AUSTRALIA - Australia will transfer asylum seekers to remote Pacific islands for processing under tough new measures to stem surging numbers of boat people. Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, has signalled a tough new approach, including reopening processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. The decision marks a dramatic turnaround for the Labour government, which has long rejected the so-called “Pacific solution” adopted a decade ago by the former Liberal prime minister John Howard.

UK - Most voters do not believe the Coalition partnership will last until the next election, a new poll has found, amid mounting fears the agreement could collapse. Just 16 per cent of those polled expect it to last another three years, according to the ICM poll, after rows over Lords reform, changes to Parliamentary boundaries and Sunday trading. Only one voter in six believes the Coalition will survive until the 2015 election, with the proportion expecting a collapse within two years nearly doubled in just a fortnight.

INDIA - Armed with the latest monsoon rainfall data, weather experts finally conceded this month that India is facing a drought, confirming what millions of livestock farmers around the country had known for weeks. For over three months, even state agencies have been providing free fodder to those most vulnerable to a shortfall in India's annual monsoon - farmers who eke a living out of small landholdings and the milk provided by cattle. India is heavily dependent on the capricious annual monsoon, which brings about 75 percent of the rainfall that the country receives, to irrigate crops and fill its reservoirs.

EUROPE - Germany and the UK are the most likely to have opposing views on EU legislation, while France and Lithuania are in perfect voting harmony, an analysis of member state voting shows. Of the 343 voted-on pieces of legislation between July 2009 and June 2012, the most votes were taken on laws to do with economic and monetary affairs - an area that has seen a surge in legislation since the financial crisis kicked off - followed by environment and transport.

USA - The Cornucopia Institute, a not-for-profit policy research organization based in Wisconsin, filed a formal legal complaint with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) against several infant formula manufacturers that are adding two synthetic preservatives to certified organic infant formula. The Organic Foods Production Act, passed by Congress in 1990, explicitly bans synthetic preservatives in organic food. “This is another blatant violation of the federal law governing organics by multi-billion dollar corporations that apparently think they can get away with anything,” says Charlotte Vallaeys, Director of Farm and Food Policy at The Cornucopia Institute.

BERLIN, GERMANY - Germany will block any new aid to ailing Greece if Athens does not fully comply with the terms of previous rescue packages, even if other countries support unlocking funds, a senior lawmaker said Sunday. The deputy head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative parliamentary bloc, Michael Fuchs, told business daily Handelsblatt that Berlin was ready to use its veto if it is unhappy with findings from the Greece creditors "troika". "You can quote me: even if the glass is half-full, that is not enough for a new aid package," he said in an interview to appear in the paper's Monday issue. "Germany cannot and will not agree to that."

USA - “The vast majority of current programs are focused on making poverty more comfortable … rather than giving people the tools that will help them escape poverty.” The federal government is not making much headway reducing poverty despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a study by the libertarian Cato Institute. Despite an unprecedented increase in federal anti-poverty spending, the national poverty rate has not declined, the study finds. “Since President Obama took office [in January 2009], federal welfare spending has increased by 41 percent, more than $193 billion per year,” the study says.

INDIA - India will soon launch its first home-built nuclear submarine, capable of firing ballistic missiles, as the country escalates an arms race with China and Pakistan. INS Arihant, planned to be the first of five submarines of its class, will be ready to begin sea trials, said Admiral Nirmal Verma, the navy commander.

IRAN - Rescuers in Iran are searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors from two strong earthquakes which left at least 250 people dead. The 6.4 and 6.3 quakes struck near Tabriz and Ahar on Saturday afternoon, and more than 2,000 are believed injured, many in outlying villages. Thousands spent the night in emergency shelters or in the open and there have been more than 55 aftershocks. The magnitude of the disaster is so huge that officials are just managing to get enough people in from other provinces to help out," one Iranian Red Crescent worker told the AFP news agency. The numbers of victims is expected to rise.

USA - Tomorrow's soldiers could be able to run at Olympic speeds and will be able to go for days without food or sleep, if new research into gene manipulation is successful. According to the US Army's plans for the future, their soldiers will be able to carry huge weights, live off their fat stores for extended periods and even regrow limbs blown apart by bombs. The plans were revealed by novelist Simon Conway, who was granted behind-the-scenes access to the Pentagon's high-tech Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

CANARY ISLANDS - More than 4,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in Spain's Canary Islands because of forest fires that are difficult to control due to a heatwave and strong winds, authorities said on Sunday. The worst hit-areas are Tenerife, a popular tourist destination, and La Gomera, where temperatures have topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) since Friday, restarting fires that had been put out during the week after destroying more than 3,000 hectares of land since August 4.

SWITZERLAND - Swiss banks hoping to atone for decades of complicity in tax evasion may be left to sweat it out for months as the United States and Germany ponder the right level of punishment. Switzerland has long dodged US accusations of hiding money for wealthy Americans. But now eleven Swiss banks are under investigation in the United States and there is pressure too from Europe where burdened taxpayers want scalps after numerous banking scandals. The Swiss need a deal to remove the taint from their financial industry.

ISRAEL - An Israeli military attack on Iran would ignite a regional war, former IDF Operations Commander Yisrael Ziv told Army Radio Sunday. Reiterating other officials' observations that an attack cannot be compared with the aerial strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Ziv said, “We are talking about a number of operations and not just one.” He also warned that a flood of statements from the offices of the Prime Minister and the Defense Ministry signal a “worrisome lack of security” in the government.

USA - The hottest July in US history has caused irreparable damage to crops, forcing corn farmers to abandon fields greater in area than Belgium and Luxembourg. The crisis has prompted the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to forecast record-breaking price rises, and some of the world's largest food manufacturers, including Kraft, Tyson and Nestle, have already indicated that they will pass on the increase to consumers. USDA now expects 10.8 billion bushels of corn to be produced this year - 2.2 billion bushels less than the projection it made last month. The problem could have far-reaching consequences internationally. In 2007-08, high food costs led to riots in more than 30 countries.

UK - Unmanned spy drones could patrol Britain’s shores looking for illegal immigrants and smugglers after a series of high-level meetings in Brussels, The Mail on Sunday has learned. The European Commission aims to spend £260 million on its ‘Eurosur’ project, which includes a plan for surveillance drones to patrol the Mediterranean coast. If the high-tech measures against terrorists, illegal immigrants and smugglers in the Mediterranean are successful, there would be pressure on the UK to follow suit.