Made in China, assembled in Bulgaria; Facebook phone next year; Gathering storm against Modi; Rio and a trash dump; Poetry of the Taliban

1 Made in China, assembled in Bulgaria (The New York Times0 Late in 2009, Great Wall Motor started talks with a potential Bulgarian partner for construction of an assembly plant, its first in Europe, on abandoned farmland near Lovech in northern Bulgaria. The plant can produce as many as 50,000 cars a year. For now, the facility assembles cars from kits manufactured and painted in China. But plans call for welding and painting shops to be added over the next few years, to accommodate the entire production cycle.

The idea behind the investment is simple: Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union, offers low production costs, cheap labour and a flat tax rate of 10%, the lowest in the Union. Assembled in an EU member state, Chinese cars can enter the European market without paying customs levies. Great Wall is aiming at the market for new-car buyers on a limited budget, both in Bulgaria and in the wider Union, and its price points are pitched to compete with similar models from established automakers like Fiat of Italy or Dacia of Romania.

For decades under the communists, the only cars available were Soviet-made Ladas and Moskvitches and East German Trabants. When the Iron Curtain fell, Bulgarians were hungry for Western models they had seen only on television. But in impoverished Bulgaria, few could afford new cars. To drive even an old, second-hand Mercedes or a BMW became a coveted sign of social status.

2 US alumni donations at $7.8bn in 2011 (San Francisco Chronicle) Colleges raised $7.8 billion in alumni donations last year, a 10% increase from 2010, according to the Council for Aid to Education. Competition for alumni giving has heated up, with a quarter of US colleges attracting 86% of all donations. The top five fundraisers in 2011 were Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT and Columbia. Stanford may enjoy an edge, given all the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs it counts as alumni.

3 Charles Taylor’s female victim speaks out (The Guardian) Black Diamond has never met Charles Taylor, but she still calls the day the former Liberian president was sentenced for crimes against humanity the happiest of her life. Taylor is expected to be sentenced for his crimes and the 30-year-old former female rebel leader who fought against him will be watching with interest. "This is the man who ruined my future," she says. "When I see him sentenced, maybe I will be able to move on."

Taylor has been convicted of crimes including murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers in neighbouring Sierra Leone, but he wreaked havoc in his own country too. More than 200,000 people were killed in Liberia’s 14-year civil war, countless girls and women were raped and much of the population was displaced. Black Diamond was 18 and a promising student when civil war broke out. She enjoyed a peaceful childhood in the north of the country where her father worked as a doctor. In one of Taylor's troops' regular raids, in April 2000, her parents were killed and Diamond was gang-raped.

After regaining consciousness after the attack, she found her way to the headquarters of Sekou Conneh, the leader of Liberians United for Reconciliation & Democracy (Lurd) and begged him to take her in. When the compound was attacked soon after she arrived, she simply grabbed an AK-47 and joined in with the fighting. Many of the women were, like her, survivors of rape by Taylor's troops and many had come to the conclusion that becoming a fighter was the best way to protect themselves against further rapes. “I am suffering today because of what Charles Taylor did. The war took everything from me: my parents, my education and my future. I want to spread the message that we must pursue peace. We must make sure that we never see another war here in Liberia.”

4 Facebook phone next year (BBC) Facebook is to launch its own smartphone by next year, reports have suggested. Facebook had recently admitted it was struggling to make money out of its growing mobile audience. The company, which recently floated on the stock market, has also just launched its own mobile app store. According to the New York Times, Facebook has hired experts who worked on the iPhone and other smartphones. It quoted a Facebook employee as saying the site's founder Mark Zuckerberg was "worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future... Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms".

5 SA rhino poaching figure at 227 (The Herald) South Africa has lost 227 rhinos to illegal hunting activities since the beginning of the year, the department of environmental affairs said on Monday. Environmental spokesman Albi Modise said 148 people had been arrested in connection with illegal rhino horns. The latest statistics indicate the Kruger National Park has lost 137 rhinos. Modise said of the 148 people arrested 131 were poachers, 10 were receivers or couriers of illegal rhino horn, six more were couriers or buyers and one person was an exporter.

6 Gathering storm against Modi (Mahesh Trivedi in Khaleej Times) A campaign against Chief Minister Narendra Modi is gathering momentum in Gujarat as the state assembly elections draw near. Modi baiters have swung into action after his known detractor Keshubhai Patel recently woke up from his slumber and gave a clarion call to people “to fight against injustice.” District-level politicians, including those from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as leaders of different communities have flocked to Patel’s residence, urging the 82-year-old former chief minister to lead the anti-Modi brigade.

Even industrialists, allegedly being harassed by state government officials after they refused to donate to the BJP kitty, have gone and complained to the veteran leader who is planning an extensive tour of Saurashtra to mobilise the influential Patel community. Several top dissident leaders of the BJP as well as those of the newly-formed Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP) founded by former BJP rebels also last week descended on Surat to attend the  birthday bash of former mayor and MJP leader Fakir Chauhan.

The BJP headquarters in Ahmedabad was shaken when it learnt that even top functionaries of the Rashtrya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad as also some religious leaders were present to greet Chauhan who was gifted a sword as the symbol of the dissidents’ readiness to take on Modi. The decision of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP to contest the assembly polls is sure to keep Modi on tenterhooks in the days to come.

7 After rupee’s collapse, what next? (Khaleej Times) The world financial markets will now test Reserve Bank of India Governor Subbarao’s commitment/tolerance for the rupee depreciation. A quasi-sovereign SBI bond issue is all too possible. Yet the RBI has failed to defend the rupee at successive technical levels and its hard money reserves are not infinite. I do not see any turnaround in the twin deficits, FII capital inflows, FDI, ECB volumes or India’s higher sovereign risk premium. The RBI is impotent against the global FX market long term. The Indian rupee now faces a global crisis of confidence, possibly the worst since the 1998 Kargil war with Pakistan.

8 Rio and a trash dump (Straits Times) On a mountain of trash, a man takes a quick break in a sliver of shade before resuming his sorting work in Latin America's largest garbage dump hugging Rio's famed Guanabara Bay. But soon, he'll have to look for a new job. Ahead of the Rio+20 United Nations sustainable development summit next month, which will draw tens of thousands of people into the city, authorities are shutting down the 36-year-old landfill known as Gramacho. Built on a swamp, it swallows up 70% of the garbage produced by this huge metropolis of 11.8 million people. But the ground is unstable and shakes under the weight of the trucks that rumble through.

9 Poetry of the Taliban (Dawn) “Poetry of the Taliban” is no Divan-e-Hafiz. Yet this is a book that will outlive the Afghan war. It will pose a serious challenge to US efforts to depict the Taliban as wild warriors not worthy of any attention except that of drone operators. It will also make life difficult for Afghan and Pakistani liberals who refuse to acknowledge that half-educated madressah students like the Taliban can also produce poetry.

While going through the book, one thing became obvious: this book will also have a major impact on how the future generations of Afghans define this war. “At your Christmas, Bagram is alit and bright, on my Eid, even the rays of the sun are dead, suddenly at midnight, your bombs bring the light to our homes, even the oil lamps are turned off,” writes a Taliban poet named Khepalwaak.

This is a situation that many Afghans can relate to, without bothering to know who is responsible for what. The blame, ultimately, will go to the foreign occupiers. And this 247-page book, published by Hurst & Company, London, has ensured that the Americans and their Nato allies are seen as cruel occupiers. “We love these dusty and muddy houses; we love the dusty deserts of this country. But the enemy has stolen their lights, we love these wounded black mountains,” this is Nasrat, a Taliban poetess.

And here is a poem on a mistaken drone attack on a wedding party: “The young bride was killed here. The groom and his wishes were martyred here. Hearts full of hopes were martyred here. The children were murdered; a story full of love is martyred here.”Although one-sided – as it does not mention how the militants invite drone strikes on innocent civilians by using them as human shields – the poem is powerful enough to outlive US and Nato press releases explaining the strikes.