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BBC news 2013-09-15

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 the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said they wanted to reopen wider peace talks. Mr. Lavrov said the proposed deal didn't mention any potential use of force if Syria failed 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 weapons 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 there will be a new UN resolution to enforce all these although the two sides differ about what that could mean in practice.

President Obama has welcomed the deal agreed in Geneva, but has warned that if diplomacy fails, the United States remains prepared to act. In a statement, he said the threat of US military force that help create the opportunity to end the Syrian chemical weapons threat through diplomacy.

The commander, one of the Syria's main rebel armies, General Salim Idriss of the Free Syrian Army has said the deal would not resolve the crisis and would allow President Assad to escape being held accountable for the death of hundreds of civilians. The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen is in the Syrian capital Damascus.

The Free Syria 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 launch a military attack, which it hoped would tip the balance of the war its way. Now, the FSA believes that the Americans have been sidetracked. Whether or not chemical weapons are destroyed is not the point. The FSA wants the 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 say 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's Danny Eberhard.

It's not yet clear who carried out the attack or why. The Shabak are a separate ethnic community number in tens of thousands and have their own language, most of Shiah Muslims, and they have been targeted in the past by Sunnite extremists. Iraq has of late seen a wave 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 evokes the brandishing of bananas at black players by Russian football fans.

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The Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has appealed for political stability ahead of a 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 Mr. Letta's party expels him, he might put his own party out of the government and bring it down. Mr. Letta says he's convinced that Mr. Berlusconi won't do this as he would then have to answer for jeopardizing the Italian economic recovery.

The US National Guard has been deployed to the state of Colorado to supply food and water to people awaiting rescue following severe flooding. At a huge operation continues to help people trapped on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, 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 Rocky Mountains flooding homes and farmland cutting off communities as dozens of roads were blocked or swept away. The floodwaters are subsiding and as a big push to restore transport links as quickly as possible, but hundreds of people are still unaccounted for and are needed 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 could be more flash flooding to come.

A ship that’s been billed as China's first luxury cruise liner has been detained at a port on the 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 it 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.

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