Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

China's navy has evacuated 225 foreign nationals and almost 600 Chinese citizens from Yemen's southern port of Aden, amid fierce fighting there.
China says it is the first time its military has rescued foreign nationals from a danger zone.
Houthi rebels in the city have been fighting troops loyal to ousted Yemeni President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
On Friday, the rebels withdrew from the presidential palace, following Saudi-led air strikes.



Chinese naval frigates were carrying out anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia when they were diverted to Yemen to evacuate people trapped by the fighting.
The evacuees were taken by naval frigates across the Red Sea to Djibouti, to take flights home.
The non-Chinese evacuees included 176 people from Pakistan, said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. There were smaller numbers from other countries, including Ethiopia, Singapore, the UK, Italy and Germany.

the Saudis refused to allow a Russian plane to uplift their Consul staff to safety.

The suspected mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, has been released on bail from a Pakistani jail, officials say.
Jail officials in Rawalpindi said Mr Lakhvi was released on Friday morning.
India's Home Minister Rajnath Singh has called the release "unfortunate and disappointing", Indian media reports say.
Mr Lakhvi had been granted bail in December, but was kept in detention under public order legislation.
That detention was declared void by the High Court, which ordered his release.
Mr Lakhvi still faces trial - along with six other suspects - over the attacks, which left 166 people dead and damaged peace efforts between the two countries.

I have heard of/seen using the motorway middle for metro, train, or on viaduct BRT, monorail, high-speed rail.

Bicycle is new to me.

100 years ago today a genocide was initiated in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. Anders Q Björkman of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet tells the story how his family was saved because of a small village that took to arms and defended itself.



The girl was 12 years old. On a spring day 1975 she started a bus journey together with parents and siblings: 1 550 kilometers, from their home town of Midyat in southeastern Turkey to the metropole Istanbul in the other end of the country. They spent one night in the bus and then slept the following night in Istanbul. From there by train, via West Germany, all the way to Stockholm, Sweden. For thousands of years their roots had been firmly grounded in the red soil of the region around Midyat. Now the family was to take root in another part of the world. Both the mother and the father had already found employment at the truck manufacturer Scania in Södertälje, just south of the Swedish capital Stockholm. They left their old lives as housewife and silversmith in their home country and overnight the family of nine persons became immigrants.

But that was 40 years ago.

Now we’re instead travelling in the opposite direction: from Stockholm to Midyat, situated in Turabdin, ”The mountain of God’s servants”, heartland for Christian Assyrians/Syriacs in southeastern Turkey.

The girl has grown up and has become the mother of my three daughters. We’re going back to her history, to the house she once lived in, to the churches of Midyat, to the 1 618 years old monastery Mor Gabriel outside the town. We visit the village of Hah where, according to the legend, The three wise men raised a monument in honor of Mary on their way from Bethlehem. Today there’s a church here, sometimes said to be the world’s oldest. By the river of Tigris we find Hasankeyf, a place where humans have been living for 12 000 years and that, alas, soon will disappear under water if a planned dam construction will actually be initiated. We travel to the town of Mardin, where we find the Zafaran monastery, older than Christianity – in its basement you’ll find remnants of a sun worshipping religion.
This several thousand years old cultural heritage is overwhelming, especially for our daughters who realize that this rich history is also theirs. Their grandfather – jiddo in Assyrian/Syriac – has passed away shortly before our trip and the need to understand their own background has begun to grow within them. Here in Turabdin my daughters’ Assyrian/Syriac history has a great depth. In Sweden it starts in the 1970s in public housing areas in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. In Mesopotamia between the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates it starts several thousands years ago. (Jiddo always preferred the word Syriac rather than Assyrian, and therefore I will use that denomination of the people from now on).

Most of all we are touched by the visit to the church in the little village of Ayn-Wardo. It is situated on a hill and the church stands like a little fortress on the top of the hill. We’re shown around by a young man who tells us what happened here 100 years ago, the summer of 1915, when Sayfo took place. Sayfo means The Sword and is the Syriac name for the genocide of Christians that occured in the Ottoman Empire during the first world war. In most villages and towns of Turabdin the Christian population were not able to defend themselves. They were not prepared and couldn't imagine that their neighbors would kill them and plunder their homes. So they didn’t have a chance when the killing started.

But in Ayn-Wardo the villagers planned for defense from within the church’s thick walls right from the start. To this place many from Midyat fled for their lives one night a 100 years ago.

Our guide gestures towards us and says:

”None of you would exist if the people of this village hadn’t taken to arms and defended themselves”.

And he points at me:

”None, except you”.

it is odd in a way that only selected atrocities get the front line.

it is odd in a way that only selected atrocities get the front line.

You love to mouth off words […]

And how daft are you showing yourself to be Oakdale. Maybe I should add that only know me from the forum but then you are a Yank and think you are almost divinely inspired.

Unfortunately dear man, Americans are slaves and to the money barons where bits of democracy are used to fool people.