Obama in debt deal crisis talks

16 July 2011 Last updated at 23:23 GMT Mr Obama has said all Americans must play their part in reducing the deficit US President Barack Obama has held further private meetings with congressional leaders aimed at averting a US default.

The US must raise its $14.3tn (?8.9tn) debt ceiling if it is to borrow beyond 2 August and be able to pay its bills.

But cross-party talks have so far failed to make a breakthrough and Mr Obama has warned time is running out.

Republicans have rejected the president's proposals to increase taxes on wealthier Americans to raise funds.

They say doing so would stifle investment and job growth.

Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, say they will not raise the debt limit unless Democrats agree to major spending cuts.

Mr Obama's spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said the president was discussing "various options" during Saturday's private talks with congressional leaders.

In his weekly national address, Mr Obama said all Americans had to play their part in resolving the crisis, saying: "We're all in this together."

"The truth is, you can't solve our deficit without cutting spending," he said.

Ratings down

"But you also can't solve it without asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share - or without taking on loopholes that give special interests and big corporations tax breaks that middle-class Americans don't get."

Continue reading the main story US government currently runs a $1.5tn budget deficit, requiring it to issue debt in the form of treasury bills, bonds and other securitiesPublic debt was $14.3tn on 31 May, up from $10.6tn when Mr Obama took office in January 2009Most is held by the public, with the rest held in US government accountsCongress has voted to raise the US debt limit 10 times since 2001

Sources: US Treasury, Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office

Mr Obama has said he is prepared to enact cuts to benefits and welfare schemes, but would need Republicans to consider some revenue increases in return.

On Friday, he said a failure to raise the debt limit would mean "effectively a tax increase for everybody".

In the Republicans' weekly address on Saturday, Sen Orrin Hatch of Utah said only a solution which required a balanced budget was acceptable.

This would put the US on "a path to fiscal health and would prevent this White House or any future White House from forcing more debt on the American people," he said.

Analysts say any failing to reach a deal would rattle a world economy still trying to put the 2008 downturn behind it and could potentially lead to the US entering another recession.

On Thursday, Standard & Poor's became the second of the major credit rating agencies to place US debt under review, citing an increasing risk of a payment default.

Another ratings agency, Moody's, warned a day earlier that it might cut Washington's triple-A debt rating.

View the original article here

Libya rebels 'face health crisis'

28 June 2011 Last updated at 04:51 GMT By Bridget Kendall BBC News, Benghazi Hospital staff say they have to share out what drugs are left among the sick children A medical crisis is looming in eastern Libya with hospitals in Benghazi running short of supplies, the rebels' health minister says.

Stocks of drugs and other items such as surgical gloves are said to be running out.

Dr Nagi Barakat told the BBC that most emergency aid donated from abroad went straight to the front line.

He said that if a new offensive broke out, hospitals would face a major crisis.

On the cancer ward of Benghazi's children's hospital, most patients are not getting the right dosage. There aren't enough drugs to go round.

Dr Amina Bayou says she and her colleagues juggle supplies to give everyone a little.

"We try to divide the drugs between this patient and that patient. It's not good," she said.

"We are treating more than 200 children. We ask parents to go to Egypt to buy medicines and when they bring them back, we divide them up like parcelling out food."

In one room, a two-year-old called Bubaker lies listlessly. His leukaemia is advanced and he is not responding to treatment, says Dr Bayou, because the dose isn't strong enough.

Next door, six-year-old Melak is doing better. She too has leukaemia and is recovering from a severe lung infection. Doctors found anti-fungal drugs to treat her after a desperate search - the last medicine of its kind in all Benghazi. Without it, she would now be dead.

It is not just cancer drugs that are running out in Benghazi's hospitals.

Shelves are rapidly being cleared of what medical supplies are left, rebel officials say

Dr Barakat, a Libyan doctor who returned from London to take up the post of health minister in the rebels' interim government, says the situation is critical.

The list of 150 items needed urgently include surgical gloves and gauze as well as a whole array of drugs needed for cardiac patients and, critically, in the intensive care units.

At the Hawari General Hospital, director Dr Ezzedin Benomran is at his wits' end.

He reckons that more than 20 patients have died since February because of the lack of medical supplies.

Stocks of the narcotics needed for anaesthetic procedures are so low that the hospital has had to close nine of its 12 operating theatres.

The surgeons only operate on emergency cases - four a day - and many of those are patients with serious gunshot wounds, transferred to Benghazi from the front line in Misrata.

Cash shortage

Dr Barakat says here is little left over for women who need caesarean sections, or casualties from car accidents or other domestic accidents.

In any case, he adds, the amounts donated by foreign governments and NGOs cannot meet the demands of all the hospitals in a large city like Benghazi, which services the entire population of eastern Libya.

Medical stocks were already low in February. Now they have been run down in some cases almost to zero, he says.

Critically wounded fighters are among those requiring scant hospital resources

"We have only 2-3 weeks' supply of cancer drugs," said Dr Barakat. "They used to be allocated to us from a central point in Tripoli. We have no access to that now."

The rebel leadership says it would willingly pay for new supplies if only it had the money, but its stock of cash has also run out.

A week ago rebel leaders appealed to the outside world to help unlock funds and loans to sort out the cash flow problem and avoid a social and medical crisis in the city.

A week on - according to senior sources in the leadership - there is still no sign of any cash being made available.

Dr Barakat says this is only one of his worries.

So far the hospitals are just about keeping afloat, despite the shortages. But if there were to be any new pressure on the system, he fears it could break it.

"If Tripoli falls tomorrow, we will have major crisis," he said.

"If there are new mass casualties on the front line here in the east because of an assault on Brega and Ras Lanuf there will be too.

"I am worried because any time the army moves forward and there are mass casualties, I am sure we will not be able to cope."

View the original article here