DealZone

Around $7 billion of Australia’s coal assets are in the crosshairs of predators from Seoul to Shanghai, as Asia jostles for supplies to feed its burgeoning needs, pushing up bid valuations for Australian coal miners. *View article *View factbox

Barnes & Noble’s predicament is sounding like Blockbuster’s — meaning, unfortunately, the fading video rental chain not a successful movie. The U.S. bookseller’s cash flow is sinking and technological shifts look set to worsen that. What exactly the bookseller can do is unclear. *View column

Bernard Madoff had the big numbers attached to his crime but Kenneth Starr’s alleged Ponzi scheme has celebrities. Vanity Fair takes a look into Starr’s world. *View Vanity Fair article

A focus on games could be Google’s ticket to entering the social networking arena, as the Internet giant seeks to overcome a string of lackluster initiatives that have left it on the sidelines of the booming market. *View article *View GigaOM article