A French plane has shot down a Libyan plane for breaching the no-fly zone. It’s the first time this has happened since the enforcement of the zone begun.
Gaddafi continues to shoot at the rebels and both sides remain determined to stand their ground.
Over in Syria – the latest country in the Middle East to see a wave of similar unrest – government security forces have opened fire on mourners at a funeral. The funeral, no less, of two civilians who had already been killed during protests in the same week.
Footage on youtube has emerged of Syrian authorities resorting to violent methods in order to keep protesters in check and at least 25 have now been killed in under a week.
It really does feel like enormous change is in the pipeline for these countries. When this sort of revolutionary force spreads so quickly, over such a wide distance and for the whole world to see – it does tend to make things happen.
The question is: what next if people power prevails and dictators are toppled? Who takes charge? Historically speaking, once a democracy is established, you tend to get a period of time where various parties form and jostle for popularity. Eventually, in most cases, two parties will prevail (one a bit to the left and one a bit to the right) and the voting public will tend to shimmy between them indefinitely thereafter. So it’s Labour/Conservative for us in the UK and Democrat/Republican for the US. Par example.
Back to the news and here in the UK, crime is stealing the headlines.
The body of Sian O’Callaghan, a 22 year old from Swindon, has been discovered in a forest not far from her home. Another unidentified body was found in the same place, and a 47 year old local man has been arrested for the two murders.
In a separate case, Delroy Grant – dubbed by the press as the ‘Night Stalker Rapist' – has been convicted on several counts of sexual assault, and is expected to receive a life sentence. Police think he was responsible for up to 600 rapes in London over the space of 17 years. A good one to finally get off the streets then. And probably best to throw away the key.
Finally, the government in Portugal has collapsed following the resignation of President Jose Socrates – who basically quit after failing to sort out his country’s disastrous finances. Portugal was one of the worst hit European countries of the credit crunch and it is likely that they will now need to be bailed out by the EU.
I shall tell you more about the EU tomorrow, but basically it stands for Modern Europe and it aims to bring us all together in a big powerful love fest, so that we’ve got a hope in hell of competing against massive economies like China and India in years to come.
Until tomorrow...
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