aSmallWorld is an online social network service similar to Facebook. Also called “Snobster” by critics, it is an exclusive invitation-only network with roughly 250,000 members.

Founded in 2004 by by Swedish banker and globetrotter Erik Wachtmeister, the network is mainly about lifestyle, society, celebrities: Naomi Campbell, Ivanka Trump, Quentin Tarantino, Paris Hilton, Tiger Woods, Prince Emanuele Filiberto Di Savoia and James Blunt are among the members.

SmallWorld shares many features with other social network services, such as profiles, an event calendar, private messaging and allows users to list multiple cities as their location of residence. Members can also buy, and sell items (Bugatti Veyron, Caviar, etc…) using aSmallWorld’s private forums or even rent property or find a flatmate.

People must be invited to join. Only certain members of the club have the privilege to invite other members and five members must approve your existence before you’re “in.” (since it’s difficult to verify wealth levels)

Admins closely monitor the network : Rules state that members aren’t allowed to “annoy, harass or unreasonably disturb members, or try to connect to members with whom you have no previous contact.” aSmallWorld kick out members who engage in improper behavior (like networking rapidly with the celebrities or selling products too aggressively).

Members are not allowed to discuss the inner goings-on of aSmallWorld on any outside website”. Problematic users are immediately exiled to a separate network called aBigWorld;

” However, it’s very difficult to build a network based solely on wealth,” says Stephen Martiros, a managing director of a coalition of rich families based in Boston. “You might start with a few wealthy people, but as you grow it eventually reverts to the mean. And once that happens, the wealthy leave. If you have one guy worth $100 million sitting at a table with a guy worth $1 million, only one of them is going to be excited to be there.”

Besides, membership invitations or passwords to the site can be easily purchased on eBay. Some angry users have therefore posted hilarious comments that THE WALL STREET JOURNAL brought to us :

“Who invites these people? We should be selective who to invite. What about quality control?”

“There is no reason why when we come online we should have to socialize with truck drivers”

“One of my friends told me that the site has lowered so much its level, that she has invited her maids.”

Oscar winner Angelina Jolie had the twins by caesarean section on Saturday evening at the Lenval hospital on the glamorous Promenade des Anglais waterfront drive in Nice.

Miss Jolie arrived at the Lenval hospital in late June, provoking a media circus with photographers desperate for a picture of the mother-to-be. Though, the bidding war has already begun for the first photos of Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, the “world’s most famous children.”

French newspapers have reported that an American magazine has already offered $20m for the first and exclusive images of the new babies - with all the money going to a worthy cause.

“I’ve never known a set of pictures to be worth this amount of money,” said Darryn Lyons, owner of Big Pictures, a celebrity photo agency in London. The only other photos that “would possibly come that close is Britney Spears giving birth to an alien”, he said.

Angelina Jolie is expected to stay and rest at the exclusive Lenval hospital in Nice for the next few days and is already enjoying specially couriered-in food for her stay. The actress is then expected to depart as she arrived - in a helicopter taking off from the roof of the building, most likely in the dead of night to avoid being photographed.

The arrival of the twins brings the couple’s family to six. They are already parents to three adopted children: Cambodian boy Maddox, six, Vietnamese boy Pax Thien, four, and Ethiopian girl Zahara, three.
Their natural daughter Shiloh was born in Namibia in 2006. After her birth, the couple auctioned off the photo shoot to People magazine in the US and Hello! in Britain for $10m with an undisclosed charity benefiting.

The mayor, Christian Estrosi, seized the opportunity to promote his city by arriving at the hospital to sign the birth certificates wearing a smart suit and full make-up for the TV cameras.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with acute shortages of hard currency, food, gasoline, medicines and essential imports. The meltdown is blamed largely on disruptions to the agriculture-based economy after the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.

Annual inflation is the highest in the world, around 1,600 percent, and bread has all but disappeared from supermarket shelves in the capital Harare.

The economic crisis did not seem to put a damper on Mugabe’s birthday festivities.
President Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980.

The campaign to raise funds for the birthday celebrations is being run by a youth organisation called the 21 February Movement, which was founded in 1986 in honour of Mr Mugabe.”We are looking to raise 300m Zimbabwe dollars ($1.2m at the official exchange rate; $65,200 at the unofficial rate) that will be used at the birthday celebrations in Gweru,” Emmanuel Fundira, chairman of the movement, told the AFP news agency.

Jennifer Lopez is reportedly demanding $6 million dollars for the first photos of her twins. $3 million a piece? Those kiddies are already ballers and they haven’t even left her womb yet. Eat your heart out Xtina!

Jenny from the block is expected to fetch anywhere from 4-6 million dollars for exclusive rights to the photos, but you know she’s not gonna settle for less than 6. And I bet she isn’t donating a penny of that to charity like Brangelina would.