Global Briefing, Mar. 3, 2011: Ten Stories to Start Your Day

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Two Cities—  Ian Lee tours Tripoli, a city that feels like an “oasis,” even as violence swirls around it; Andrew Lee Butters chronicles life in Benghazi, the rebel town left to rot.

Frenemies — Wired‘s Spencer Ackerman is skeptical about the U.S. military’s plan to net jihadis via social networks Facebook.

Traffic Cops — TIME’s Hannah Beech points out that Beijing’s plan to alleviate traffic by tracing phone signals is big-time ‘Big Brother.’

Invisible Hands — The Hindustan Times cautiously explores the idea of direct cash transfers to India’s poor; The Hindu dismisses it as “the latest fad.”

Copy/Paste — Germany’s Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is gone. TIME traces the rise and demise of the ‘darling’ defense minister.

Very Punny — The New York Times documents the rising popularity of “cross-talk,” a potentially subversive form of comedy reminiscent Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?”

Eastern Frontier — Russia’s renewed interest in the Kuril islands, signals its worry over China, not Japan, argues Michael Auslin in the Wall Street Journal.

Long Read — The New Yorker‘s David Remnick profiles Haaretz, the broadsheet that prides itself on being the ‘conscience’ of Israel.

In Pictures —  Exclusive photographs from the battle for Brega, where photographer Yuri Kozyrev runs with Libyan rebels fighting Gaddafi’s troops.