India’s mild-mannered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is known to be measured in his public utterances. This is perhaps why his combative response on August 30 to attacks made by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Rajya Sabha, India’s Upper House of Parliament, made headlines. In recent weeks, the BJP has accused Singh of presiding over a government battered by a slew of corruption scandals and failing to take steps to revive the Indian economy, which has seen a sharp deceleration in growth.

Australia is offering moral support for a U.S. military strike in Syria while New Zealand said Monday it needs more information after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry personally called each country's foreign minister. Kerry has been trying to secure at least some international support for a potential U.S. strike after accusing the Syrian government of launching a chemical weapons attack.

Chairman, Pakistan- China Institute,Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed was honoured in Beijing by China's top Tsinghua University with an award for his 'Outstanding Contribution to Pakistan China public diplomacy.' The award was given by Ms Yang Yanyi, Assistant Minister at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Professor Li Xiguang, Director Tsinghua University International Centre for Communication during a seminar of China Pakistan Think Tanks held Sunday in Beijing.

In an interview with ITV News International Editor Bill Neely, Syrian deputy foreign minister Dr Faisal Mekdad said a delay in US military action "shows that he [President Obama] and his administration are lost." "I hope there should be enough wise people in the Congress to make a decision like the House of Commons in the UK," he added. On the streets of Damascus, soldiers said they were ready for any attack. But many residents now believe America, like Britain, will not strike at all.

She has already made history by becoming the first woman assigned to one of Pakistan's front line dogfighting squadrons. Now at the age of 26 Flight Lieutenant Farooq says she is ready for the ultimate test. "If war breaks out, I will be flying on my senior's wing as his wingman, well, wingwoman," she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph at the headquarters of the Pakistan Air Force in Islamabad.

Part of President Barack Obama's argument for a military strike against Syria is a threat to broader U.S. security concerns in the Middle East and Asia. Secretary of State John Kerry says acting against Syria's use of chemical weapons matters far beyond its borders. "It is about whether Iran, which itself has been a victim of chemical weapons attacks, will now feel emboldened, in the absence of action, to obtain nuclear weapons," he said.

As ever, the Syrian regime gives with one hand and takes with the other. On Sunday, Damascus allowed UN weapons inspectors to gather evidence at the site of an alleged chemical gas attack in al-Ghouta. Saudi-backed terrorists were responsible for the atrocity, state media told a sceptical world. Yet only days later, a BBC news team reported from the scene of an horrific incendiary attack by government fighter jets against a school playground in Aleppo.

As a freshman US senator with his eye on the White House, Barack Obama said this: “The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Mr. Obama’s comment (which came in a 2007 interview with The Boston Globe) had to do with Iran’s nuclear weapons program.