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Week In The News: Shutdown Threat, Kenya Terror, Iran

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Shutdown mania.  Nairobi’s mall of terror.  The olive branch from Iran.  Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Soldiers from the Kenyan Defense Forces gather at the entrance to the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. (AP)
Soldiers from the Kenyan Defense Forces gather at the entrance to the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013. (AP)

Green eggs and ham on the floor of the US Senate this week.  And a storm of politics and power plays all round.  The US government may well shut down Monday night.  The Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – for now rolls on.

At a mall in Nairobi, Kenya - the terror nightmare.  Blood and death and collapse on people who just went out to shop.

And at the United Nations in New York, a tone we have not heard in years from Iran.  Big talk of a diplomatic drive to turn around bitter years of nuclear standoff.  We shall see.

This hour, On Point:  our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Nancy Cordes, congressional correspondent for CBS News. (@nancycordes)

David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times. (@sangernyt)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From Tom's Reading List

The New York Times: Obama, an Evolving Doctrine on Foreign Policy -- "For five years, President Obama has publicly struggled with the question of when America is willing to act as the world’s policeman, and when he will insist that others take the lead, or at least share the risks, costs and resentments it engenders."

BBC: Kenya siege: Nairobi shopping mall searched for bodies -- "Kenyan and foreign forensics teams are searching the Westgate shopping complex in Nairobi amid uncertainty over how many bodies they may find following the four-day siege by Islamist militants. Sixty-seven people are so far known to have died."

The Washington Post: House Republicans explore strategy to avoid federal government shutdown --"With federal agencies set to close their doors in five days, House Republicans began exploring a potential detour on the path to a shutdown: shifting the fight over President Obama’s health-care law to a separate bill that would raise the nation's debt limit. If it works, the strategy could clear the way for the House to approve a simple measure to keep the government open into the new fiscal year, which will begin Tuesday, without hotly contested provisions to defund the Affordable Care Act."

This program aired on September 27, 2013.

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