CHINA - State television CCTV said rainstorms in the central Hubei province in China battered 17 cities and counties, with water levels in Hong'an county reaching 1.4 feet. In the south-western city of Chongqing, storms on Thursday caused flooding on the roads up to 1.3 feet, causing serious traffic congestion. The downpour caused water levels in the Yangtze and Jialing rivers that run through Chongqing to rise by 3.3 feet.

LONDON, UK - An inquiry into the rate-rigging scandal has been branded a “total joke” after two MPs who proved the toughest interrogators of banking chiefs were barred from the panel. To the surprise of many in Westminster, two members of the Committee, Labour's John Mann and Andrea Leadsom, a backbench Tory MP, who have both been praised for their incisive questioning, have been excluded from the panel. Mr Mann took to Twitter to describe the membership of the commission as a “total joke” and a “whitewash”.

UK - A man has set himself on fire outside a Birmingham jobcentre after what reports suggest was an argument over benefit payments. The 48-year-old unnamed man is understood to have doused himself in flammable liquid and tied himself to railings after a dispute inside the Jobcentre Plus in the Selly Oak area on Thursday. An unnamed witness who spoke to the Birmingham Mail said: "He would have to have been very desperate to have done something like that. It's shocking that somebody could have been driven to those depths."

UK - What would it take to break the impasse on GM crops? That's a problem that has been exercising minds at the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which is urging the government to adopt a strategic plan for agriculture that includes a central role for biotechnology. Ministers will discuss their proposals, outlined in a new report Going For Growth, at a meeting with industry representatives, scientists and farmers later today.

UK - A team of British plant scientists has won a $10 million (£6.4 million) grant from the Gates Foundation to develop GM cereal crops. It is one of the largest single investments into GM in the UK and will be used to cultivate corn, wheat and rice that need little or no fertiliser. It comes at a time when bio-tech researchers are trying to allay public fears over genetic modification.

The work at the John Innes Centre in Norwich is hoped to benefit African farmers who cannot afford fertiliser.

USA - More than 1,000 counties in 26 states are being named natural-disaster areas, the biggest such declaration ever by the US Department of Agriculture, as drought grips the Midwest.

USA - Global leaders have tried just about everything that they can think of, but the coming global financial catastrophe continues to march steadily toward us.

IRAN - A former general of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards has accused the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of having blood on his hands over the brutal crackdown on the opposition. The British Guardian reported on Thursday that the former general described government claims that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful as a “sheer lie.”

UK - Claiming benefits could become a human right under proposals put forward by a Government panel. If the scroungers’ charter is put into law, workshy residents could be free to sue ministers for failing to provide them with a comfortable standard of living.

EUROPE - The single currency has been sliding relentlessly since the European Central Bank cut its discount rate to zero last week, triggering an exodus of money market funds, but has now broken key resistance levels watched by technical analysts.

TURKEY - Turkey has exchanged nearly 60 tons of gold ($3 billion) for several million tons of Iranian crude oil, despite its promises to uphold Western sanctions on Iran’s energy sector, according to recent Turkish reports. By using gold instead of money, Turkey is able to skirt Western sanctions on Iran’s oil trade, particularly those pertaining to SWIFT, the global money transfer service that until recently assisted the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian financial institutions. The payments for both oil and natural gas are a sign that Turkey is cozying up to Iran and moving further from its Western allies.

USA - Facebook and other social platforms are watching users’ chats for criminal activity and notifying police if any suspicious behavior is detected, according to a report. The screening process begins with scanning software that monitors chats for words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an exchange of personal information or vulgar language. If the scanning software flags a suspicious chat exchange, it notifies Facebook security employees, who can then determine if police should be notified.

USA - Law enforcement officials said Thursday that they have an open criminal investigation regarding allegations of misconduct in the city government of San Bernardino, which announced this week it was going to file for bankruptcy. There have been allegations that some financial documents were falsified to hide the seriousness of San Bernardino's financial woes. San Bernardino is the third California city to seek bankruptcy protection in the last month, joining Stockton, in the Central Valley, and Mammoth Lakes in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

ITALY - Moody's surprised markets on Friday by downgrading Italy's government bond rating by two notches to Baa2 and warned it could cut it further, piling on pressure just hours before the euro zone's third-largest economy launches its latest bond sale. The ratings agency blamed increased liquidity risks for the country amid persistent euro zone woes and an expected deterioration of Italy's already weak economic condition as the main reasons behind its decision. The downgrade of Italy to just two notches above junk status could raise already-painful borrowing costs.

LONDON, UK - A series of airspace restrictions around London and south-east England are set to be enforced as part of security for the 2012 Olympic Games. The prohibited zone will be about 30 miles wide and does not affect commercial aircraft, which fly in established air traffic corridors. BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Beale said if a private plane did enter the restricted zone, a graduated response would be triggered, beginning with a warning and potentially ending in the aircraft being shot down.