Russian Company Unveils New Space Hotel – Plans have just been unveiled in Moscow for the first ever space hotel that will we be perched 217 miles above the Earth. Due to open its doors by 2016 and officially called, The Commercial Space Station, the out-of-this-world vacation destination will have room for seven guests in four cabins and come with views so astounding, they may actually make the incredibly excessive price tag worth every penny.  [ibtimes]

Fake Springbok Jerseys Seized – Thousands of counterfeit rugby jerseys with an estimated street value of R43m have been seized in Johannesburg, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) said on Thursday. Spokesperson Anton Fisher said 66 000 jerseys were found in a container in Cleveland by police and custom officials, earlier this week. [news24]

Porsche With R2Million Worth Of Perlemoen Seized – Perlemoen with an estimated street value of R2 million was seized from an abandoned car in Somerset West. Captain Frederik van Wyk said police received information that a man driving a Porsche was smuggling perlemoen into the town. Police spotted the car and started to chase it, he said. The driver managed to outrun the police, but they later found the car abandoned at Sir Lowry’s Pass. [iol]

Run Gaddafi, Run! – Moammar Gaddafi is making preparations for a departure from Libya with his family for possible exile in Tunisia, U.S. officials have told NBC News, citing intelligence reports. One official suggested it was possible that he would leave within days. [msnbc]

RIP HP Touchpad: HP To Shut Down Web OS Operations – After confirming that it is looking into spinning off its PC business, Hewlett-Packard made a more shocking announcement Thursday: it is going to “discontinue operations for webOS devices.” And that’s the end of the line for its just-launched tablet, the HP TouchPad. [mashable]

Looks Like James Murdoch Might Be Out Of There – News Corp’s senior management is starting to think about what the company might do if James Murdoch stepped aside, sources inside and close to the global media empire said. With Rupert Murdoch’s younger son under increasing pressure from the phone-hacking scandal enveloping the company, News Corp executives want to be prepared if he wants to “take a breather,” one News Corp source said. [reuters]

Facebook’s Holocaust Problem – The social-networking giant bans hate speech—but allows the proliferation of Holocaust-denial pages, saying it recognizes ‘people’s right to be factually wrong about historical events. For years, international organizations opposing anti-Semitism have been urging the planet’s preeminent social-networking platform to delete any content that asserts the Nazi-orchestrated extermination of 6 million Jews never took place. [dailybeast]

Prince Harry Heads For California – Look out, West Coast girls! Flash can exclusively confirm that newly single Prince Harry will head to California as part of a rigorous training mission that will also include a stint in Arizona. On the heels of his brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate Middleton’s royal visit, Harry is coming to America to complete the final phases of his Apache helicopter training. [thedaily]

Beehive Opens During Russian Commercial Flight – An airport official smuggled a hive of bees on to a plane, panicking passengers when they escaped mid-flight in one of a series of lapses at the provincial Blagoveshchensk facility. The bees made a break for freedom during a flight to Moscow from the far eastern city after they were illegally stashed in a box in a coat-locker in business class. [mail&guardian]

Woman Hits Head And Dies At OR Tambo – A woman died at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Thursday morning after apparently hitting her head and having a heart attack while rushing to catch a flight to Port Elizabeth. Comedian Rob van Vuuren tweeted that the “woman was rushing to catch her flight, fell, hit her head, had a heart-attack and is now dead”. [news24]

New Chip Borrows Brain’s Computing Tricks – IBM has unveiled an experimental chip that borrows tricks from brains to power a cognitive computer, a machine able to learn from and adapt to its environment. Reactions to the computer giant’s press release about SyNAPSE, short for Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronic, have ranged from conservative to zany. Some even claim it’s IBM’s attempt to recreate a cat brain from silicon. [wired]

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