#OpFOQ: All 26 Hostages Freed

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

As reported in the international media (CNN, BBC), all twenty-six Qatari hostages held in Iraq since December 2015 were released from Iraq today.

The Qatari hostages have been the subject of a social media campaign to bring attention to their plight that is known as “OpFOQ,” a campaign that this website started to report on from the day it was launched in March 2017.
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The Deep Repercussions of a Bombing in Syria

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Yesterday’s violent suicide bombing that killed at least 112 refugees in a bus convoy near Aleppo, Syria, derailed at least temporarily a complicated operation to evacuate Syrian civilians from four besieged towns in that country as well as help for the families of twenty-six Qatari men held hostage in Iraq.

The Qatari hostages have been the subject of a social media campaign to bring attention to their plight that is known as “OpFOQ,” and this website started to report on that campaign from the day it was launched.
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A Century’s End

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Emma Morano (pictured above) of Verbania, Italy, died today at the age of 117, according to reports. She was the oldest person alive on the planet and she was also the last human being who was here the century before last. When we woke this morning, the 19th Century was still a part of living history; now it is entirely history.

Ms. Morano was born on November 29, 1899, and every human being alive was born after the dawn of the 20th Century or this present century.
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