BBC News with Justin Green

President Obama is preparing to deliver a televised address outlining his much anticipated strategy to combat the militant group Islamic State. The US Secretary of State John Kerry is in the Middle East to ensure support for US-backed International action against Islamic State. Rajini Vaidyanathan reports from the White House.

In a prime time television address to the nation, the President will explain how the US planned to degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State. The White House says Mr.Obama will outline a comprehensive strategy which includes military action and support for forces on the ground fighting IS, mainly the moderate Syrian opposition and the Iraqi security forces. The President could also announce the extension of the existing air campaign in Iraq to neighbouring Syria.

For just eight days to go to the independence referendum in Scotland, the British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would be heart-broken if the Union was torn apart. All three main political party leaders went to Scotland to campaign for NO vote. Colin Blane reports from Glasgow.

It was the prospect of seeing Scots choosing independence which brought all three party leaders north on the same day. They didn't share a platform in Scotland but their approach was broadly similar——a passionate appeal to Scottish voters to remain within the UK family. Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond dismissed their interventions as a last dict sign of desperation. An opinion poll for tomorrow's daily record suggests that the pro-UK campaign has a lead over the YES camp. Ten percent had still to make up their minds, but when undecided voters were filtered out, the poll put NO ahead by 53% to 47%.

Spain's Santander Banking Group has appointed Ana Botin as its new chairwoman. Ms. Botin is the daughter of the former chairman Emilio, who died on Tuesday of heart attack. She is the fourth generation of the family to run Santander there. Ms. Botin is currently running the British division of the bank. Her father transformed it from a samll domestic bank into largest in the Euro zone with funds of more than a trillion dollars.

A court in Egypt has jailed the manager of a Cairo orphanage for three years after a video of him hitting children in his care appeared on the Internet. Here's our Arab Affair's editor Youssef Taha.

The Footage showed was Osama Mohamed Uthman beating the children who are aged between 4 and 7 with a wooden stick and kicking them like a football. The crime, according to him, was turning on a television set and opening a fridge without his permission. The video, which was widely circulated in social media, provoked such an outcry that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi intervened. Mr.Uthman has been convicted of assault, forced child labour and violating child laws.

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People fleeing the Boko Haram militants in north-eastern Nigeria have been giving heroine accounts to the BBC. Thousands of people have fled to refugee camps in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State. One man said he and others were trapped in the hills, trying to survive by eating leaves. One woman said she was sheltering children who could not find their parents as Nigerian military fighter jets dropped bombs nearby.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $50 million to help combat ebola in West Africa. The charitable foundation said it would release funds to International organisations on the ground in order to, in its words, "scale up emergency efforts". At least a thousand people have died from the disease in Liberia.

EU members have delayed a decision on implementing the latest economic sanctions imposed against Russia for its involvement in the crisis in Ukraine. EU ambassadors will meet again on Thursday. EU diplomats said that Germany was pushing to implement the sanctions agreed on Monday, but other EU countries want to wait while the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine was holding.

The opening ceremony for the Invictus Games, a sporting competition for wounded service men and women, has been taking place at the Queen Elizabeth's Olympic Park in London. More than 400 competitors from 13 countries are taking part in the 4-day event. Queen Elizabeth's grandson Prince Harry, who served with the British army in Afghanistan, is the driving force behind the Games. He said they will change lives.

Over the next four days we will see some truly remarkable achievements. For some of those taking part, this would be a stepping stone to elite sport, but for others, it will mark the end of a chapter in their recovery and a beginning of a new one. Either way, you can be sure that everyone who takes part will be giving it their all and I have no doubt that lives will be changed this weekend.

Prince Harry there.

BBC News.