US President Barack Obama's called an 11th-hour meeting with top congressional leaders to negotiate a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.
Obama will meet Republican and Democrat leaders from both Houses later today.
The President returned to a sharply divided Washington yesterday, where the mood has soured on a possible plan to prevent hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes and spending cuts from kicking in next week.
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Analysts fear that the package will tip the US economy back into recession, having a knock-on effect for global markets.
You can watch a report on the Fiscal Cliff facing Obama this morning:
