The UK’s intelligence-gathering assets based in the Mediterranean are to provide the US military with information, as it prepares to carry out cruise missiles strikes against President Bashar al-Assad. Whitehall sources said Britain’s decision not to take part in attacks punishing the regime for using chemical weapons only covered its Armed Forces, and the sharing of intelligence would continue.

GCHQ’s powerful eavesdropping facilities on Cyprus, around only 100 miles from the Syrian coast, are expected to play a key role in intelligence gathering for military action. Meanwhile, the military build-up in the region was continuing yesterday, with the arrival of a US navy amphibious landing ship carrying hundreds of US Marines.

Or rather water, because a sixth US warship has now anchored in proximity to Syria, joining the recently arrived fifth destroyer USS Stout, which joined the warships already "breathing down Assad's neck." From AP: "Five US Navy destroyers - the USS Gravely, USS Mahan, USS Barry, the USS Stout and USS Ramage - are in the eastern Mediterranean Sea waiting for the order to launch. And the USS San Antonio, an amphibious assault ship has now joined them.

The USS San Antonio, which is carrying helicopters and can carry up to 800 Marines, has no cruise missiles, so it is not expected to participate in the attack. Instead, the ship's long-planned transit across the Mediterranean was interrupted so that it could remain in the area to help if needed." So in addition to a cruise missile based force, the US is now bringing in the marines?

The justification that they are there "just in case" seems a little shallow in context. Not surprisingly this contradicts what Obama said yesterday, promising there would be no land-based invasion.

If a full-blown war erupts between the United States and Syria, it will not be good for the United States, it will not be good for Israel, it will not be good for Syria, it will not be good for Iran and it will not be good for Hezbollah. The party that stands to benefit the most is Saudi Arabia, and they won't even be doing any of the fighting. They have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict in Syria, but so far they have not been successful in their attempts to overthrow the Assad regime.

Now the Saudis are trying to play their trump card - the US military. If the Saudis are successful, they will get to pit the two greatest long-term strategic enemies of Sunni Islam against each other - the US and Israel on one side and Shia Islam on the other. In such a scenario, the more damage that both sides do to each other the happier the Sunnis will be. There would be other winners from a US war with Syria as well. For example, it is well-known that Qatar wants to run a natural gas pipeline out of the Persian Gulf, through Syria and into Europe.

That is why Qatar has also been pouring billions of dollars into the civil war in Syria. So if it is really Saudi Arabia and Qatar that want to overthrow the Assad regime, why does the United States have to do the fighting? Someone should ask Barack Obama why it is necessary for the US military to do the dirty work of his Sunni Muslim friends.

Obama is promising that the upcoming attack will only be a "limited military strike" and that we will not be getting into a full-blown war with Syria. The only way that will work is if Syria, Hezbollah and Iran all sit on their hands and do nothing to respond to the upcoming US attack.

Obama's overall approval rating stands at 44%. The only other time it has been that low in the NBC survey came at the end of 2011, after a bruising debt ceiling fight with Congress that ended in a downgrade of the nation's credit rating.

This time, the drop is largely due to foreign policy concerns. Only 41% approve of the way Obama is handling foreign policy, the lowest ever. Consider that just last December, 52% approved of the way he was handling foreign policy. The drop in satisfaction in foreign policy comes as Obama has ramped up talk for military action in Syria. According to the poll, Americans aren't very satisfied with the way he has approached US involvement in that conflict, either. Only 35% approve, and 44% disapprove.

The poll also showed the quagmire facing Obama as he decides how to proceed in Syria. Almost four in five Americans think that Obama should seek Congressional approval before moving forward with any strikes in Syria.

In the latter, the authorities blamed the weather for the death of more than 5,000 cattle too. Weather forecasters say a cold front from Antarctica entered the region almost a week ago. On Friday, the Peruvian deputy education minister, Martin Vegas, said schools were closed in 43 provinces in 10 regions. "They will remain closed next week as more snowfalls have been forecast," he said.

Thousands of llamas and alpacas have died in the cold weather. Peruvian President Ollanta Humala visited some of the worst affected areas earlier this week. He said blankets and alpaca covers were needed, as well as medicines and clothes.

In Bolivia, roads closed by the snow have disrupted supplies to mines in the province of Inquisivi, in La Paz.

Work in five mines in the region, which employ thousands of workers, had to be suspended since last weekend because of the snow. Correspondents say they were running out of supplies. One of the driest places on earth, the Atacama desert in northern Chile, also saw snow earlier this week. Forecasters said the snowfall was the heaviest in the area, about 1,000km (600 miles) north of the capital Santiago, in three decades.

HSLDA, the world’s premiere advocate for homeschoolers, said the family of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich has battled for several years Germany’s World War II-era requirement that all children submit to the indoctrination programs in the nation’s public schools. The shocking raid was made solely because the parents were providing their children’s education, HSLDA said. The organization noted the paperwork that authorized police officers and social workers to use force on the children contained no claims of mistreatment.

“The children were taken to unknown locations,” HSLDA said. “Officials ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing their children anytime soon.” The raid, which took place Thursday at 8am as the children were beginning their day’s classes, has been described by observers as “brutal and vicious.” A team of 20 social workers, police and special agents stormed the family’s home. HSLDA reported a Judge Koenig, who is assigned to the Darmstadt family court, signed an order authorizing the immediate seizure of the children by force.

“Citing the parents’ failure to cooperate ‘with the authorities to send the children to school,’ the judge also authorized the use of force ‘against the children’ … reasoning that such force might be required because the children had ‘adopted the parents’ opinions’ regarding homeschooling and that ‘no cooperation could be expected’ from either the parents or the children,” HSLDA said.

The staff member said they had found highly radioactive water dripping from a pipe used to connect two coolant tanks and that it had been patched up using tape. The discovery of the pipe came a day after Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said it found new radiation hotspots at four sites around coolant tanks, with one reading at 1,800 millisieverts per hour - a dose that would kill a human left exposed to it in four hours.

Sky's foreign affairs correspondent Lisa Holland visited Fukushima on August 23 and was given access to government efforts to restore confidence in the crippled plant. She said there was little sign of life in the residential areas around the facility and spoke to people who said they will not go back to their homes until they have been told the truth about the dangers by ministers.

The think tank sees the greatest danger arising from the conflict over Taiwan, even though territorial conflicts over islands in the East and South China Seas could escalate out of hand as well. The author uses as an "example of growing tensions," the "manoeuvres in September 2012, in which first the Chinese Navy and then the US and Japanese militaries exercised re-conquering an island."

"A month later, the aircraft carrier, 'USS George Washington' was dispatched to the South China Sea," the author recalls, "just a few days after the east fleet" of the Chinese Navy "had carried out manoeuvres in the area." The SWP also indicates that in such a conflict, Berlin would take the side forcing Beijing to renounce. "Decisive will be, whether China will be willing to accommodate the presence of a hegemonic US power, as a necessary evil for regional stability."

According to the Bundeswehr, the exercise ("Westlant Deployment") was an "intensive exercise with the US Navy, to coordinate and consolidate procedures." The Bundeswehr explained that the German warships sailed "in an American battle group" comprised of "up to 30 units," and together with "surface vessels, submarines, helicopters and aviation" - not closer described - "procedures and techniques were tested."

This past spring, for the second time ever, a German frigate was, for several months, incorporated into a carrier strike group around a US aircraft carrier. Observers assume that this will happen more often in the future. Last spring, the frigate's captain stressed that the frigate would of course "defend" the entire carrier strike group, if it would have come under attack - a clear indication of what could be the consequences of incorporation into the US battle groups, even without explicit German war plans.

In a televised address, he told the American people that after "careful deliberation", he was "convinced" of the need for action, and said the US was "prepared to strike whenever we choose". However, he has formally requested authorisation from Congress before any use of force, effectively ruling out any strike before members return on September 9.

However, he ruled out sending in troops on the ground and said any attack on Syria would have only "limited scope". Mr Obama acknowledged the US was "wary of war" but added: "We cannot and must not turn a blind eye to what happened in Damascus."

Meanwhile, a poll carried out for the Mail on Sunday reveals almost two-thirds of Britons are opposed to UK military action against Syria. The same number of those questioned said the experience of Iraq has made them less likely to trust future prime ministers over whether Britain should go to war.

It has recently suffered its worst sectarian violence in years - a car bomb in Shi'ite Hizbollah territory in the Beirut suburbs and two at Sunni mosques in the northern city of Tripoli. Lebanese authorities accused Syria of involvement in the Tripoli attacks and intelligence officials fear there could be more to follow.

Syria could retaliate to an attack by America by lobbing missiles into Israel. Israel has vowed retaliation if it is attacked by Hizbollah, which is supporting Syria. That could draw Lebanon even further into the conflict. Then there's Iran. Iran is unlikely to respond by carrying out attacks from its soil but would get involved "through" Syria.

While Iran and Hizbollah support Syria's President Bashar al Assad, the Sunni opposition are supported and being armed by Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who want to bring down Assad's regime. Into all this President Obama is considering firing his cruise missiles.

He may get away with a short, sharp slap, which will save face for America after the president warned Assad not to cross a "red line". But it could be more than chemical weapons sites that President Obama hits. He could open a Pandora's box of repercussions, which he may find hard to put a lid back on.

Major carriers including Emirates, the world’s biggest airline by international passenger traffic, rival Gulf carrier Etihad and British Airways are on alert as the United States threatens a potential strike on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime. A number of long-haul airlines fly through or close to Syrian air space to service other major destinations worldwide and link to key air traffic hubs in Europe such as Heathrow.

Tim Clark, president of Dubai-based Emirates and one of the industry’s most experienced figures, told The Sunday Telegraph that “contingency plans will be in place should anything happen” in Syria. Those plans could potentially involve re-routing aircraft away from the area, Mr Clark said, although he stressed operations will continue “as normal” unless there is a serious deterioration in the situation.

“We are always in a state of preparedness for anything like this and the operations group of the company will have all of this on watch; contingency plans will be in place should anything happen,” Mr Clark said. Airlines also face a threat from a potential spike in the oil price as a result of the growing tensions in the Middle East.

Syria expects a military attack "at any moment" after UN chemical weapons inspectors left the country, a security official has said. A UN team investigating an alleged gas attack crossed the Lebanese border on Saturday and have now arrived back in the Netherlands, heightening expectations of a possible US-led strike against President Bashar al Assad's forces.

A Syrian official told AFP: "We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment." Syrian prime minister Wael al Halqi added: "The Syrian army is fully ready, its finger on the trigger to face any challenge or scenario that they want to carry out."

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the inspectors' departure by challenging the US to present evidence of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime to the UN Security Council. He said it would be "utter nonsense" for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons when it was winning the war, and urged US President Barack Obama not to attack Syrian forces.

So much for the element of surprise. Into his third year of dithering, two years after declaring Assad had to go, one year after drawing — then erasing — his own red line on chemical weapons, Barack Obama has been stirred to action. Or more accurately, shamed into action. Which is the worst possible reason. A president doesn’t commit soldiers to a war for which he has zero enthusiasm. Nor does one go to war for demonstration purposes.

The only defensible action would be an attack with a strategic purpose, a sustained campaign aimed at changing the balance of forces by removing the Syrian regime’s decisive military advantage — air power. Of Assad’s 20 air bases, notes retired General Jack Keane, six are primary. Attack them: the runways, the fighters, the helicopters, the fuel depots, the nearby command structures. Render them inoperable.

It’s rather shameful that while the British prime minister recalled Parliament to debate possible airstrikes — late Thursday, Parliament actually voted down British participation — Obama has made not a gesture in that direction.

Now that the British Parliament has voted against a military strike, the Obama administration is saying that it may take “unilateral action” against Syria. But what good would “a shot across Syria’s bow” actually do? A “limited strike” is not going to bring down the Assad regime and it is certainly not going to end the bloody civil war that has been raging inside Syria. Even if the US eventually removed Assad, the al-Qaeda affiliated rebels that would take power would almost certainly be even worse than Assad. Even in the midst of this bloody civil war, the rebels have taken the time and the effort to massacre entire Christian villages.

Why is Barack Obama so obsessed with helping such monsters? There is no good outcome in Syria. The Assad regime is absolutely horrible and the rebels are even worse. Why would we want the US military to get involved in such a mess? It isn’t as if it is even possible for the US military to resolve the conflict that is going on in that country. At the core, the Syrian civil war is about Sunni Islam vs Shia Islam. It is a conflict that goes back well over a thousand years.

Assad is Shiite, but the majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been pouring billions of dollars into the conflict, because they would love to see the Assad regime eliminated and a Sunni government come to power in Syria. On the other side, Iran is absolutely determined to not allow that to happen. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have no problem with using Sunni terrorists (al-Qaeda) to achieve their political goals. And as a very important ally of the Saudis, the US has been spending a lot of money to train and equip the “rebels” in Syria.

But there was a problem. The Syrian government has actually been defeating the rebels. So something had to be done. If it could be made to look like the Assad regime was using chemical weapons that would give the US government the “moral justification” that it needed to intervene militarily on the side of the rebels. In essence, it would be a great excuse for the US to be able to go in and do the dirty work of the Saudis for them. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the world is not buying it. In fact, people are seeing right through this charade.