5. Russia makes play for Africa: China got the world’s attention but Russia is “snatching up gas and oil deals, with an eye on winning greater leverage over the global energy market.”

The Daily Telegraph

What do people really read? This British newspaper’s “most read stories” showed that a woman injecting cooking oil into her face interested more readers than the Mumbai attacks, which was at number 30.

1. The 101 most useful websites

2. Tree man ‘who grew roots’ may be cured

3. Barack Obama’s lost brother found in Kenya

4. Cosmetic surgery addict injected cooking oil into her face

5. Swedish wrestler throws away medal in Olympic hissy fit

Newsweek

Post-meltdown, this list of the “superrich and superbad” should come in handy for dartboard practice. In random order:

1.Robert Mugabe and his wife would put Marie Antoinette to shame. The corrupt Zimbabwe tyrant even showed up at the UN World Food Summit. “It’s like Pol Pot going to a human rights conference.”

2. Bernard Madoff told his sons that his business was a “Ponzi scheme”. By that cute phrase, the money manager meant he defrauded clients of over $50 billion.

3. Mukesh Ambani is building a 27-storey $1 billion family home with a helipad in Mumbai.

4. They went to Washington to beg for a multi-billion dollar bailout but instead of taking, say, a bus, the top executives of Detroit’s ‘Big Three’ auto companies arrived in luxury private jets. No spare change?

5. Kathy Fuld, the wife of former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld didn’t let the economic crisis interrupt her $10,000-a-week shopping sprees.

... contd.