Erstellt am: 28. 8. 2013 - 15:15 Uhr

Intervention without a resolution?

Reality Check: the legality of a strike on Syria; the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

Syria

The U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, says any U.S. military action taken in response to apparent chemical weapons attacks in Syria would need to be approved by the United Nations Security Council.

EPA/MARTIAL TREZZINI

Britain is planning to present a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council later on Wednesday. The text will condemn attacks carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and "authorise necessary measures to protect civilians" from chemical weapons.

But a resolution seems unlikely, as Russia and China are opposed to any military action in Syria, and US officials are reportedly looking at the NATO air campaign in Kosovo in the late 1990s as a possible precedent for military intervention without a Security Council. Would this be legitimate? We asked Dr Steven Haines, an expert on international law and military strategy at the University of Greenwich:

I Have a Dream

The US is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom, the civil rights rally at which Martin Luther King Jr made his historic "I have a dream" speech. That moment in 1963 has been described by President Obama as a "seminal event" in American hstory. Chester Fontenot, Director of Africana studies at Mercer University in Georgia, was 13 at the time: