BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libya’s new rulers declared the country freed from Muammar Gaddafi’s 42 years of one-man rule Sunday, saying the “Pharaoh of the times” was in history’s garbage bin and a future of democracy and reconciliation beckoned.

As thousands gathered in Benghazi to hear authorities announce “liberation,” Gaddafi’s rotting body remained unburied and on show in Misrata, a situation that may vex some Muslims for whom rapid burial of the dead is a religious duty.

BENGHAZI, Libya, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Libya’s new rulers
declared the country freed from Muammar Gaddafi’s 42 years of
one-man rule on Sunday, saying the “Pharaoh of the times” was
now in history’s garbage bin and a future of democracy and
postwar reconciliation beckoned.

But as thousands gathered in the second city Benghazi to
hear authorities announce “liberation”, Gaddafi’s rotting body
remained unburied and on show to locals wearing masks against
the stench in a cold store in Misrata, a situation that may vex
some Muslims for whom rapid burial of the dead is a duty.

BENGHAZI, Libya, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Libya declared its
liberation on Sunday after 42 years of one-man rule by Muammar
Gaddafi came to an end with his capture and death last week,
setting the North African state on course for a transition
towards democracy.

“Raise your head high, you are a free Libyan,” the vice
chairman of the interim National Transitional Council, Abdul
Hafiz Ghoga, told a tens of thousands of cheering and
flag-waving Libyans in the eastern city of Benghazi.

BENGHAZI (Reuters) – Nothing in the world could stop Abdallah Idris from missing a ceremony to declare Libya’s liberation from four decades of Muammar Gaddafi’s rule in the eastern city of Benghazi on Sunday.

Eager to join an event authorities say could draw a million people to the birthplace of the Libyan uprising, the 30-year-old prosecutor convinced officials to let him and his two nieces board a jarring military flight from the capital Tripoli.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Racing to fill a power vacuum, Libya is to declare a war against Muammar Gaddafi’s one-man rule over on Sunday and start building the multiparty democracy he once derided as being for “donkeys”.

Tens of thousands of people who before this year’s uprising had known nothing but Gaddafi’s all-powerful police state are due to pack a square in the second city Benghazi to hear interim government leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil announce the “liberation” of Libya.

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libya is to declare its bitter eight-month civil war against Muammar Gaddafi’s 42 years of eccentric one-man rule over Sunday and embark on building a democracy with the country’s first free elections next year.

Tens of thousands are expected to pack into the central square in the second city Benghazi, the cradle of the uprising against Gaddafi, to witness interim government leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil announce the “liberation” of Libya.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – For Al-Jilani Shiha, the death of Muammar Gaddafi marks an end to dictatorship and the start of democracy and freedom that many Libyans dreamed of for four decades.

“We are free, that is what matters,” 55-year-old Shiha said.

“We are not thinking about what or who comes next. The important thing is that the cruel inhuman leader called Gaddafi is gone,” he said, raising his hands up toward the sky and shouting “Thank God.”

MAHALLA EL-KUBRA, Egypt (Reuters) – Like many Egyptians, textile factory worker Magdi el-Aleemy expected the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak to change his life. It did, but not for the better.

The firm where he worked for 10 years, like so many other businesses in Egypt, was pummeled when the economy nosedived as investors fled and orders dried up. Aleemy lost his job.

CAIRO/DUBAI, Oct 3 (Reuters) – Egypt’s bourse fell on Monday
after a sale of treasury bills drew funds and Dubai’s index
made its largest one-day drop in eight weeks as losses
on global markets spooked regional investors.

Cairo’s main index fell 2.8 percent as treasury
bills drew investor funds out of equities.

DUBAI/CAIRO, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Middle East stock markets
were hit early this week by a fall in oil prices and concern
about a slump in the global economy, but many investors continue
to think the Gulf region will escape the worst of the slowdown,
limiting downside for markets.

“If between now and Q4, it becomes clear that the global
economy is slowing down and problems in Europe and the U.S. are
not resolved, chances are that prices will continue to see
downward pressure,” said Haissam Arabi, chief executive and fund
manager at Gulfmena Investments in Dubai. “Ultimately demand for
oil will slow down and prices will catch up.”