London - It is the job of David Smith to keep on top of his box of index cards marked "serious buyers."

But as tight loans and tumbling prices keep a stranglehold on Britain's once buoyant property market, hardly any of his clients bother to ring back.

Estate agents like Smith are nostalgic about the days of the property boom when interested viewers would rush to compete for appointments to see the best properties as soon as they were advertised.

Britain's obsession with home ownership in a market distorted and overheated by a drastic disproportion between supply and demand has come to a sudden stop with the credit crunch.

Sydney - Kevin Rudd needed something to give his poll ratings pep and it came in the ghastly form of a stock market meltdown that wilted the pension plans of millions of Australians.

Now, the approval ratings of the 50-year-old former diplomat, a year into his first spell as prime minister, suggest he could walk on water.

"It puts him into the 70-per-cent range and only one other prime minister has done that," said pollster John Stirton, noting that only Bob Hawke, 36 years ago, was a more popular prime minister.

People tend to rally round their leader in a crisis. It's happened to Britain's Gordon Brown. For Rudd, as for Brown, the acclamation is particularly pleasing.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has announced that it has recalled 2,758 pounds of ground beef from Vermont Livestock, Slaughter and Processing Co., LLC, a Ferrisburg, Vt., firm, because it may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.

The 'Rock On’ team is again in the limelight for different reasons. A large scale concert has been organized by Arjun Rampal and Farhan Akhtar who starred together in the latest hit film 'Rock On’.

In a very peaceful settlement between the star singer Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie, the custody of the children was given to Madonna.

The Pop Diva's Daughter Lourdes (12) from a previous relationship with a fitness trainer, the couple's eight year old biological son Rocco and their adopted son David will stay with their mother but Ritchie will have 'Broad Access' to  his children Rocco and David.