America's threat of military action against Syria's regime receded into the distance yesterday as Washington and its allies decided to test a Russian proposal.

Syria says it's ready to state where its chemical weapons are and to halt their production, but the US says it'll have to do more than sign up to a treaty.

Syria says it has accepted Russia's proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent dismantling.

Prime Minister John Key says a UN-backed suggestion to destroy all of Syria's chemical weapons as a way of diverting an increasingly violent situation is an "interesting proposal".

Facing the most perilous passage of his presidency, Barack Obama is to redouble his efforts to persuade the American public to back strikes against Syria.

American air strikes against the Syrian Government would not allow rebels to topple Bashar al-Assad .

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seemed calm and was surrounded by only light security when he talked to a French journalist this week.

Thirty former guards at the Auschwitz death camp could face charges of being an accessory to murder.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully says the Opposition will be offered a formal briefing on Syria before any parliamentary motion is put by the Government.

'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" - so the British Parliament decided that it didn't want to be shamed over Syrian intervention, writes Gwynne Dwyer.

Syria's civil war has driven almost a third of the country's population from their homes, causing the humanitarian calamity of the century, says the United Nations.

Amid signs in Washington of deep anxiety about unintended consequences and unforeseeable outcomes.

Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial Monday on charges that he killed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944.

President Barack Obama, working to persuade sceptical lawmakers to endorse a US military intervention in civil war-wracked Syria, hosted two leading Capitol Hill foreign policy hawks for talks.

The Syrian crisis and Opposition leader Tony Abbott's competence to deal with international affairs have become a central issue in the fight for power in Australia.

The British Government was accused of "breathtaking laxity" in its arms controls after it emerged that officials authorised the export of two chemicals to Syria.

New Zealand has been asked to pledge moral support for a potential US military strike against Syria but the Government says it is yet to make any commitment.

US President Barack Obama has lifted the threat of immediate punitive air strikes on Syria, announcing he will seek congressional approval for any military action.

Edging toward a punitive strike against Syria, President Barack Obama said he was weighing "limited and narrow" action as the Administration bluntly accused Bashar Assad's Government of launching a chemical weapons attack that killed at least 1429 people.

President Barack Obama is poised to become the first U.S. leader in three decades to attack a foreign nation without broad international support or in direct defense of Americans.

The New Zealand Defence Force is issuing new recruits with waterproof Bibles, endorsed by TV adventurer Bear Grylls, in a worldwide military first.

The US administration has bluntly accused Bashar Assad's government of launching a chemical weapons attack that killed at least 1,429 people - far more than previous estimates- including more than 400 children.

Al Jazeera correspondent Wayne Hay, formerly a TVNZ reporter, was arrested while covering events in Cairo on Tuesday along with three others, Al Jazeera reported.

This is why the rest of the world cares about America's choice of president: what President Barack Obama decides on Syria is what matters.

A British and American attack to punish Syria for using chemical weapons will see the two allies launch a barrage of more than 100 missiles in a blitz lasting up to 48 hours.