AN historic agreement last night brought the world one step closer to ending the insanity of having several different kinds of mobile phone charger.
Decades of intense charger rivalry were put aside at the United Nations as delegates agreed a road map towards a standard charging pin and socket for all phones by 2012.
Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general who cut short a trip to Gaza to attend the crucial session, hailed the agreement as a 'pivotal first step' towards confronting 'the defining challenge of our age'.
Pope Benedict staged an all-night vigil at the Vatican holding a Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia and a Samsung F480 Tocco, both of which expired at dawn while the Pontiff tried to attach them to a Nokia charger.
Mr Ban said: "Today the world's mobile phone companies have spoken with one voice, but only because they all brought their own chargers with them.
"Being able to go into a shop and buy a mobile phone charger without having to check that the little plug on the end of the wire fits into the little hole in the bottom of your phone is the mobile phone charger equivalent of a separate Palestinian state."
He added: "Soon every mobile phone user will be able to say 'yes of course you can borrow my charger because it is the same as yours' and they will embrace and know that they are brothers.
"Unless of course one of them has one of last year's Motorola Razr phones which are really starting to look very naff and outdated."
Meanwhile Charles Ndinka, a malaria sufferer from Rwanda, said: "I am filled with the joy of Our Lord. Never did I think I would live to see the day when all the little plugs and all the little holes were exactly the same.
"This will certainly help a lot more than supplying my country with clean drinking water and a primary school."
