BBC News with Marion Marshall
The United States and Russia have agreed a plan to remove and destroy Syria's chemical weapons as soon and safely as possible. The US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said they want to reopen wider peace talks. Mr. Lavrov said propose deal didn't mention any potential use of force if Syria fail to comply. Our diplomatic correspondent James Robbins reports.
The US-Russia agreement allows President Assad just seven days to declare a complete list of Syria’s entire chemical weapon stockpile. International inspectors are to be on the ground in Syria by November. All stockpiles are to be removed or destroyed by mid-2014. And that will be a new UN resolution to enforce all this. Although the two sides differ about what that could mean in practice.
President Obama has welcomed the deal agreed in Geneva. But he has warned that if diplomacy fails United States remains preparing to act. In a statement, he said the threats of US military force has helped to create opportunity to end the Syrian chemical weapon threat through diplomacy.
The commander, one of Syria’s main rebel armies, General Salim Idriss of the Free Syrian Army, has said the deal would not resolve the crisis and but allow President Assad to escape being held accountable for the deaths of hundreds of civilians. The BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is in the Syrian capital Damascus.
The Free Syrian Army, the loose coalition of armed rebels that has been hoping for western help to fight the Assad regime, has rejected the agreement. Less than a week ago, the FSA believed that the Americans were about to launching military attack which it helped would tip the balance of the war its way. Now the FSA believes that the Americans have been sidetracked. Whether or not the chemical weapons were destroyed is not the point. The FSA wants Americans to destroy the regime’s military power. And the US agreement with Russia means the chances of that happening are receding.
Police in Iraq says a suicide bomber near the northern city of Mosul has killed more than 20 people at a funeral of a number of minority Shabak people. Here is Danny Eberhard.
It is not yet clear who carried out the attack or why. The Shabak are separate ethnic community number in tens of thousands and have their own language. Most of them are Shia Muslims. And they have been targeted in the past by Sunni extremists. Iraq has of late seen a weave of sectarian attacks. According to United Nations figures, some 5,000 civilians have been killed there this year, the worst level of violence since 2008.
A Russian politician from President Putin’s Ruling party has sparked a storm of criticism after posting in apparently racist image of President Obama on Twitter. Irina Rodnina twitted a photo-collage showing an unidentified hand offering the US President a banana. The image evoked the brandishing of bananas at black players by Russian football fans.
BBC News.
The Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has appealed for political stability ahead of vote on whether to expel Silvio Berlusconi from parliament, a move which could threaten the coalition government. A senate panel will vote on Wednesday on whether to punish the former prime minister following his conviction for tax fraud. Mr. Berlusconi says that if the Mr. Letta’s party expels him, he might put his own party out of the government and bring it down. Mr. Letta says he is convinced that Mr. Berlusconi would not do this as he would then have to answer for jeopardizing the Italian economic recovery.。
The US National Guard has been deployed in state of Colorado to supply food and water to people awaiting rescue following severe flooding. As a huge operation continues to help people trapped on the eastern edge of Rocky Mountain, National Guard troops have taken supplies to the town of Lyons which has been cut off. Four people are known to have died in Colorado. Alastair Leithead reports.
The rain surged down from the Rocky Mountains, flooding homes and famer land cutting off community as dozens of roads were blocked or swept away. The flood waters are subsiding as a big push to restore transport links as quickly as possible, but hundreds of people are still unaccounted for and are in need of help. While the cleanups have started and the weather is changing, rain is still forecasted for the Rocky Mountains and officials are warning people that there could be more flash flooding to come.
A ship that has been built as China’s first cruise liner has been detained in a port of South Korean island of Jeju because of a legal dispute. A local court ordered the vessel, the Henna not to leave after a Chinese shipping company asked for to be seized. The ship’s operator is providing free entertainment and around the clock food on the liner which has more than 2,300 passengers and crew members on board. The Henna was due to leave Jeju on Friday.
BBC World Service News.