By Catherine Contiguglia Coming back to Cairo after a week in which her Facebook page turned into "an obituaries page", Ursula Lindsey, a blogger for The Arabist, reflects on the situation in Egypt and the failures of both the Muslim Brotherhood and the liberal "cultural and political elite". Here’s the story of 35-year-old American photographer Matthew Schrier and his seven months as a prisoner of Syrian jihadi fighters, who robbed and beat him and then assumed his online identity – before he managed to escape. A good old-fashioned show trial? The FT’s Jamil Anderlini looks at what’s going on behind the scenes at the highly publicised trial of Bo Xilai. An attempt to rally the party or a smokescreen to deflect attention from the stagnating economy? "It took a murder on August 20th of an anti-superstition campaigner to remind India of the lot of its faithless," The Economist writes in an account of life in India for atheists and activists against powerful groups that "continue to exploit superstition and religious fear." Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's plans to boost the participation of women in the workforce "are not motivated by softhearted political correctness but by hard-headed economic logic", writes economist Laura D'Andrea Tyson. If employment rates for Japanese women reach those of Japanese men, Goldman Sachs estimates Japan's GDP could be 14 percent larger. Continue reading » | 
