BBC News with Stewart Macintosh
President Obama has urged the US Congress to lift the America's debt ceiling warning failure risks returning the country to recession with the deadline in just over a week. Mr. Obama said he was open to negotiations if Republicans agree to lift the debt ceiling temporarily. Mark Mardell reports.
“I’m not bargain,” declared the president and his language was very hard-line comparing Republicans to hostage takers. He said he would talk to anyone about anything but not while he was being threatened and he made it clear not risen America’s debt ceiling could be catastrophic. But there was perhaps just the suggestion over way ahead, the president said he’d going to talks if the government was reopened, the debt ceiling lifted for the links of negotiations. The speaker of the House Republican John Boehner called back a demand for unconditional surrender. He said there had to be something in return.
There are growing signs of financial markets being affected by the political standoff in Washington. The main US stock market indexes fell more than 1% on Tuesday and with evidence concern in the market for the US government debt. Meanwhile a White House official says President Obama will nominate the current vice chairman of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman. Andrew Walker reports.
The chair of the US Federal Reserve is arguably the world's most powerful economic official. If Janet Yellen does indeed get the job, she will be the first woman to take that role. The Fed has had a central place in the US response to the financial crisis, and the mere possibility that it might start to curtail its efforts has lead to significant recent turbulence in global financial markets. Ms. Yellen is seen as someone likely to favour withdrawing the Fed's post-crisis measures very gradually.
The Libyan National Congress has demanded the return of Abu Anas al-Liby, the Libyan militant suspected of being in al-Qaeda operative who was abducted from Tripoli by US special force on Saturday. Libya's Minister of Justice Salah al-Marghani described the operation as a kidnapping. Earlier, Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan insisted Libyan suspects should be tried in Libya.
President Putin has demanded an apology from the Netherlands after a Russian diplomat was arrested at the weekend. Moscow alleges that armed men beat him in front of his children. Anna Hooligan reports
The Dutch foreign ministry has agreed to look into events inside the diplomat’s home on Sunday evening. A representative of the Russian embassy says she believes police were called after neighbor’s complained by the way Mr. Borodin was treating his children but he says he was protecting them. President Putin has accused the Netherlands of violating the country’s diplomatic immunity. Relations between the two nations are already unusually strained after the Dutch government initiated legal action against Russia in connection with the detention of 30 Greenpeace activists.
World News from the BBC
A huge fire at a clothing factory in Bangladesh has killed at least nine people. The blaze engulfed to a warehouse and two other buildings on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka. Bangladesh's $21bn garment industry has suffered several disasters in recent month.
Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner has undergone surgery to remove a blood clot on her brain two months after she suffered a head injury. Her press secretary said the two-hour-long operation was successful and Ms. Fernadez was in good experience. Her leave absence means she had to stop campaigning for this month's congressional elections.
A medical study in Britain says people live in areas which have very high level of aircraft noise would appear to be at greater risk of stroke or heart disease. Researchers studies more than 3.5million people live near Heathrow Airport in West London. Here is our health correspondent Jan Rocha.
The researchers find that in the areas where noise from planes was loudest, the risk of being admitted to hospital or dying from a stroke or heart disease was between 10% and 20 % higher. Writing in the British medical journal, the author suggested that this could be because the startling and annoying effect of the noise was leading to raise blood pressure. The team was at pains to point out that the possible link between aircraft noise and illness was far less significant than people think increase the risk from fact such as smoking. But the researchers think the connection should be investigated further and policymakers should take it into account.
Police in Mexico City have freed unharmed members of a Spanish rock band who were kidnapped by a criminal gang. No arrest has been made. The members of the band Delorean were phoned in their hotel by someone posing as a policeman and told to move to a different hotel where the kidnappers were. The gang then demanded a ransom from their relatives in Spain but they seemingly left the musicians unguarded. The families informed the police who located the musicians 48hours after they went missing.