Mel Gibson reaches plea deal in battery case

Actor director Mel Gibson is to plead no contest to a charge of misdemeanor battery of his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors, People.com reported Wednesday.

Gibson will enter the plea in court on Friday and will be ordered to enter counseling and serve probation, the report said.

People quoted Gibson's lawyer as saying that he chose to plea the case to avoid the "enormous media circus" that would have accompanies a trial, dpa reported.

Grigorieva, who is the mother to Gibson's baby daughter Lucia, had alleged that Gibson punched and slapped her at the actor's Malibu home in January 2010. Gibson counter-claimed that Grigorieva was trying to extort him.

He admitted to slapping Grigorieva but maintained he only did so because she was hysterical and shaking the baby. dpa ag pr Author: Andy Goldberg xnc044 vv uq ula kro nyk ecs tra 000

World-People/US/Mexico/ REFILE (eca185) EMBARGOED UNTIL 2300 GMT World's 1,210 billionaires are topped by Mexico's Carlos Slim Eds: Refiles to add embargo note =

New York (dpa) - Mexico's telecommunication tycoon Carlos Slim kept his title for the second year as the world's richest person while billionaires have grown in number and their total net worth is estimated at 4.5 trillion dollars, Forbes Magazine said Wednesday.

Of the world's top 10 billionaires, Slim is worth 74 billion dollars after dethroning Bill Gates of Microsoft last year in Forbes' list of billionaires around the world.

Gates' worth is valued at 56 billion dollars, followed by Warren Buffett (Bershire-Hathaway, 50 billion dollars), Bernard Arnault of France (LVMH, 41 billion dollars), Larry Ellison (Oracle, 39.5 billion dollars), Lakshmi Mittal (Steel, 31.1 billion dollars), Amancio Ortega (Zara, 31 billion dollars), Eike Batista (Mining, oil, 30 billion dollars), Mukesh Ambani (petrochemicals, gas, 27 billion dollars), and Christy Walton (Wal-Mart, 26.5 billion dollars).