The US federal government has begun a partial shutdown after politicians in Washington failed to agree a budget, with Republicans linking any deal to a delay for the implementation of Obamacare.
World leaders are taking part in the 68th UN General Assembly debate in New York, discussing a number of topics including the ongoing crisis in Syria. Speakers include US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
As Russia and the United States, and their respective allies, lock horns at the G20 and in the UN Security Council and perhaps eventually find a face-saving way out of their self-inflicted paralysis, the dynamic of the Syrian civil war has long taken a direction that will see neither of them as a winner.
A week that started with a march toward war, that melted in the heat of U.S. politics, that morphed into high-level diplomacy, ended with a U.S.-Russian deal to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons.
US President Barack Obama has postponed Congress’ vote on military action in Syria to pursue diplomacy to remove Bashar al-Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons, but issues over how to enforce this plan remain.