1 Johannesburg Times editorial saying other African nations, too, will overcome dictators. The killing of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in his home town of Sirte at the hands of his own people, should be a lesson to politicians around the world that people power will always triumph. When Gaddafi seized the reins of power in a military coup in 1969, his people never imagined that they would have to take up arms to remove him. In the 42 years that he was in charge, Libya became a world player and Gaddafi used his country's oil resources to push his agenda. In Africa, he played a critical role in helping struggling governments to liberate themselves from colonialism but the "brotherly" help soon changed into dictatorship. African leaders whose hold on power was dependent on his money and influence failed to challenge him, even when his actions imperilled African unity and progress. The collapse of his administration and his death, which were achieved with the crucial assistance of the West, gives the AU a chance to chart a new road. The likes of Gaddafi continued in power because their peers on the continent failed to condemn them. The Arab Spring movement that led to the removal of the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt, and now of Libya, has given hope to nations in Africa still under dictatorship. One day, they too shall overcome.
2 The Guardian on the Gaddafi cult. He was everywhere. For more than four decades, Muammar Gaddafi’s image adorned countless buildings, billboards, banners, railings and lamp-posts. Giant portraits hung in hotel lobbies and offices. Miniature laminated versions swung on green ribbons around the necks of his supporters. His face was on T-shirts, baseball caps and wristwatches. Schoolchildren took lessons beneath his gaze, hospital patients were treated within his view. Gaddafi was not the first, and will not be the last, leader to develop a cult of the personality in order to entrench his position. But the entire modern state of Libya was built around one man and his eccentric philosophies and whims. Nowhere was the cult of Gaddafi more evident than at Bab al-Aziziya, the sprawling compound in the Libyan capital which was the nexus of his dominion. For months the hard core of the Gaddafi cult flocked there to act as human shields against the "crusader aggressor", as they described Nato warplanes. They came wrapped in loyalist green and ready to die. The long queues and rigorous security checks did not deter them. Sometimes there were tens of thousands, sometimes the numbers dwindled to a few hundred. As with all cults, some were genuinely enthralled and some were too afraid to voice doubts. Open dissent was impossible.
3 Times of India quoting a doctor from Kerala, Mundol Abdulla, who ran a Libyan government clinic in 1973 at Abu Hadhi, 15 km from Gaddafi’s home town, Sirte. Gaddafi visited his clinic and the Abdullas were invited to his residence several times where Gaddafi personally served them, tea and snacks. The 70-year-old doctor from Kasaragod revised his opinion after seeing bodies of students hanging in public places. He says bodies of university students were kept hanging on campus for a week as an example to others.(My cousin Abraham was involved in construction of the Tripoli airport, and his son, a doctor, was caught in the recent turmoil in Sirte. When I was doing a few stories for ET on the Arab Spring’s impact on India and Kerala, this young doctor who was holed up in Sirte was giving me ground-level inputs. He managed to be evacuated well before Gaddafi himself fled to Sirte.)
4 Al Jazeera on India’s bridal slaves and China’s prison slaves. India has the world's largest number of slaves, among them an increasing number of women and girls sold into marriage. India has one of the world's fastest growing economies. But the southwest Asian country also has the largest number of slaves in the world. In the midst of widespread poverty, fuelled by economic inequality and rampant corruption, a new form of slavery - bridal slavery - has flourished. Women and young girls are sold for as little as $120 to men who often burden them with strenuous labour and abuse them.
China is the world's factory, but does a dark secret lurk behind this apparent success story? Once an isolationist communist state, over the last 20 years China has become the world's biggest exporter of consumer goods. But behind this apparent success story is a dark secret - millions of men and women locked up in prisons and forced into intensive manual labour. China has the biggest penal colony in the world - a top secret network of more than 1,000 slave labour prisons and camps known collectively as "The Laogai".
5 The BBC on India’s internet surfing and shopping boom. India has a long and dominant tradition of small family businesses and street traders, but the online marketplace is growing here too. As internet use rises at a rapid pace, so too does the uptake of internet shopping. There are more than 65 million people logging onto the web in India. This might be a small proportion of the country as a whole, but in itself represents a sizeable market. It is estimated that four in every five of these web surfers shop online. At this rate, India could become one of the top 10 e-commerce hubs in the world by 2015, says Murali Krishnan, the boss of eBay India.
6 The BBC wondering whether America was built on a lie. In Philadelphia, American and British lawyers have debated the legality of America's founding documents. Recently, when Republican candidates in Nevada were debating such American issues as nuclear waste disposal and the immigration status of Mitt Romney's gardener, American and British lawyers in Philadelphia were taking on a far more fundamental topic. Namely, just what did Thomas Jefferson think he was doing?
Some background: during the hot and sweltering summer of 1776, members of the second Continental Congress travelled to Philadelphia to discuss their frustration with royal rule. By 4 July, America's founding fathers approved a simple document penned by Jefferson that enumerated their grievances and announced themselves a sovereign nation. Called the Declaration of Independence, it was a blow for freedom, a call to war, and the founding of a new empire. It was also totally illegitimate and illegal. At least, that was what lawyers from the UK argued during a debate at Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Hall.
7 The Dawn on conversions threatening a ‘Macedonian’ tribe. Nestled among the valleys of Pakistan’s mountainous northwest, a tiny religious community that claims descent from Alexander the Great’s army is under increasing pressure from radicals bent on converting them to Islam. The Kalash, who number just about 3,500 in Pakistan’s population of 180 million, are spread over three valleys along the border with Afghanistan. For centuries they practiced polytheism and animal sacrifice without interference from members of Pakistan’s Muslim majority. But now they are under increasing danger from proselytising Muslim militants just across the border, and a hardline interpretation of Islam creeping through mainstream society.
8 The Dawn on a camera that lets you shoot first and focus later. Startup Lytro has unveiled a camera that lets people adjust the focus on photos after they take them. Work that Ren Ng started in a lab while working on a PhD at Stanford University about eight years ago has led to the creation of what is billed as the first camera that captures the entire light field in a scene. “Our goal is to forever change the way people take and experience pictures, and today marks our first major step,” Ng said as pocket-sized, telescope-shaped Lytro cameras made their public debut in San Francisco. The Silicon Valley company began taking limited orders in the United States for two Lytro camera models, a $399 version capable of holding about 350 pictures and one priced at $499 offering twice the memory space.
9 Straits Times on Hong Kong’s pampered pooches taking yoga classes. Hong Kong's pampered canines may have their own spas complete with jacuzzis and massage, but it can still be difficult for a dog to find inner peace. Help is now at hand in the shape of yoga instructor Suzette Ackermann and her yoga class - for dogs. Each Saturday morning in the city's Sheung Wan district, owners massage their pets before bringing them into postures such as the cobra pose, in which the hind legs are stretched out to the rear, as soothing music plays. (Did someone talk of brazen inequality in the world?)
10 Wall Street Journal on Bangalore as India’s suicide capital. Bangalore, known as the “Silicon Valley of India” or sometimes the “Garden City,” tragically could now also be christened “India’s Suicide Capital.” According to the latest statistics by the National Crime Records Bureau, Bangalore reported the highest number of suicides with 2,167 cases in 2009, the latest year for which data is available. Chennai was the second, with 1,412, and Delhi third with 1,215. Together the four metropolitan areas of Bangalore, Chennai , Delhi and Mumbai accounted for almost 43% of the total suicides in 35 cities measured. Bangalore topped the list for the previous five years before 2009, too. Experts point to accelerated development, sudden social urbanization and high migration as the prime factors responsible. “Rapidly rising aspirations of individuals are almost impossible to be satisfied in the city, where many have been found unable to cope up with stress,” said Mohan Isaac, a professor at the School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences in the University of Western Australia, who has studied Bangalore suicides.
11 Sandipan Deb writing in Mint about the less discussed side of Steve Jobs. Everyone knows from his 2005 Stanford speech that he was an adopted child. It is less well-known that in 1977 when his live-in girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan became pregnant, Jobs denied paternity and demanded that she abort the baby.
12 Mint story on the life of white collar inmates in Tihar jail. Dr Anju Gupta, who worked as a Tihar Jail psychologist for two and a half years says, “They tend not to mix with other people. They eat in their cells. The fell embarrassed and shy and when they go from their cells to the gates for court they are surrounded by prison security. We cannot put them among the rest of the people so they are usually separated in single cells."
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