SYRIA - Syrian rebels took control of the border with Iraq and two key crossings into Turkey on Thursday night as government forces intensified their bombardment of Damascus in an attempt to avenge the deaths of three of the regime's key lieutenants. It followed yet another diplomatic failure to put pressure on Assad, with Russia and China vetoing a new UN Security Council resolution that would have threatened his regime with tough sanctions.

USA - The world is facing a new food crisis as the worst US drought in more than 50 years pushes agricultural commodity prices to record highs. David Nelson, global strategist at Rabobank, added: “TODAY THE US CROP DISASTER IS REAL, whereas to some degree the big run-up in prices in 2008 was speculatively driven.”

USA - The most expansive drought in more than a half century intensified this week and stretched further into major farm areas of the western Midwest where crops had largely been shielded from the harsh conditions that decimated yields further east. The moderate drought in parts of eastern Nebraska, northern Illinois and much of the top corn and soybean state Iowa was downgraded to a severe drought in the past week, climate experts said Thursday, and forecasts showed little relief in sight.

BRUSSELS, EUROPE - From frivolous responses, illegible scrawls, to no answers at all, several members of the European Parliament are not serious when it comes to declaring their financial interests, a survey carried out by an NGO [Non-Government Organisation] has shown. The lack of clear rules prohibiting MEPs to keep side jobs as consultants made headlines last year when the Sunday Times uncovered three deputies willing to take money from lobbyists in return for placing amendments.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Almost immediately after a bus full of Israeli tourists exploded outside of the airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, both Israel and the United States began hurling accusations that Iran was behind the violence. According to the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, at least six people were killed and approximately thirty were wounded. Netanyahu further stated that “Over the last few months we have seen Iran’s attempts to attack Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus, and other countries.”

USA - The risk of a new depression — a sustained, severe recession — has struck fear into the heart of markets. “We’re in a very unfortunate position to be here,” Richard Duncan, author of ‘The New Depression’, warned on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Monday.

UK - Senior politicians say Britain is falling behind in international cyberspace security and should turn defence into attack. But who would prevail in a global free-for-all? In the past five years, cyber and telecommunications defence has left its niche market to become one of the fastest growing industries in the world.

ISRAEL - Israel has accused Iran of ordering a fatal bomb attack on an Israeli tour group in Bulgaria, in which at least seven tourists were killed and 32 injured, three critically. Barely an hour after the attack, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, issued a veiled threat to Tehran in a statement. He said that once again, "all signs point to Iran", though he did not offer any evidence to back up the claim. "Iran is responsible for the terror attack in Bulgaria, we will have a strong response against Iranian terror," he said.

SYRIA - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to have disappeared from Damascus after his top security staff was killed in a suicide bombing.

UK - Central bankers and regulators will hold talks in September on whether the troubled global Libor interest rate can be reformed or whether it is so damaged that the benchmark of borrowing costs should be scrapped.

UK - One in seven MPs have never had a proper job, according to research. Many more have served only brief stints as lobbyists or public relations advisers before entering politics full-time. Ninety MPs have never held a job outside politics, against 20 in 1982. Labour leader Ed Miliband is among those who have never had a significant job outside politics. Another is Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who worked for a year as a Brussels lobbyist and dabbled for a few months in journalism before taking a job with the European Commission. Former independent MP Martin Bell said the figures highlighted a dangerous trend, which had left modern politicians increasingly disconnected from real life.

UK - Britain is exporting more goods to countries outside the European Union than those inside it for the first time since we joined the Common Market in the 1970s. Firms are entering growing markets in Asia and Latin America in what economists are hailing as a ‘revolution in the orientation of British trade’. The figures will also be welcomed by Tory Eurosceptics as a sign that a looser relationship with the EU would not disadvantage the UK.

JAPAN - Nearly 36 per cent of children in Fukushima Prefecture have been disgnosed with abnormal growths on their thyroids, although doctors insist there is no link between the "cluster" of incidents and the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in March of last year. A study by the Japan Thyroid Association in 2001 found that zero percent of children in the city of Nagasaki had nodules and only 0.8 percent had cysts on their thyroids. A second report has been issued by Japan's Institute of Radiological Sciences in which it found that some children living close to the plant were exposed to "lifetime" doses of radiation to their thyroid glands.

USA - Capital One Financial agreed to pay $210 million to resolve charges by banking regulators that its call-center representatives misled consumers into paying for extra credit card products. The enforcement action, announced on Wednesday, is the first by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which said it unearthed the activities through an examination of the bank. "We are putting companies on notice that these deceptive practices are against the law and will not be tolerated," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray.

USA - The end of the world is nigh. Or so you might think if you immersed yourself in American popular culture. From TV adverts to Hollywood movies, depictions of post-apocalyptic worlds are everywhere. There is a long tradition of such apocalyptic thinking in the US. But as Matthew Barrett Gross and Mel Giles argue in their book 'The Last Myth', it has now moved beyond religious prophecies into the secular world. The authors also claim that activists from both the political left and right have embraced apocalypse thinking, issuing dramatic warnings that everything from the traditional American way of life to the very existence of the planet is under threat.