Theoretical Review on CP Violation in Rare B decays

We discuss several issues related to direct CP violation in rare $B$ meson decays. We review the use of CP asymmetries in extracting information of strong and weak phases, how the experimental data fit into the overall picture, and the current status of the $K \pi$ puzzle. We also examine the flavor symmetry assumption using closely related decay modes and extract the weak phase $\gamma$ from certain $B \to K^* \pi$ and $\rho K$ decays.