The bosses of the big three US carmakers were lambasted for flying on corporate jets as they came to Washington to plead for money to stave off their companies' bankruptcy.

Ardeshir Naghshineh, the commercial property investor who owns a 10 per cent stake in Woolworths, is thought to be in talks with another entrepreneur to make a joint bid to buy the high-street chain.

Clive Cowdery will brave one of the worst markets for initial public offerings in history when he goes ahead with the listing of his second Resolution vehicle next month. Mr Cowdery has decided the need to have cash and currency to do deals in coming months has become stronger than hitting the best value for the IPO.

Karl Marx, the German revolutionary who predicted that capitalism would crumble under the weight of its own contradictions, is making a comeback – in the form of a comic.

The nuclear watchdog has said that a Syrian complex bombed by Israel resembled an undeclared nuclear reactor and warned the country to co-operate more with UN inspectors.

The former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin has been ordered to stand trial for his role in an alleged plot to smear Nicolas Sarkozy, now president, when they were rival ministers.

They are among the finest survivors of ancient Greek civilisation in the Mediterranean: a line of imposing Doric temples on the southern coast of Sicily which have been listed as a Unesco World Heritage site since 1997.

Britain's aid agencies are appealing for funds to ease the desperate plight of people affected by the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

It is early evening and virtually the only light comes from the burning tyres placed across the main road, opposite the offices of the state electricity company. "We've had it with these people," says one protester. "This is the third power-cut in a week."

It's taken eight-and-a-half years – but The Independent's £5,000 prize for explaining the disappearance of the house sparrow from our towns and cities finally has a serious entry, with a serious theory.