is paralyzed and at times like these nations look towards the united states to act. he recounted the ghastly scenes that took place as a result of that attack on august 21st, citing the number, very emotional at that point in the press conference, 1400 gassed

including more than 400 children. he was asked essentially what happens if this military strike goes forward? bashar al assad doubles down and launches another attack, then what? the president said that's highly unlikely, and if that's the case, he did that before an attack, i should say, then it would make his case easier and make it easier for him to make his case to both congress and the american people. he was asked about a specific report today, the white house very sensitive about any allegations of mission creek, that the president wanted an expanded list including the use of bombers. the administration is talking about the use of cruise missiles to carry out this prospective attack in syria. the president said that report is completely inaccurate. a great deal of sensitivity there. the president summed it up this way. i'm not itching for military

action, but he portrayed himself as having very little choice, if these international norms are to be upheld, in countries like iran and north korea are to learn a lesson from there. again, deter and degrade is the white house mission here as they describe it. they're going to be taking their case to congress and the american people as soon as the president gets home this weekend. back to you. >> mike viqueira. members of congress are in closed-door briefings on the situation in syria today. the meetings are happening as congress takes a major step toward voting on a resolution authorizing military action in syria. paul beban joins us live from washington. paul, the president is trying to convince members of congress to back military action. how is that going? >> reporter: well, it is a bit of an uphill fight, richelle. as you've heard, there's a lot of back-and-forth on both sides. we're hearing a lot from lawmakers home in their home districts. obviously, congress coming back into session on monday. again, they are getting a lot of

push-back here and there. the president actually asked directly about that issue, how he could convince lawmakers who are hearing no from their constituents at home, how he can convince them to vote yes on any action on syria. let's here what he had to say during that press conference in russia. >> what i have said and i will repeat is that i put this before congress for a reason. i think we will be more effective and stronger if, in fact, congress authorizes this action. i'm not going to engage in parlor games now, jonathan, about whether or not it's going to pass when i'm talking substantively to congress about why this is important and talking to the american people about why this is important. now, with respect to congress and how they should respond to

constituency concerns, you know, i do consider it part of my job to help make the case and to explain to the american people exactly why i think this is the right thing to do. it's conceivable that at the end of the day i don't persuade a majority of the american people that it's the right thing to do. then each member of congress has to decide if i think it's the right thing to do for america's national security and the world's national security, then how do i vote? you know what, that's what you're supposed to do as a member of congress. ultimately you listen to your constituents, but you also have to make some decisions about what you believe is right for america. >> reporter: so the president there referring to congress, members of congress having a tough job to do when they get

back in their districts to answer questions, to try to convince their constituents if it's what they, in fact, believe, that action against syria is the right thing. also mentioning, of course, he has to make tough choices all the time. again, many lawmakers home in their home districts right now holding a lot of town hall meetings where they're getting sometimes quite heated. in fact, senator john mccain home in arizona right now last night held a town hall meeting in phoenix. things got pretty heated. let's take a listen to that. >> but how much is the life of american servicemen wo worth? to me it's worth a whole lot more than the situation -- >> there's no contemplation of putting one on the ground. >> you can say that now. >> i'm telling you there's not, sir, so that's not -- that is not an argument we can have. it's not going to happen. go ahead. >> reporter: that town hall meeting as you heard very contentious between senator

mccain and some people in phoenix. it went on for more than an hour. we just learned that actually in the senate a quick procedural move to put the resolution that came out of the senate foreign relations committee, that move as been completed, so the resolution will be formally on the calendar for a vote as soon as next wednesday, september 11th. one more note here about the administration working the phones, working all the angles. we've heard that president obama and top lawmakers have called more than 60 senators and more than 125 representatives of the house. we're also hearing that vice president biden may be meeting with republican senators at his residence this weekend. we'll work to confirm that. richelle. >> try to turn on the charm. paul beban, thank you. great wrap-up there. thank you so much. john kerry is working to gather support for military intervention in syria. today he heads to lithuania to meet with foreign ministers from the european union.

afterwards he will travel to paris and london for talks with french, british and arab league leaders to discuss syria the crisis this egypt and israeli/palestinian relations as well. they'll also sit done with abbas. in lob lebanon the u.s. is ordering diplomats to leave the country. it applies to non-emergency personnel stationed at the u.s. embassy in beirut. the state department is also urging all u.s. citizens to avoid travel to lebanon citing, this is a quote, current safety and security concerns. david jackson is live in beirut with more on what prompted this warning. it seems with everything that is potentially on the horizon, this is almost to be expected. >> reporter: it is to be expected, richelle. you're right. it's happened before, many times before. it is often referred to by the personnel as the friends and family rule. it means friends and family are advised at this point to leave the country and leave the united

states embassy. the issue is actually ordered by the state department, and they do this around the world, really, periodically in places that you might not expect. you see it pop up occasionally in areas that don't even seem to be particularly endangered. in this case they think they have good reason, and they're certainly ordering the nonessential personnel to be out of the embassy itself. the embassy will remain open. all the embassies here remain open, and many are on a lighter staffing basis than they had been before. certainly, as you mentioned, tourism is down to a trickle, if there is any at all. as i mentioned before, a lot of corporations that have people that come and go out of beirut, particularly out of european corporations where the european governments have not issued a similar order to the state department, they have simply told corporate representatives that come in and out of this part of the world to avoid this part of the world over the next certainly week to ten days. we don't know how long this order will stay in place. right now it's open-ended. richelle. >> we don't know how long it

will last, because we don't know if or when there will be military strikes. i think you made a very good point that needs to be reiterat reiterated. the embassy is not closing down. they're simply narrowing the staff. >> that's right. the embassy is not closed, and the staff will be -- it's not what they call a skeleton staff. that really is down to just a very few, and that has happened on rare occasions before. in this instance the embassy will function normally. one of the things they put out with this announcement is that the embassy is not a haven. it is not a place where americans can go and turn, should they feel that things around them are unsafe and that they now want protection. you can't really go to the u.s. embassy to find that protection, and it's one of the reasons why they send people out of the country, because they want nobody to be here if they feel it's unsafe for them. richelle. >> david jackson live from beirut. thank you so much. lebanon isn't the only place the u.s. is taking precautions with diplomatic facilities.

the state department is pulling non-emergency staffing and families from the u.s. consulate in turkey. we have more from southern turkey. >> reporter: the united states has authorized the drawdown of its consulate staff in the southern city of adana. this is not a mandatory pull-out of staff we're being told. it's rather a voluntary but highly advisable move. it's important to point out that this measure is not being replicated neither in the embassy, in the capital ancara or in the main consulate in the large city of istanbul. it's only in the city of adana. there's a specific american connection there, that being the airbase where we see nato and u.s. forces stationed there along the turkish-syrian border. this is a time when turkey is jittery and concerned about possible retaliation from syria, should there be any military

strike targeting the syrian regime and military forces. now, of course, turkey shares its longest border with syria, 560-mile border. over the past couple of days, we have been seeing the turkish military enhance or increase its presence along the border. more military vehicles are being sent out in that direction as well as eight workers with the specific knowledge of handling injuries or essentially victims of chemical weapons attacks. august job numbers are out. coming up, a full report and what it means for the recovery of the economy. also the latest information from edward snowden shows the nsa is finding a way around the walls that is supposed to keep your information private. we'll explain how the agency is doing that next.

welcome back. recapping our top stories. syria's escalating use of chemical weapons threatens its neighbors. >> president obama continues to speak out against syria at the g-20 summit. he said the world canada stand idly by. he's expected to make a detailed case for action next tuesday to the nation. the state department ordered u.s. diplomats to leave leb nan citing security concerns over the pending military action in syria. nonessential staffers and american citizens were instructed to leave beirut. the monthly jobs report is out today. a bit of a disappointment. growth in the labor market is stubbornly low. hi, patricia. >> there were high expectations for today's report, and it failed to deliver. the unemployment rate in august edged down to 7.3%, but not for

positive reasons. now, employers added only 169,000 jobs, that is far fewer than they were expecting. the sluggish pace of hires could complicate the federal reserve's decision this month on whether to pull back the stimulus program, but the most worrying trend in today's report is the labor force participation rate. now, that measures those works and actively seeking work. that number fell to 63.2%. that is the lowest level since 1978. it signals that more people are giving up looking for a job. economists say there's little reason for job seekers to be optimistic. >> we just haven't seen that kind of burst of economic growth, that surge in overall demand that is required to make employers enthusiastic about making new job offers. >> we have seen job increases each month for the last yier, but not nearly enough.

bear in mind that the economy needs to create at least 200,000 new jobs every month just to keep pace with population growth. >> thank you so much. the state of washington is unveiling new rules this week aimed at recreational marijuana use, including when and how people can smoke pot. they announced more than 300 stores will open up across the state where people can buy the drug for pleasure. u.s. birth rates were at an all-time high in 2007 at 4.3 million. after falling four years in a row, they might level off. a new study by the cdc reports the number of babies born last year, roughly 3.9 million, is only a few hundred less than in 2011. researchers say the study suggests couples may not be concerned about having children in this economic climate. the birth rate for women in the 30s as risen slightly since 2007 and birth rates for teen moms is half what it was in 1970. spies in the u.s. and britain have cracked codes

designed to protect online information. newspapers say they got the story from nsa whistleblower edward snowden. rob reynolds reports. >> reporter: the u.s. cyber spy agency has cracked many of the codes meant to keep sensitive internet communications private. according to new documents released by former national security agency contractor edward notice snowden the nsa has invested billions of dollars in super-fast computers to break transactions including banking transactions, consumer e-commerce, corporate trade secrets and medical records and other confidential information. the documents also show the agency secretly persuaded or legally forced technology companies to provide it with the keys to their encryption program so that it could deroad -- decode billions of enter thet chats and phone calls in the

u.s. and across the world. in a 2010 briefing memo for nsa's counterpart, the agency boasted of an aggressive, multi-pronged effort to break widely used internet encryption technologies saying that vast amount of online data previously ignored is now being exploited. the british agency reported it had developed what it called access opportunities to google's encrypted traffic. there are over 400 million users of g mail. other companies targeted by code breakers include yahoo! facebook and microsoft's hot mail. the documents collected by snowden have been shared with "the new york times," "the guardian" and the nonprofit news organization. the revelations coincide with a new poll released by the pew research organization showing half of americans are worried about the information available

about them online. 7 out of 10 believe laws and government policies are inadequate to protect their private data. >> the snowden revelations about the nsa, i think, that's focused a lot of attention on this, and i think that the pew poll shows that people are increasingly concerned. >> reporter: the nsa appears to believe the code-breaking abilities are a trump card in geopolitical rivalries with russia, china and other countries. in the future one document states superpowers will be made or broken based on the strength of their analytic programs. we've been followed the alleged nsa eavesdropping all over the world. at the g-20 summit brazil's president spoke with obama about the possible spy. she's agreed to formally respond to the allegations by next week. the nsa is accused of monitors rousseff and her aides.

she has agreed to meet pending the report. thousands of muslim brotherhood supporters are turning out in egypt once again in protest of the interim government. the rallies are taking place in cairo, giza and six other areas in the country. the demonstrations are a day after egypt's interior minister narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when a car bomb tore through his convoy. our correspondent is on the line for us in cairo. we're not naming her for her own safety. where are these protests taking place? what are their demands? >> reporter: they've been as kro the across the whole of the egypt. we see them in cairo. i was out and about in the streets and saw one protester and about 3,000 people on foot and another 100 or so people

following on a car rally. now, we saw one woman on the balcony on the local residence waving this photograph who is the head of the army and defense minister here and kind of running the country. she put a finger across her throat as if to say the protesters who are walking pass, you are going to die. we think that was going to spark a clash, but people managed to stand by. they carried on peacefully, but that's not the picture across the country. a couple of places in cairo had gunshots fired and some sort of clashes between the protesters and armed men in some cases coming to the anti-coup alliance march pro teers and threatening them and we heard of two deaths outside of cairo. one in the nile delta in the north where there was clashes between the two groups and one in alexandria where we believe

the man died of a gunshot after some armed men came and attacked the protests. it's getting quieter now. it's thinning out now because we're just 40 minutes from curfew. everybody has to be home. really seen quite a bit of violence in different pockets around the country. >> we know the interim government is looking into who was behind yesterday's assassination attempt. what more do we know about that? what information is coming out? >> reporter: well, they've been honing in on the car where the ied was placed, as you say, and the interior minister narrowly escaped with his life as they attacked his convoy. we hear from the interior ministry they believe after interrogating the owner of the car -- they had to track him down from the number plates of the car. they believe the car was stolen six months ago, so that doesn't lead them to who planned the attack thus far. aim couple other things from the

investigation. they haven't worked out whether it was remotely detonated or indeed if it was a suicide bombing. they pieced together their forensic data so far, so they don't know at the moment. really, they haven't pinned down who was behind it. we're hearing lots of islamist groups including the muslim brotherhood saying therm condemning this attack. so far they're at a loss to say who planned it. >> thank you so much for that report live from egypt. still ahead on al jazeera, former new england patriot star aaron hernandez is back in court. plus, we have the weather as we head into the weekend. that's right, richelle. exceptional heat taking over the north central plains. meanwhile lorena will bring heavy rainfall all across california. i'll tell you all about it very soon coming up after the break.

a new development in the case of a montana teacher who was sentenced to just 30 days for raping a 14-year-old girl. a judge who planned to resentence stacy was told by authorities to cancel today's hearing because it's illegal to change a judge's original sentence. the case drew widespread

attention when the sentencing judge made controversial comments about the victim saying she seemed older than her chronological age. that's a quote. the victim later committed suicide. former nfl player aaron hernandez is set to be arraigned on a first-degree murder charge. he's accused of killing 27-year-old odin lloyd, who was in the relationship with the sister of hernandez's girlfri d girlfriend. he pleaded not guilty after being arrested in june and is being held without bail. exceptional heat across the north central plains as we track into this afternoon. as a matter of fact, we have an excessive warning in effect across much of the dakotas as we track into this afternoon. very uncomfortable and dangerous heat gripping the area. if you have any elderly neighbors or if your children are headed home from school, make sure you check on them and make sure they have plenty of water getting around. bismarck is expected to climb to

a high of 95 degrees. minneapolis at 89. typically at this time of year, mmgs minneapolis is around 79 and omaha around 95 and typically they're around 81. i think the heat will relent into next week, but unfortunately today we have an excessive heat advisory in effect across central, north and south dakota. be careful there. meanwhile, across the midwest into the northeast, high pressure is in control. it's sunny and beautiful. it's going to stay that way. temperatures right now in albany at 57, new york city at 63. by the end of the day we'll gain 10 more degrees and tracking into saturday and sunday it fwins begins to heat up a bit. more heavy rain across the northwest along i-5 from seattle into port lalanportland. saturday into sunday we'll see that area of low pressure push further to the east. if you're traveling across southern california, please be careful. heavy rain, 3 to 6 inches, is

expected. richelle, back to you. >> thank you so much. i'm richelle carey. keep it here on al jazeera. >> america's military leaders acknowledge a terrible truth. that some of the men and women who sign up to serve the nation end up victims of sexual assault. so is the pentagon doing enough to fight the problem or is the solution outside the chain of command? from washington this is inside story on al jazeera america. >> welcome i'm libby casey. every week in the u.s. military there are an estimated 500 sexual assaults and only a fraction are ever reported. just this week at the navy yard here in washington a hearing is underway to determine whether three former naval academy officers should face assault charges. a threat to discipline and cohesion and he's issued directive to try to solve the problem. >> this is going to take all of us. the problem will be solved here. in the -- in this institution. and we will -- we will fix it and we will do everything that we need to do to fix it. this problem can't be fixed by the secretary of defense loon. i can direct -- alone, i can direct people, to be accountable, and i will, the president has held me accountable for it and there's not one of these people in leadership today that wants this to be their legacy. >> first on our program, the facts of the new pentagon plan which went into effect last month. it establishes victim advocacy programs including access to a lawyer. it gives commanders the authority to transfer service members accused of sexual assault into other units. and it reopens older cases of abuse that may have been handled improperly before. it also tightens control over potentially inappropriate relationships between recruiters, instructors and troops. but let's go beyond the policy and talk about the personal. joining us now by satellite from san francisco is katy weber.