Libya gets connected, Mother Nature gets rights...and Hugh Grant gets the last laugh

Good Wednesday,

Berlusconi has, after much recent scandal, finally announced that he will stand down from power at some point in the near future. He is currently dealing with allegations involving a prostitute, but also cited his close “personal” ties with Gaddafi as a reason for resigning.

Speaking of Gaddafi, Libyan rebels forces have gained yet another leg up on their ladder to victory – by hijacking the tyrant’s phone network. Gaddafi cut the service as soon as unrest begun to break out, leaving the rebels with no choice but to use flags as a form of communication on the battlefield. A Libyan-American man, who works for a telecom giant, came up with the plot – which now supplies the whole of Libya with a free phone and internet service.

Moussa Koussa met rebel leaders in Qatar today, with hopes of sweet-talking them into some sort of peace deal. As predicted, he failed miserably and was told to bugger off back to the UK; where he is facing a number of decades old terrorism accusations.

In Egypt, Murbarak and his sons have been detained for questioning. Protests in Cairo persist because people are not satisfied with the fact that he has simply stood down; they want him punished for all the crimes he may have committed during his reign.

Two men have accepted responsibility for setting a bomb off in Minsk – which is the capital of Belarus (next to Russia and Poland). 12 people were killed and while authorities have the culprits, they don’t yet have a motive.

In lighter news, the recent phone hacking scandal in Britain has taken an amusing turn. Hugh Grant (one of the celebrities who apparently had his phone hacked by News of the World) has undertaken a clandestine mission to eke out his revenge. Grant struck up a ‘friendship’ with a reporter, Paul McMullen, and then secretly taped one of their truth sessions – in which McMullen admitted that Rebekah Brooks (CEO of the news group) “absolutely” knew that her reporters were hacking people’s phones and, furthermore, that her friend (and our Prime Minister) David Cameron “probably” did too. Oh dear. Grant wrote an expose on the matter for the News Statesmen, which you can read here.

Finally, somewhat bizarrely, Bolivia will soon be the first place in the world to give Mother Nature human rights. The new law will see ‘Nature’ acquire privileges  like ‘right to exist’ and ‘right to not be polluted.' How this will actually pan out remains to be seen. Several hundred ago, people would have laughed if you’d told them that animals would have rights one day. So perhaps it’s not as wacky an idea as it sounds.

See you tomorrow...