Great line from Aysa Gökkan, Kurdish mayor of Nusaybin in southeast Turkey, a city where women seem to enjoy relative freedom and a strong political presence: "I only want local autonomy for Kurds and not an independent state--because states are men."

Who says rebels and armed opposition groups can't use the latest gadgets? This is Free Syrian Army commander Col Hassan Abdullah, studying the map of Ras el Ayn on an iPad. In recent days dozens of militants died in the Syrian border town in heavy clashes between anti-government rebels and Kurdish…