Lieutenant Massoud Rushdi likes to spend Newroz, the Kurdish new year, picnicking with his family in the brilliant green hills outside Zakho.
Friday was different. Massoud's wife and two sons packed clothes and food into their truck and left town.
It was not fear of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons, but the knowledge that Turkish tanks could soon come thundering across the bridge over the Zakho river and crush the Iraqi Kurds' 12-year experiment in self-rule.
"We decided that it was not safe for them to stay," said Massoud, a recent graduate from the Zakho military academy.
The prospect of a large Turkish incursion into the Kurdish autonomous areas has been occupying senior Washington officials as they seek to persuade Ankara to open up its airspace for US jets.
Citing anxieties about a flood of refugees, the safety of Iraq's Turkmen population, the risk of attacks by Turkish-Kurd separatists hiding in Iraqi territory, and above all the need to keep Iraqi Kurds in check, Ankara seems bent on entering an area it has long viewed as its own back yard.
The Kurds of Zakho are preparing to resist.
"We don't want to be liberated from Saddam only to be oppressed by Turkey," said Ahmed Barmani, a car mechanic. "I hate Turkey more than I do Saddam."
Barmani was not alone. Several hundred peshmerga (meaning those who face death), from the villages around Zakho, could be seen taking up positions in the hills.
There is little the lightly armed fighters could do to stop the Turks, NATO's second largest army.
But Babekir Zebari, regional commander of the Kurdish military forces, said life would be made very difficult for Turkey if it tried to occupy the self-rule area.
Zebari said his forces are ready and willing but will almost certainly not take part in front-line fighting.
"The reason we back the Americans is because we want to protect our liberty, despite the fact that we were betrayed by them in the past. But we would like to show America what being an ally is all about."
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique