Congressional leaders in the United States face a weekend of intense negotiations to prevent the Government running out of money. They have time till Tuesday to agree on how to increase the country's current debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion. Late on Friday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a short-term rise, but this was rejected by the Senate, which has a Democratic majority. The US risks defaulting on its financial obligations if a federal budget deal is not struck by the 2nd of next month. President Barack Obama has urged the Congress to come up with a bipartisan solution to prevent what he called an avoidable crisis from occurring on Tuesday, when the government might be forced into default.