The US is warning of a possible terror threat in the coming weeks – Germany cancels an intelligence pact with American and Britain because of reports of wide-ranging electronic spying – A nation says goodbye to its football hero.  All that and wacky bears in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

Perhaps not surprisingly, Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe’s party won an overwhelming majority in this week’s elections.  The opposition candidate, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has already dismissed the election as “a sham” and is calling for a campaign of “passive resistance”.  UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is calling on President Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to send “clear messages of calm” to their supporters.  One election monitoring group says as many as a million people were unable to cast ballots because of polling irregularities.

Germany is ending an intelligence pact with the US and UK, because of the mass surveillance revelations by fugitive US leaker Edward Snowden.  It’s a largely symbolic move, as the pact dates from the Cold War.  But Angela Merkel’s government is facing faces mounting criticism for its complicity in spying programs, and elections are in a few weeks.

Egyptian police are preparing to blockade the two main protest camps of supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi.  Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members are defying warnings from the authorities to abandon the sit-ins in Cairo outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque and at Nahda Square, and are demanding Morsi’s reinstatement.  The army removed Morsi on 3 July after millions of people filled streets of the cities demanding that he go.

The US has issued a worldwide travel alert for its citizens because of an unspecified terrorist threat, reportedly from the group al Qaeda in Yemen. The alert expires on 31 August 2013, and recommends US citizens traveling abroad be vigilant.  The US is closing most of its embassies in the Islamic world on Sunday, which is normally a workday in those countries.  An unnamed US official told an American news network that the threat appears related to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends next week.

British nationals are being told to leave Yemen, and warned that if there’s any unrest, it is unlikely the government will be able to evacuate them.  Yemen is incredibly unstable.  Aside from the al Qaeda threat and the occasional US drone attack, soldiers loyal to the former president clashed with a rival army faction on Friday, killing two people and wounding five more.  Sounds like a good place to leave.

Tempers ran high as fists and water bottles flew in Taiwan’s parliament when a debate over a referendum on a nuclear power plant broke out into a brawl.  The Democratic Progressive Party is trying to halt the project, aware of the triple meltdown and ongoing problems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power Plant in Japan.  Taiwan, like Japan, is frequently struck by earthquakes.

Thousands of Ecuadorians said goodbye to the football star Christian “Chucho” Benitez in a sporting arena in the capital Quito.  Benitez died of heart problems in Qatar on Monday, and autopsy results suggest a previously undetected heart condition.  The striker had previously played for Mexico, Manchester United, and Ecuador’s national team.  President Rafael Correa spoke at the end of the memorial, which began early in the morning and lasted until late at night.

And finally, bears do the darnedest things.  Here’s one who must have been thirsty for a Guinness, because he broke into an Irish Bar in Colorado. 

Here’s one with a preference for German food.  He goes straight to the back of Denver’s Edelweis Restaurant and steals the dumpsters.  It's not just random playing, he picks the one we wants and keeps checking over his shoulder to make sure there's nothing in the way.  Maybe he didn’t want to be seen dumpster diving on the security camera?

And why wouldn’t he be camera shy, after the Alberta released that embarrassing video of bears practicing Pole Dancing in the Canadian woods!  Or perhaps the urge to scratch was unbearable?  Actually, the state naturalists set up a camera to record activity at the bears’ favorite scent tree and lucked out, catching a bevy of bears doing their thing, as well as other species sniffing around to learn who else is in the woods.