"The world's biggest troll", Cruella de Vil and a Bond villain. That's one pundit's unflattering portrait of Gina Rinehart, amid largely scathing international coverage of her latest speech.

Much of the overseas coverage of Mrs Rinehart's speech to the Sydney Mining Club, posted on YouTube, has been scathing and sarcastic, with the Atlantic Wire, a sister website to The Atlantic magazine, calling her the "world's biggest troll".

"Rinehart, an Australian, was (we think) trying to make a point about wages and bettering Australia's mining industry," the article said.

"Why she chose to say that Australians should look at the sad state of African miners making less than $2 per day is beyond us."