The letter of Scott Regall to Barak Obama has exploded on the scene with its opening words:

“We strongly urge you to consult and receive authorization from Congress before ordering the use of US military force in Syria. Your responsibility to do so is prescribed in the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

While the Founders wisely gave the Office of the President the authority to act in emergencies, they foresaw the need to ensure public debate – and the active engagement of Congress – prior to committing US military assets. Engaging our military in Syria when no direct threat to the United States exists and without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers that is clearly delineated in the Constitution.”

If that were all that the letter said, it would be momentous enough. But the statement goes further and labels Obama’s cruel war on Libya as “unconstitutional,” because it was done without so much as a nod to Congress. In the end no lawyer and no court, not even the Supreme Court, can overrule Congress when it decides what to do when it considers a serious presidential action as “unconstitutional.”

In Libya Obama usurped the powers of Congress. If Congress takes the next step and determines that such an action rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” then it is an impeachable offense.

"May the cry for peace enter the hearts of everyone so that they may all lay down their weapons," the pope told thousands of pilgrims at the Vatican on Sunday. The pope announced that the prayers would be led by a five-hour vigil in St Peter's Square, telling the international community it should make "every effort" for peace.

His call came as the United States and France were making plans for possible air strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime over its alleged use of chemical weapons. "My heart is profoundly wounded in these days by what is happening in Syria and I am anxious about the prospect of dramatic developments," the pope said.

"I condemn with particular force the use of chemical weapons. I still have in my mind and heart the terrible images of the past days. There is judgment from God and from history on our actions that no one can escape. Weapons and violence do not lead to peace, war leads to more war," he said.

John Kerry was a frequent visitor of Assad's over the last few years. Perhaps no one in US politics knows him better than Kerry who was complimentary of Assad as short as 2 years ago when he referred to him as a "very generous man".

It's hard to believe the notion that Assad would be so foolish. The strategic idiocy in launching chemical attacks, not on the rebel fighters but on civilian loyalists near Damascus, knowing full well that it would invite Western intervention makes very little sense.

We are supposed to believe that Assad, who speaks perfect English, is stupid and evil. Not likely. In fact, Assad was actually a strong ally in fighting Al Qaeda until America teamed up with Al Qaeda to destroy him and his country.

The Social Democrat (SPD) candidate says it is time for Germany to show solidarity and help its EU partners. Solidarity is also high on the agenda of the Greens - the SPD's election ally and most likely coalition partner if jointly they do well enough to overtake Mrs Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

In a big interview with German ARD television, Mr Steinbrueck reminded voters that the seeds for Germany's "economic miracle" after World War II were sown by the US Marshall Plan - generous aid to rebuild its devastated economy. "Germany is in a liability union - Germany will have to pay for the stability of Europe and the eurozone," he said.

In contrast, Mrs Merkel has resisted calls for pooling eurozone debt - for assuming joint liability. She says the most heavily indebted countries must first restore budget discipline before any talk of joint "eurobonds". Mr Steinbrueck accuses Mrs Merkel of aggravating record unemployment in countries like Greece and Italy through her insistence on austerity.

Bill Grimsey, the former chief executive of Wickes and Iceland, will release the report on Wednesday and say that Britain’s high streets are in a “deep decline” and there is an “arms race for new ideas”. However he says that there is a “frustrating sense of policy being conducted in the margins”.

Mr Grimsey will say that previous initiatives such as Mary Portas’s government-backed review into the high street were too “nostalgic” and failed to grasp the extent to which the internet has changed shopping patterns. Mr Grimsey will warn that small retail chains across Britain are “horribly stressed financially”.

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.