The PM has advice for Aussies who might be in Syria – The US builds the case against Syria’s Assad regime with good buddy France at its side – And Russia pretty much is out of option.  There’s also some non-Syria news, too, including one ticked-off elephant!

“I emphasize again.  If there are any Australians currently in Syria just to get the hell out of there.  It is not the time to be fooling around,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters at a stop in Darwin this morning.   Australia takes over the rotating leadership of the UN Security Council tomorrow, and Russ is supporting the US against Syria, so he apparently knows of what he speaks in advising people to get out of Syria.  And then anti-nuclear protesters yelled at him.

The US upped the number of people killed in an alleged Syrian military chemical attack on rebel-held districts to 1,429 lives lost.  And Defense Secretary John Kerry said there is compelling evidence that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was behind the 21 August atrocity.  Kerry laid out the case that the US needs to launch a cruise missile attack at Syrian military targets so that future rogue states know that can’t away with this sort of thing.  President Barack Obama says he hasn’t made up his mind on an assault yet, but oh come on the US has been preparing its forces for it for weeks.

A sixth US Warship has joined the fleet of five missile destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.  The USS San Antonio carries several hundred US Marines, which is odd because any US attack is supposed to be with missiles and not supposed to involve “boots on the ground”.  But the pentagon insists it's there for "other reasons".  

Russia has pretty much sent its last weapons shipment to Syria as long as a US missile attack looms, and Moscow has already said it will not take any military action in support of Syria.  Still, Russia is hosting the G20 summit next week in Saint Petersburg, and if the attack has not happened yet, will likely put pressure on the leaders of the world top 20 economies to put the brakes on it.  That is just about the last card Vladimir Putin can play on Syria.

China is urging everyone to chill.  Foreign Minister Wang Yi told United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that any action against Syria should not precede the completion of the report from the weapons inspectors.  And Wang stressed that a political solution must take precedence over a military action would Beijing says would only go to destabilize the region.  China has vetoed past UN Security Council resolutions against Syria.

When asked if France will take part in a US-led coalition against Syria, French President Francois Hollande said, “France will be part of it. France is ready.”  He told the Le Monde newspaper that a strike could happen within days.

And that’s enough of that for now, eh?

Thousands of people in Cairo rallied against the interim government that took power for the Muslim Brotherhood, but not necessarily for the restoration of deposed president Mohammed Morsi.  In a shift from the last two months of Friday protests, the marchers now carried yellow signs with a black hand, signifying support for Muslim Brotherhood supporters killed in clashes with police and soldiers. Although most marchers passed by cops without major incident, a security source said there had been at least six deaths.

Bosnian Serbs gave a hero’s welcome to Momcilo Krajisnik, upon is return home from a British Prison were he served less than seven years for war crimes related to the 1990s Bosnian War.  He was originally convicted of murder and extermination but the charges were reduced to forcible deportation.  Many Bosnian Serbs refuse to believe in, or simply don’t care about, their sides’ role in war crimes in the war.

Government troops are now patrolling the streets of Bogota, Colombia after rioting.  Farmers rallied in the capital city against policies they say are driving them into bankruptcy, and were joined by thousands of supporters.  Things got unruly, and at least two people were killed in the violence.  President Juan Manuel Santos says he’s deploying 50,000 troops across the country to keep order and reopen roads blocked by striking farmers.

Elephant says, “What are you looking at?  You want some of this?”