USA - Credit card companies Visa and Mastercard and major US banks have agreed to a $7.25 billion (£4.65 billion) settlement to retailers over card fees. The case, which has been GOING ON FOR SEVEN YEARS, is over firms colluding to fix the fees that stores pay to process credit and debt card payments.

GERMANY - A controversial German court ruling on circumcision has outraged Muslim and Jewish groups in Germany and abroad. German commentators say the decision was misguided and could have devastating consequences. German religious leaders claim that Jewish life will not be possible in the country if a court ruling on circumcision sets a legal precedent. At a meeting of the orthodox Conference of European Rabbis in Berlin on Thursday, the group's head warned that a June 26 court decision making a case of circumcision a crime had been the "worst attack on Jewish life since the Holocaust". Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt also threatened that Jews might leave Germany.

GREECE - Earlier this week, Greek leaders suggested they would ask for more time to hit austerity targets demanded by their creditors. The idea doesn't seem to have gone down well. Germany is opposed, according to Friday media reports. IMF head Christine Lagarde also said it is "premature to discuss extension." Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras also said this week that he would request that the deadline be pushed back. But on Friday, the response from Germany and elsewhere would seem to be a resounding ‘no’.

USA - Bob Bowman runs his hand over a slender green corn leaf here on his Iowa farm, and sighs. "This corn should be as high as my head right now, and it is only waist high," he says, as a cool morning breeze belies the 90-degree Fahrenheit temperatures forecast to descend by afternoon in Welton, Iowa. "If we get rain real quick here, we might be down 25 percent," said Bowman of prospective losses from the persistent dryness. "If we don't get rain in the next two weeks, it will be a lot more serious."

USA - Is the world on the brink of another food crisis? It has become a distressingly familiar question. With the price of agricultural staples such as corn, soyabeans and wheat soaring for the third summer in five years, the prospect of another price shock is once again becoming a prominent concern for investors and politicians alike. Scorching heat and a paucity of rain across the US has withered the country’s corn and soyabean crops, with the US Department of Agriculture this week making the largest downward revision to its estimate for a corn crop in a quarter of a century.

USA - Executives of HSBC Holdings Plc and its US subsidiary are scheduled to testify Tuesday before a Senate panel about how the London-based banking behemoth, after years of run-ins with US authorities over alleged anti-money laundering lapses, has cleaned up its act. HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver implied that the bank's problems ended in 2010. But a Reuters investigation has found persistent and troubling lapses in the bank's anti-money laundering compliance since then.

MIDDLE EAST - With sanctions against Iran gradually showing their ineffectiveness, Washington is escalating the situation in the Persian Gulf, as if encouraging Tehran to attack first, a US politics professor told RT. Amid pressure mounting on Tehran, a major Indian company, United India Insurance Co, has agreed to provide insurance for tankers carrying oil from Iran. Insurances are vital for sea transportation. Without insurance, tankers are unable to deliver oil from one destination to another. “The more warships the US moves [to the region], the more threatened Iran is going to feel,” explains Patricia DeGennaro, professor of politics at New York University.

POLAND - One person died and 10 were wounded as heavy storms swept through the north-western part of Poland on Saturday evening. Two tornadoes hit counties in Kujawy-Pomorze and Wielkopolska provinces. More than 100 houses were destroyed and about 400 hectares of trees were felled in Bory Tucholskie national park. Power lines were also brought down leaving homes cut off and train services disrupted.

NIGERIA - At least 100 people were killed when a petrol tanker exploded after it crashed on a rural road in Nigeria. Hundreds of people ran to try to collect petrol spilling out of the overturned lorry but within minutes a spark or a dropped cigarette butt caused a sudden blast which trapped many people in an horrific fire. Worst affected were motorbike taxi drivers who were trying to scoop the spilt fuel into their own tanks, which then also exploded when the fire started.

LONDON, UK - For the first time since WWII, London's green space is transformed by anti-aircraft guns for Olympic ring of steel. It is a sight which many older generations thought they would never see in this country again. Soldiers in residential tower blocks and green open spaces were yesterday pictured installing surface-to-air missiles at six sites across the capital, a show of strength not seen in this country since the Second World War. With two weeks to go before the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games, it marks a dramatic development in the biggest peacetime security operation the country has ever seen.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Israeli and American officials met in Jerusalem on Thursday for one of their semi-annual “strategic dialogue” meetings, which concluded with a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry noting that Iran’s nuclear program was high on the agenda. Behind the bland public comments, however, one well-placed Israeli source spoke of friction in US-Israeli ties over the struggle to thwart Iran, with the US urging Israel to allow more time for sanctions to bite, and Israel expressing concern that its window of opportunity for military action is starting to close.

USA - Has the radiation from Fukushima finally made its way across the Pacific Ocean through the jetstream? A breaking eyewitness report from an ex-military man in Los Angeles is claiming that radiation levels on the West Coast in general are spiking because of the Japanese Nuclear disaster in March of 2011.

RUSSIA - A state of emergency has been declared in several eastern regions, where hundreds of wildfires are now raging. The wildfires cover an 8,331-hectare area in total, according to the Siberian Federal District Forestry Department. Around 1,600 people and 42 planes are now fighting the fires. According to Greenpeace, the situation is worse now than at the same time in the summer of 2010, when Russia was devastated by forest fires.

TURKEY - A 5.8 magnitude earthquake shook southwest Turkey on Sunday and at least six people were injured after jumping from their balconies or windows in panic, local media reported. However, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted the local media as saying that around 60 people went to hospitals for treatment of minor injuries, heart complaints and shock. Earthquakes are a daily occurrence in Turkey, which is crisscrossed by geological fault lines. In October last year, more than 600 people died in the eastern province of Van after a quake of 7.2 magnitude.

JAPAN - The typhoon made landfall on the tip of the Pacific peninsula of Kii, south of Osaka, shortly after 5:00 pm, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. It is now roaring northeast through central Japan with a speed of 126 km per hour near the center, and gusts of up to 180 km per hour. After that, the typhoon is expected to blow out into the Pacific again Wednesday morning. Locals have been warned there are risks of mudslides, flash-flooding and high waves.