Radioactive gigantism? Giant squid stories prompt another alarm over Fukushima disaster
Last week reports of two different giant squids surfaced on the internet. Although recent reports of an enormous squid washed up on shore in California turned out to be false, a giant squid hauled in by a fisherman in Japan last week appears to be quite real. The stories prompted another rash of concern about Fukushima radiation which could have caused genetic mutations in sea creatures that triggered uncontrolled growth – or “radioactive gigantism,” the Voice of Russia reports.
As they hauled in their net on the frigid seas off Japan’s Sadogashima Island in Niigata Prefecture, Shigenori Goto and the crew of his boat were hoping for a good catch of yellowtail. Instead, what slowly appeared was a mammoth squid, still alive.
The squid died when it was hauled to the surface. It measured 19 feet in length and weighed just over 350 pounds.
These squids can grow to around 14 meters in length. But Shigenori Goto, the fisherman who caught it, told the media “This is the first time I’ve seen such a large squid.”
The squid was taken to a local government institute to be researched.
The other squid story happened in California. According to the article on The Lightly Braised Turnip a monstrous squid washed up on shore in Santa Marino. The creature measured “a whopping 160 feet from head to tentacle tip.”
According to the news report, the squid’s frightening size may have had something to do with “the waters near the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Futaba District of Japan” — where it apparently came from — spurring a “genetic mutation that triggered uncontrolled growth.”
“Scientists believe that following the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant an unknown number of sea creatures suffered genetic mutations that triggered uncontrolled growth – or “radioactive gigantism,” the article said.
The good thing about the The Lightly Braised Turnip article is that it increases awareness to an expanded audience. The bad news is that it’s a hoax.
The picture of the squid is obviously Photoshopped. The squid photo was taken from reports earlier this year of a 30-foot-long giant squid that washed up on a beach in Spain, and it was inserted onto a beach photo that shows spectators gathering around. The source also appears to post only satire. Let aside that there is no such place as “Santa Marino.”
On Twitter and Facebook, the article was frequently shared this week. Nearly 1 million people “liked” it on Facebook.
“Very very very biiiiig *jaw drop* gigantism!” wrote one user on Twitter.
Another tweeted that it was ‘one of the many impacts of the #Fukushima disaster back in ’11,” while posting the Photoshopped image.
The article was also re-published and cited on some conspiracy webistes and forums.
Well, there’s really a lot of talk going around about radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi plant reaching the west coast of North America. Although the situation at Fukushima definitely needs to be monitored, be careful about information floating around about it.
Gérard-François Dumont: Neglecting historical facts makes solution of Karabakh conflict even harder
The interview was conducted by Nvard Chalikyan
Panorama.am presents an interview with Professor of Demography at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne Gérard-François Dumont.
Nvard Chalikyan: Prof. Dumont, in your recent article titled Nagorno-Karabakh: the geopolitics of a conflict without end you speak about the origins of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. How do you assess the fact that these historical realities are completely ignored in the current conflict resolution process?
Gérard-François Dumont: The ignorance of the historical facts which are at the heart of geopolitical conflicts is unfortunately quite common. This is clearly seen in the conflicts currently taking place in Sudan, Central Africa and even in Europe, where there is a marked tension between Hungary and the European Union. The main reason of the latter is that the treaty of Trianon, signed on 04 June 1920 in the aftermath of the World War I, was unjust. The truth is that the principle of the inviolability of frontiers currently endorsed by the international community results in complete neglect of the causes and history of the formation of these frontiers.
Comparisons are not always appropriate, however, it is interesting to compare the situations in the South Caucasus and Ukraine. The USSR, having employed the principle of «divide and rule», in 1946 attached to Ukraine Crimea, which gave Moscow access to the Black Sea and then to the Mediterranean. This complicated the current geopolitical situation of Ukraine, which is vividly seen from the fact that Crimea was the only region which voted against the independence of Ukraine in the referendum of 1991. Ceteris paribus, the USSR drew the borders of Azerbaijan according to that same principle, a fact which is now largely ignored. Similarly, the pogroms of Armenians in Baku in 1988 have also been ignored. But the neglect of historical facts always has the same result – it makes the solution of the conflict harder and fuels it even more.
NC: Considering the fact that Azerbaijan continues to pose an existential threat to Nagorno-Karabakh today (given current anti-Armenian policies, military rhetoric, etc.) do you think the proposed Madrid Principles provide tangible security guarantees to the people of the Nagorno-Karabakh against possible Azerbaijani aggression?
Gérard-François Dumont: Historically the principles are like agreements and declarations. They have exactly as much importance as the politicians give to them. Geopolitics is a game based on power balance. No principle, however desirable it might be, can ever guarantee the security of a people. Whether you are for or against the Madrid Principles, they are only principles, the interpretation of which can vary greatly depending on the protagonists, while their implementation can be very different depending on the balance of power. In other words, Nagorno-Karabakh must be ready for all the possible developments. As a matter of fact, only the peace agreement which will include security guarantees, as well as willingness to preserve those, can guarantee the security.
NC: From purely geopolitical perspective is there a scenario that can bring to a final solution of the conflict and to a long-term peace in the region?
Gérard-François Dumont: History teaches us that conflicts are resolved only when the immediate parties to the conflict really want to put an end to it. Of course, international powers can contribute to the solution of the conflict if they refrain from igniting it and if they offer guarantees. The Minsk Group plays a useful role by trying to appease the conflict and facilitate the dialogue. However, it cannot solve the conflict, as past two decades have shown. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can only be completely solved if Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh find common ground and are equally eager to resolve it.
NC: And what would you say about the role of democracy in the resolution of this conflict?
Gérard-François Dumont: One of the factors that complicates the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is that it depends on the situation between the parties to the conflict. It is a lot easier to find a solution to those conflicts where the parties are democratic, as peoples do not like being imprisoned within closed borders and they eventually vote for those leaders who want the borders to be used as a means of exchange and trade. Thus we can only wish democratic progress to these countries.
NC: From the geopolitical perspective how do you assess the decision of the Republic of Armenia to become a member of the Customs Union? Could Armenia have possibly taken another rout being faced with the choice between Russia and Europe?
Gérard-François Dumont: Armenia, which has limited resources and is largely isolated because of the closed borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan, has to rely on those partners which have the capability and the wish to effectively contribute to Armenia’s security. The current situation in the international relations is such that the United States gives preference to Turkey at least merely due to what I call “the rule of numbers” – Turkey has a population of 76 million, while Armenia, together with Nagorno-Karabakh, has a population of three million.
The European Union, being an ally of the US, in 2005 started negotiations with Turkey for Turkey’s membership in the EU, or to be more precise, for granting Turkey a status of a candidate country, with all the financial privileges pertaining to it. But this situation is ridiculous: Turkey does not recognize the sovereignty of one of the EU members; neither does it guarantee the protection of the rights of its minorities, which is a fundamental European value.
Thus, being unable to rely either on the US or on the EU, Armenia had no other choice but to join the Russia-led Customs Union. Besides, Moscow has paid for it by offering to provide gas to Armenia with “friendly prices”. At the same time however the Customs Union cannot work miracles, for two reasons. First, the CU opens for Armenia a smaller market compared to that of the EU with the population of 500 million; second, the economy of the CU member states is based more on the exploitation of natural resources than on innovations. Having said this, it must also be acknowledged that Russia, the country that has founded the Customs Union, does after all provide a necessary security umbrella for Armenia.
NC: Professor Dumont, thank you very much for the interesting interview.
The interview was conducted by Nvard Chalikyan
Source: Panorama.am
Pope Francis conveys greetings to Serzh Sargsyan
Pope Francis met with Vatican-accredited diplomats on January 13, the press service of Armenian Foreign Ministry said.
Armenian Ambassador to Vatican Mikael Minasyan had a brief conversation with Pope Francis on the sidelines of the annual meeting.
Pope Francis conveyed his warm greetings to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II and his blessing to the Armenian people.
Turkish human rights activist Zarakolu to live in Sweden for 2 years
Well-known Turkish human rights activist and publisher Ragip Zarakolu will live in Sweden for two years on invitation of International Cities of Refuge Network. He will reside in Sigtuna city.
The director and owner of Belge Publishing House, Ragip Zarakolu has been subject to a lifetime of harassment from the Turkish authorities.
Zarakolu was arrested along with more than 40 people on October 28, 2011.
Turkey arrested up to 1,000 scholars, writers, publishers, and rights advocates during a two-year crackdown targeting activists who focus on Kurdish issues. Zarakolu’s son, Deniz Zarakolu, who is an editor at Belge Publishing House and a Ph.D. student at Bilgi University, was arrested weeks earlier, on Oct 7.
On March 19, 2012, Zarakolu was formally indicted under the charge of “aiding and abetting an illegal organization” under Turkey’s sweeping anti-terror laws, for which he could receive up to 15 years in prison if convicted. He is among 193 defendants named in the indictment. He was released pending trial on April 10, 2012.
He also has published several books on the Armenian Genocide, such as George Jerjian’s “The Truth Will Set Us Free: Armenians and Turks Reconciled” and Professor Dora Sakayan’s “An Armenian Doctor in Turkey: Garabed Hatcherian: My Smyrna Ordeal of 1922” — which brought new criminal charges in 2005. In November 2007 Zarakolu published David Gaunt’s book “Massacres, resistance, protectors” about the Assyrian Genocide in Turkish.
He last visited Yerevan on Dec 10, 2013 to attend Verjine Svazlian’s “Armenian Genocide. Testimonies of the Eyewitness Survivors” book.
Turkish Journalists’ Association to commemorate Dink
Turkish Journalists’ Association will commemorate the slain editor-in-chief of Agos weekly during a conference on Jan 20.
Dink was murdered on Jan 19, 2007 in Istanbul. He had received numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists who viewed his journalism, particularly on the Armenian Genocide, as treacherous. Dink was shot twice in the head and once in the neck by a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist, Ogün Samast, outside the offices of the newspaper he founded in 1996.
Armenia: The Front Line
BY MARIA TITIZIAN
“The Azerbaijanis are once again shooting at the village…for the past thirty minutes now…
God bless our people protecting the frontier…peace…”
This status was written on the Facebook page of the village of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur on January 10, 2014 at 9:00 PM. The mayor of the neighboring village of Aygepar informed certain media outlets that their village was also being targeted. Paravakar village also reported gunshots at about the same time.
All of these villages are located on the border with Azerbaijan in the northeast corner of Armenia in the marz of Tavush. According to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, as of October 2013, sixteen villages in the region have been effectively cut off from the rest of the country because of the continual risk of gunfire from Azerbaijani forces. Most secondary roads are impassable, especially in the winter months.
During the Soviet era, a portion of the Ijevan-Noyemberyan-Tbilisi highway passed through Soviet Azerbaijani territory, through Azerbaijani villages. During the Karabakh war, that road was closed. After the 1994 ceasefire, civilian Armenians restarted using the road although it came with many risks and heavy losses, dozens were killed. They were fired upon but they didn’t have a choice. A close friend who is from Noyemberyan recalls that in 2001 he was driving on that stretch of the highway with his young family when his car broke down. It took him close to an hour to fix the problem and continue on with his journey. Almost 13 years later as he recalls the incident, you can see how it has shaken him, the fear of being fired on by enemy snipers while trying to protect your family isn’t a feeling you easily forget.
During Robert Kocharyan’s presidency, funds from the Lincy Foundation were used to build a new road that didn’t pass through Azerbaijani territory and was also out of range of Azerbaijani snipers except for a one kilometer section near the Voskebar-Baghanis stretch of the highway. Now even this portion of the highway is closed. An alternative road is now being utilized.
Thousands of Armenians living in their villages, working on their farms, trying under crushing circumstances to make ends meet are also living in perpetual fear because of continued Azerbaijani aggression. In the last week alone, the Azerbaijani military has violated the ceasefire agreement countless times not only on the Line of Contact between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh but on state lines between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the marz of Tavush.
The press secretary of the Armenian Armed Forces said that during this last incident different calibre weapons, including large calibre machine guns were used by the Azerbaijanis. Blessfully no one in the villages targeted were killed or injured in the attack. This time.
Toward the end of last year however, an Armenian soldier was killed and three others were injured when the vehicle they were traveling on a highway in Tavush came under attack. Another Armenian soldier was killed on December 15 by Azerbaijani sniper fire near the village of Movses. In September, Azerbaijani troops opened fire again on Movses and Aygepar. In the same month, a young resident of Aygedzor was wounded after stepping on a mine near the Azeri border. He bled to death because Azeri forces kept shooting, preventing his fellow villagers from getting medical assistance to him. In February of 2013, a resident of Movses and father of three children, Mher Yeghshatyan was killed by an Azeri sniper. Two years earlier the same village, which lies some 300 meters from Azerbaijani territory had come under heavy attack.
In fact, 2012 saw a serious escalation in border clashes in Tavush; some of the worst violence in years was unfolding just as then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the region. In May of that year several Armenian villages in the marz came under fire until the early morning hours.
The worse was to come. In June 2012, the villages of Chinar and Berdavan came under heavy Azerbaijani attack. Three Armenian soldiers were killed and six wounded while fighting back a cross-border incursion by Azerbaijani forces. The following day, five Azerbaijani soldiers were killed. The Armenian Defense Ministry said they were part of an Azeri unit who had tried to infiltrate Armenian positions near the village of Voskepar in Tavush. On June 6, Azeri soldiers attempted to infiltrate Nagorno Karabakh this time near Horadiz. During that attack one Armenian soldier was killed and two others wounded.
In August 2012 Azerbaijan fired on Nerkin Karmiraghbyur…
The list goes on. The list is endless. These are stories we keep hearing over and over again. And along with the villagers, our young men are on the frontiers of our two republics, defending our borders.
Today, the Noyemberyan –Baghanis- Voskebar and Berd-Vazashen-Paravakar sections of Tavush are probably the most vulnerable areas of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh combined. Azerbaijanis have advantageous military posts along the border with Tavush with many villages in plain view of their snipers.
The soldiers along the Line of Contact, along the state border with Azerbaijan in Tavush marz continue serving under dangerous conditions. They serve for two years as part of their mandatory military service and then most go on with their lives. The villagers living along the border however serve their whole lives. From the moment they’re born to the minute they leave this earth, they are by virtue of their existence, on the front lines.
Armenian Review Receives Gulbenkian Grant for Digitization Project
WATERTOWN, Mass.—The Armenian Review recently received a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation of Portugal to support its project to digitize the entire Armenian Review collection, from 1948 to the present, in an effort to promote preservation and accessibility. The goal of the digitization project is to allow readers and researchers keyword searchable online access to every article published in the journal’s nearly 200 issues.
The grant of $12,000, coupled with another donation of $5,000 from a generous private donor, will defray a major portion of the digitization costs that will create an online index and a searchable database of the Armenian Review, the leading journal of Armenian studies, which has published peer-reviewed articles and book reviews on Armenian history, sociology, political science, and literature.
“The editorial team is excited by this new opportunity provided by the Gulbenkian Foundation. It will help us get closer to our goal of establishing a digital footprint and make the Review available for online researchers. That being said, the challenge is bigger now for the journal to develop and organize its digital archive by updating its web platform, preparing abstracts for each articles published since 1948, and generating a solid plan to further expand its accessibility and overall operations in the coming years,” said Asbed Kotchikian, the editor-in-chief.
Allowing researchers from across the country and around the world to use these materials remotely will greatly ease the process of writing books and articles in the future. For instance, a historian in Armenia—which had no access to the Review under Soviet rule—will be able to access 65 years of academic studies on his or her computer. More broadly, the promotion of the Review’s online access will increase the visibility of Armenian studies in scholarly research and discourse.
The most recent issue of the Armenian Review contains Rouben Shougarian’s assessment of Turkish-Armenian Track I and II diplomacies. In another article, Albert Stepanyan reexamines and analyzes sections from Moses Khorenatsi’s History of the Armenians. The third and fourth pieces are a dialogue between Taner Akçam, and Uğur Ümit Üngör and Mehmet Polatel. The dialogue starts with a review essay by Akçam examining and critiquing Üngör’s and Polatel’s book Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property. The issue also features book reviews and a review essay by Levon Chorbajian, who reviewed four books dealing with the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath.
The current issue of the Armenian Review may be ordered by itself or as part of a subscription to the journal from its website, www.armenianreview.org. All subscription, order, and renewal inquiries should be addressed to the publisher by either writing to the Armenian Review, Inc., 80 Bigelow Avenue, Watertown, MA 02472-2012; by e-mailing orders@armenianreview.org; or by calling (617) 926-4037. Individuals who would like to contribute to the digitization project may e-mail editor@armenianreview.org.
Against Genocide Association criticizes Kurdish woman leader’s anti-Armenian statement
January 15, 2014 | 00:04
Germany-based Against Genocide Association criticized Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Co-President Bese Hozat.
Hozat had stated that the Armenians and the Greeks have a parallel state in Turkey, and they hinder the democratization of the country.
Against Genocide Association released a disapproving statement addressed to Hozat, Demokrathaber website of Turkey reports.
The statement noted that the genocide victims are not an obstacle before Kurdish independence.
“The real barrier before the independence of the Kurdish people is the Republic of Turkey, which is guilty of genocide,” the statement read, in particular.
In an interview with the Kurdish Firat news agency, and speaking about the parallel state which Islamic opinion leader Fethullah Gulen’s movement has established in Turkey, Hozat had also reflected on the Armenians, Greeks, and Jews. She had noted that, aside from the official state, there also are parallel states in Turkey.
“The Jewish lobby, the nationalist Armenians and Greeks are such parallel states. Such parallel states are in touch with one another and have interests from each other.
“Parallel states do not have formal and constitutional rights. It seems they do not have troops either, but they have an organized and a strong structure,” the Kurdish woman militant had said.
Hozat also had claimed that these parallel states hinder the establishment of democracy in Turkey.
Numerous Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian intellectuals, the T24.com.tr website, and the vice-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey, however, strongly criticized Bese Hozat for her statement.
Seven suspects arrested on bribery charges in coastal province of Mersin
MERSİN – Doğan News Agency
Seven of the 35 suspects, who were detained as part of a graft investigation conducted in the eastern Mediterranean province of Mersin, have been arrested Jan. 14.
Some six people were released before being taken to the courthouse while 22 suspects have been released pending trial following their testimonies at the court. All arrested suspects are customs officers, according to reports.
The probe was launched six months ago upon a complaint received by Trade and Customs Minister Hayati Yazıcı. The operation was conducted by the ministry’s Customs Protection on Smuggling and Intelligence Directorate after it was determined that six customs inspectors and four other officials were bribed by 25 people working in transportation companies.
Mersin is a major center of trade and is home to the country’s largest port, as well as a free trade area.
January/14/2014