Round-up

1. Lewis Hamilton has hit back at suggestions by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone that the abuse directed at the newly crowned champion was just 'a joke'.

I believe that SOME of it was just a joke. The guys with the blacked-up faces were certainly a joke, as one of the "perpetrators" admits, and was not racist. Hamilton has, however, also suffered a great deal of REAL racist abuse. That is not a joke, and should be condemned by Ecclestone.

2. Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's gaffe-prone Prime Minister, today found himself accused of racism after calling Barack Obama "suntanned". Mr Berlusconi said he had intended the remark as a compliment and those who failed to understand this were "imbeciles".

3. More potentially fabricated post-election anti-Obama "racist" incidents.