New sustainable advances help reimagine fish farming

Fish farms haven't always had the best reputation, but that seems to be changing fast. Many scientists and chefs believe fish farms may be the future of food due to a combination of factors, including overfishing in our oceans and a global population that keeps rising.

© Credit: CBSNews cbsn-fusion-aquaculture-research-park-redefining-what-it-means-to-be-a-fish-farm-thumbnail-700307-640x360.jpg

Dr. Kevan Main leads Mote Aquaculture Research Park in Sarasota, Florida. The park is 20 miles away from the ocean but has seawater running through it constantly. The water is recycled and reused 24 hours a day.

The fish are quarantined when they first arrive. "That is when we first bring them in from the wild. We have to keep them by themselves and have to check them and make sure they're healthy and put them through some treatment," Main told CBS News' Jeff Glor.

At the farm, Main is raising Red Drum, Snook and Almaco Jack. Almaco Jack are also known as Longfin Yellowtail, have very sharp teeth and are also very adaptable. Main originally found the fish about 100 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico. They've been raised to be perfect, healthy large breeders.

"We got males and females in here, and at least three to four times a week, they will reproduce in this tank," she said.

Fertilized eggs rise to the surface, and are sent out via tubes, to a collecting tank before being sent to a hatchery, then eventually to be cooked and served on a plate.

Farming fish isn't new—52% of fish consumed around the world come from onshore or off-shore fish farms.

Many people commonly think of farm-raised Salmon, but the industry has been hampered by a history of bad practices, including overuse of antibiotics, overcrowded facilities releasing waste into the environment, and lax regulation.

"Fish farms have faced opposition. Why do you believe those protests are misguided?" Glor asked.

"Because they're based on technology that has been going through a change, moving from learning how to do it to learning how to do it better," Main said.

Which is what Main is working on at the farm. She said depending on the size of the fish, the water in tanks could be used, filtered, and reused again in as little as an hour.

After it leaves the pools, it's sent to an outside filtration system which eliminates any toxic nitrogen put out by the fish but keeps the nutrients.

From there, the water travels into a plant house, where it's used to grow a second crop like Purslane. That process also serves to clean the water before it's returned to the fish.

It seems development of these new technologies couldn't come at a more crucial time.

"It's critical that we provide protein to feed the world. And there is no more sustainable protein that's produced than through fish farming," Main said.

Scientists like Main are getting support from rising chefs around the country, including Steve Phelps, who has become an outspoken proponent for healthy, farm-raised fish.

"To watch how an operation works where I can have my protein and have a salad on the same plate, right now it's fascinating," Phelps said.

Over the last 60 years, global demand for fish meat has more than doubled, while global supply has dropped. According to Main and Phelps, it doesn't have to be that way, and consumers don't just need to buy wild.

"No. The numbers are staggering in how much we're overfishing and what's great for a restaurant, and a chef like me is we've got consistency in product like this. They're fed the same thing, they're in the same environment, they're harvested at the same size, so when I go to create a menu, I can always guarantee that I'll have a 2-pound fish on it or whatever's necessary," Phelps said.

For Phelps and Main, the key to ensuring a future for farm-raised fish is getting the right information out there about the process, where the food comes from, and what it will take to make sure it lasts.

"One thing I've learned is that we've got to communicate more with the public. When people come here, and they see how it's actually operating, they're comfortable with it. It's a fresh product. It's local. It's going right here to your restaurants. And the chefs know the product. The grocery stores know it. It's really the wave of the future," Main said.

Main believes that wild fish won't be going away and that many wild fish are caught sustainably, especially if caught in U.S. waters.

Currently, a majority of the farmed-raised fish we eat in the U.S. is imported. Main hopes that fish farms like hers can be a model for expanding the domestic fish farm industry, making it local and sustainable.

Ahead of Geneva talks, Cypriots march for peace

THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT OF MIKE PEARSON 1965 SENT THE FIRST UN PEACEKEEPERS TO CYPRUS IT WAS CANADA'S FIRST AND LONGEST MISSION 

PEARSON WAS AWARDED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR THE INVENTION OF PEACEKEEPING


NICOSIA (Reuters) - Thousands of Cypriots from both sides of a dividing line splitting their island marched for peace on Saturday, ahead of informal talks in Geneva next week on the future of negotiations.

© Reuters/YIANNIS KOURTOGLOU Greek Cypriots march peacefully during a reunification rally along the medieval walls circling the divided capital Nicosia

With some holding olive branches, people walked in the bright spring sunshine around the medieval walls circling the capital, Nicosia.

The routes stopped at semi-circles on either side, at barbed wire thrown up decades ago when conflict split Cyprus's Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.

© Reuters/YIANNIS KOURTOGLOU Greek Cypriots march peacefully during a reunification rally along the medieval walls circling the divided capital Nicosia

"Cyprus belongs to its people," demonstrators chanted, holding placards in Greek and Turkish.

Activists also called for the opening of checkpoints between the two sides, which have effectively been sealed for little over a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic in a disruption to the lives of thousands used to more regular interaction between the two communities after restrictions were eased in 2003.

© Reuters/YIANNIS KOURTOGLOU Greek Cypriots march peacefully during a reunification rally along the medieval walls circling the divided capital Nicosia

"The world is going though extraordinary times and sometimes people have been using this excuse to justify the closure of crossings, and on such a small island with no land borders with anywhere else," said Kemal Baykalli, a member of the grassroots platform Unite Cyprus Now, one of many organisations that participated in Saturday's event.

"What could have been done is open the crossing points for the benefit and welfare of all Cypriots and jointly coordinate the situation, but they didn't do this," he told Reuters.

The United Nations has called for informal talks of parties in the Cyprus dispute in Geneva on April 27-29, in an attempt to look for a way forward in resuming peace talks that collapsed in mid-2017.

Prospects for progress appear slim, with each side sticking to their respective positions. Greek Cypriots say Cyprus should be reunited under a federal umbrella, citing relevant United Nations resolutions. The newly-elected Turkish Cypriot leader has called for a two-state resolution

.

© Reuters/YIANNIS KOURTOGLOU Greek Cypriots march peacefully during a reunification rally along the medieval walls circling the divided capital Nicosia

Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup, though the seeds of separation were sown earlier, when a power-sharing administration crumbled in violence in 1963, just three years after independence from Britain.

© Reuters/YIANNIS KOURTOGLOU Greek Cypriots march peacefully during a reunification rally in Nicosia

Discussions in Geneva will also be attended by representatives of Greece, Turkey and Britain, guarantor powers of Cyprus under a convoluted system that granted the island independence.

The Turkish Cypriot activists who demonstrated on Saturday were in favour of a federation.

"We need to fix it," said Baykalli. "We can have a common future and the only way to do this is through a federal arrangement. Its very clear that a two-state solution is not possible."

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Japan asks Myanmar junta to release arrested journalist

TOKYO — Japan's government said Monday it is asking Myanmar to release a Japanese journalist who was arrested by security forces in its largest city of Yangon the previous day.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters that his government is asking Myanmar authorities to explain the arrest and release him as soon as possible.

He did not identify the detainee, but Japanese media said he is Yuki Kitazumi, a former Nikkei business newspaper reporter currently based in Yangon as a freelance journalist.

Myanmar state television stations Myawaddy TV and MRTV on Monday night confirmed that the arrested journalist is Kitazumi, and said he had been arrested on a charge of violating Section 505(A) of the Penal Code. The section prohibits comments that “cause fear,” spread “false news, (or) agitates directly or indirectly a criminal offence against a Government employee."

Dozens of other journalists are being held on the same charge, which is punishable by up to three years in prison.

“We will continue asking the Myanmar side for his early release, while doing our utmost for the protection of Japanese citizens in that country,” Kato said.

Japan's Foreign Ministry later said the journalist was arrested at his home on Sunday night and is being detained at Yangon's Insein Prison, where political prisoners are frequently held. It said Japanese Embassy officials have not been given access to him.

Kitazumi has posted reports and views about developments in Myanmar on Facebook. Hours before his arrest, he posted a video showing Myanmar citizens gathering at a Tokyo temple to pay tribute to people killed in the Myanmar military junta's crackdown on protests against its Feb. 1 seizure of power from an elected government.

Kitazumi was detained briefly by police in late February while covering pro-democracy protests in Myanmar.

Japan has stepped up its criticism of the military government's deadly crackdown on opposition but has taken a milder approach than the United States and some other countries that imposed sanctions against members of the junta.

On Saturday, the junta released more than 23,000 prisoners to mark the traditional new year's holiday. At least three had been political prisoners, but it wasn't immediately clear if any activists detained during the post-coup crackdown were freed.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors casualties and arrests, government forces have killed at least 737 protesters and bystanders since the takeover. The group says 3,229 people, including ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, are in detention.

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

OVER CUPS OF TEA BOWLS OF NOODLES

ASEAN leaders demand Myanmar coup leaders end killings

A ROGUES GALLERY OF AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES

Aside from Myanmar, the regional bloc is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Southeast Asian leaders demanded an immediate end to killings and the release of political detainees in Myanmar in an emergency summit with its top general and coup leader Saturday in the Indonesian capital, Indonesia's president said.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also told Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing during the two-hour talks in Jakarta that a dialogue between contending parties in Myanmar should immediately start, with the help of ASEAN envoys, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said.


“The situation in Myanmar is unacceptable and should not continue. Violence must be stopped, democracy, stability and peace in Myanmar must be returned immediately,” Widodo said during the meeting. “The interests of the people of Myanmar must always be the priority.”

Daily shootings by police and soldiers since the Feb. 1 coup have killed more than 700 mostly peaceful protesters and bystanders, according to several independent tallies.

The messages conveyed to Min Aung Hlaing were unusually blunt and could be seen as a breach of the conservative 10-nation bloc’s bedrock principle forbidding member states from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs. But Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said that policy should not lead to inaction if a domestic situation “jeopardizes the peace, security, and stability of ASEAN and the wider region” and there is international clamour for resolute action.

“There is a tremendous expectation on the part of the international community on how ASEAN is addressing the Myanmar issue. The pressure is increasing,” Muhyiddin said, and added that the current ASEAN chairman, Brunei Prime Minister Hassanal Bolkiah, and the regional bloc’s secretary general should be allowed access to Myanmar to meet contending parties, encourage dialogue and come up with “an honest and unbiased observation.”

Such a political dialogue “can only take place with the prompt and unconditional release of political detainees," the Malaysian premier said.

A formal statement issued by ASEAN through Brunei after the summit outlined the demands made by the heads of state in more subtle terms. It asked for the “immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar” and urged all parties to “exercise utmost restraint,” but omitted the demand voiced by Widodo and other leaders for the immediate release of political detainees. It said ASEAN would provide humanitarian aid to Myanmar.

It was not immediately clear if and how Min Aung Hlaing responded to the blunt messages.

It was the first time he travelled out of Myanmar since the coup, which was followed by the arrests of Aung San Suu Kyi and many other political leaders.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi expressed hopes on the eve of the summit that “we can reach an agreement on the next steps that can help the people of Myanmar get out of this delicate situation.”

ASEAN’s diversity, including the divergent ties of many of its members to either China or the United States, along with a bedrock policy of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs and deciding by consensus, has hobbled the bloc’s ability to rapidly deal with crises.

Amid Western pressure, however, the regional group has struggled to take a more forceful position on issues but has kept to its non-confrontational approach.

Critics have said ASEAN’s decision to meet the coup leader was unacceptable and amounted to legitimizing the overthrow and the deadly crackdown that followed. ASEAN states agreed to meet Min Aung Hlaing but did not treat or address him as Myanmar’s head of state in the summit, a Southeast Asian diplomat told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to discuss the issue publicly.

The London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Indonesia and other ASEAN states ahead of the summit to investigate Min Aung Hlaing over “credible allegations of responsibility for crimes against humanity in Myanmar.” As a state party to a U.N. convention against torture, Indonesia has a legal obligation to prosecute or extradite a suspected perpetrator on its territory, it said.

Indonesian police dispersed dozens of protesters opposing the coup and the junta leader’s visit. More than 4,300 police fanned out across the Indonesian capital to secure the meetings, held under strict safeguards amid the pandemic.

The leaders of Thailand and the Philippines skipped the summit to deal with coronavirus outbreaks back home. Laos also cancelled at the last minute. The face-to-face summit is the first by ASEAN leaders in more than a year.

Aside from Myanmar, the regional bloc is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

___

Associated Press journalists Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Kiko Rosario and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Niniek Karmini, The Associated Press

COLD WAR 2.0 RED SCARE TOO

Over 500 U.S. Scientists Under Investigation for Being Compromised by China


More than 500 U.S. scientists are under investigation for being compromised by China and other foreign countries, according to a recent hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

© Go Nakamura/Getty A Chinese national flag waves at the Chinese consulate after the United States ordered China to close its doors on July 22, 2020 in Houston, Texas. According to the State Department, the U.S. government ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate "in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information." 

The hearing was focused on protecting the U.S.'s biomedical research from foreign entities such as China. While delivering opening remarks, Senator Patty Murray, chair of the committee, spoke about a recent report from the National Institutes of Health and conflicts of interests among 507 NIH grant recipients.

"It's important that researchers with foreign affiliations and potential conflicts of interest—for example, participation in foreign talent programs or commitments to file patents in, or move laboratories to, foreign nations—fully disclose those issues when applying for federal grants," Murray said.

"The latest report from the National Institutes of Health on undisclosed conflicts of interest found cause for concern with only 507 grant recipients—compared to over 30,000 total grantees in 2020," she added.

Murray also said that the NIH "has made progress in implementing policies and procedures to raise awareness of, prevent and address undue foreign influence among the biomedical research community." But she noted that "investigations from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General, the department's Office of National Security and the Government Accountability Office make clear there is more NIH can be doing here."

Michael Lauer, deputy director for extramural research at the NIH, told the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that as of April 2021 the agency has contacted over 90 institutions "regarding concerns involving over 200 scientists."

"The individuals violating laws and policies represent a small proportion of scientists working in and with U.S. institutions. We must ensure that our responses to this issue do not create a hostile environment for colleagues who are deeply dedicated to advancing human health through scientific inquiry," Lauer said. "We cannot afford to reject brilliant minds working honestly and collaboratively to provide hope and healing to millions around the world."

Senator Richard Burr, a ranking member of the committee, said during his opening statement that "the government of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party are the most sophisticated perpetrators, but other foreign actors are also engaged in efforts to subvert our biomedical research."

He added, "Our adversaries are engaging in a systematic effort to infiltrate the academic research community and siphon away the results of United States spending on biomedical research."

Burr went on to explain that there is an effort by Chinese individuals, "backed by their government," to work in the U.S. "with the full intent to bring back to China's government everything they can learn, store or steal."

During the hearing, Gary Cantrell, the Health and Human Services Department's deputy inspector general for investigations, presented an example of how individuals have applied for and received NIH grants but have used them for China's benefit.

According to Cantrell, an investigation that led to a criminal plea included a researcher who "admitted he lied on applications in order to use approximately $4.1 million in NIH grants to enhance China's expertise in the areas of rheumatology and immunology."

In recent years, U.S. scientific competition with China has increased, and in July 2020 President Donald Trump's administration announced the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston. The Trump administration accused diplomats at the consulate of operating as spies for the Chinese government in order to steal scientific research from the U.S.

Earlier this week, the Department of Justice announced that a mathematics professor and researcher at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale was charged with two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement after he "fraudulently obtained $151,099 in federal grant money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) by concealing support he was receiving from the Chinese government and a Chinese university."

According to the Department of Justice , the researcher was identified as 59-year-old Mingqing Xiao. In a statement, the DOJ's assistant attorney general for national security, John Demers, said, "Again, an American professor stands accused of enabling the Chinese government's efforts to corruptly benefit from U.S. research funding by lying about his obligations to, and support from, an arm of the Chinese government and a Chinese public university."

Newsweek reached out to the NIH for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

YOU WILL FIND LOTS OF CHINESE SCIENTISTS WORKING IN US UNIVERSITIES OR COLLABORATING WITH THEM AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE SCIENCE REPORTS I POST

UPDATED

Biden makes history by declaring killings of Armenians a 'genocide'

President Joe Biden formally recognized the Ottoman Empire's killing and deportation of Armenians over a century ago as a genocide, breaking from his predecessors and risking inflaming tensions with Turkey.

Biden is expected to become 1st US president to officially recognize Armenian genocide


Biden had pledged as a presidential candidate to recognize the Armenians' treatment, which took place in modern-day Turkey, as genocide. Armenian-Americans have long called on U.S. presidents to do so, but Turkey, a key NATO ally, has warned the U.S. against it, long maintaining that the violence was part of bloody clashes during World War I.

The Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said "we reject and denounce in the strongest terms" Biden's designation, adding it "will open a deep wound that undermines our mutual trust and friendship."

© Turkish Presidency via AP, FILE In this March 24, 2021, file photo, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he delivers a speech during his ruling party's congress inside a packed sports hall in Ankara, Turkey.

Ties between the two allies have been increasingly strained in recent years, although Biden finally spoke to Erdogan Friday -- their first call during Biden's tenure -- and conveyed "his interest in a constructive bilateral relationship with expanded areas of cooperation and effective management of disagreements."

Biden used the word "genocide" in a statement to mark "Armenian Remembrance Day" on Saturday -- 106 years after the events that the Armenian diaspora considers the start of the genocide. Previous presidents had avoided using the label even as they made the traditional, annual proclamation honoring the anniversary.

"Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring," Biden said in the statement. "The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today," he added.

The statement was expected, especially after then-candidate Biden marked last year's remembrance day by saying, "Silence is complicity."

© Universal Images Group via Getty Images An encampment of Armenian refugees on the deck of a French cruiser that rescued them, 1915.

"If we do not fully acknowledge, commemorate, and teach our children about genocide, the words 'never again' lose their meaning," he wrote, pledging to back a congressional resolution that recognized the Ottoman Empire's actions as genocide. Resolutions to recognize the genocide passed the House and Senate in 2019, but former President Donald Trump, like his predecessors, never joined them.

On Wednesday, over 100 bipartisan members of Congress sent a letter to Biden calling on him to use his proclamation to officially label what happened a "genocide."

The Ottoman Turks deported around 2 million Armenians starting in 1915. Around 1.5 million Armenians are estimated to have been killed.

The Turkish government agrees that fighting during the war killed many, but it has long denied that the treatment of the Christian Armenians by the Muslim Ottomans amounted to genocide and says that the death toll was lower.

Over two-dozen countries have recognized the atrocities as genocide, according to the Armenian National Institute, a Washington-based group that advocates for the genocide designation.

Biden's statement carries no legal implication, and even if the State Department were to follow up with a formal declaration, there are no automatic sanctions or other penalties that kick in. On its final day with former President Donald Trump in office, the Trump administration declared the Chinese government's treatment of Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities as genocide, without implementing sanctions.

© Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images, FILE People visit the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenian, on Oct. 30, 2019.

But the comments will rattle U.S.-Turkish relations, already on ice over a litany of disagreements, and could damage relations between Biden and Erdogan, who had a warm relationship with Trump. Trump often touted his "friendship" with the strongman president and repeatedly pulled punches against his government until his hand was forced by political pressure, including from congressional Republicans.

His administration sanctioned Turkish government officials and its defense procurement agency in December for the purchase of a Russian missile system -- years after those sanctions were obligated and only after Congress voted to push him a week prior. After seeming to give Erdogan a green light, he also sanctioned senior Turkish officials for their incursion into northern Syria against Kurdish forces that fought alongside U.S. troops against ISIS.

© Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty ImagesMORE: Biden's foreign policy moves raise bipartisan eyebrows: The Note

For its part, Turkey's government has long urged the U.S. to hand over Fetullah Gulen, a cleric who has lawful permanent residency in Pennsylvania and whom Erdogan has accused of fomenting a 2016 coup d'état against him. Turkey also views those Syrian Kurdish forces as an existential threat because of their ties to Turkish Kurds that Turkey and the U.S. have designated a terrorist group -- condemning U.S. support as a betrayal.

Little of that tension was expected to improve under Biden, who spoke to Erdogan Friday after what some analysts considered a cold shoulder. The two leaders agreed to meet on the sidelines of a NATO summit in June "to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues," the White House said, although it's unclear whether they discussed Biden's genocide comment in advance.

Armenians commemorate WWI-era massacres the US is set to designate as genocide

AFP 4/24/2021

Thousands of Armenians flocked Saturday to a memorial of the World War I-era mass killings of their kin by Ottoman Turks, the bloodletting which US President Joe Biden is reportedly set to recognise as genocide.

© Karen MINASYAN Armenians joined a torchlight procession to mark the 106th anniversary of the mass killings

© Karen MINASYAN Armenians call the massacres Meds Yeghern -- the Great Crime

Biden's landmark move risks further inflaming Washington's tensions with NATO ally Turkey.

Armenians have long sought to have the killings of up to 1.5 million of their kin during the Ottoman Empire's collapse internationally recognised as genocide.

The claim is supported by many other countries, but fiercely rejected by Turkey.

Yerevan has also demanded financial compensation from Ankara and the restoration of property rights for the descendants of those killed in the 1915-1918 massacres.

Turkey denies the killings' genocidal nature, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

Biden, who during his decades as a senator forged close relations with the Armenian-American and Greek-American communities, promised during his presidential campaign to recognize the Armenian genocide.

© Karen MINASYAN Armenians set fire to a Turkish flag in Yerevan

- 'Great Crime' -

So far, at least 29 countries -- including Russia and France -- have recognised the atrocities as genocide.

On the "anniversary of the Armenian genocide, my whole thoughts are with Armenia ravaged by history... We will never forget," French President Emmanuel Macron wrote to his Armenian counterpart Armen Sarkisian on Thursday.

© STAFF Map of the Ottoman Empire detailing the deportation and mass killings of Armenians in 1915-1917

On Saturday, the procession marking the massacres' 106th anniversary stretched from central Yerevan to a hilltop Tsitsernakaberd memorial where the head of Armenia's Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin, celebrated a requiem mass.

Armenians commemorate the massacres of their people on April 24 -- the day in 1915 when thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of harboring nationalist sentiment and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up.

Anger against Turkey simmered among Armenians as crowds of people carrying candles and flowers joined the annual procession to remember the victims of the massacres, which Armenians call Meds Yeghern -- the Great Crime.

Armenia is traumatised by last year's defeat in a war with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, in which Ankara backed its ally Baku.

- 'Old wound bleeds' -

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the war -- that erupted in September and ended six weeks later with a Russian brokered ceasefire -- "the Azeri-Turkish aggression which sought to annihilate the Armenian trace" in Karabakh.

"Turkey's expansionist foreign policy, and the territorial aspirations towards Armenia are the evidence of the revival of their genocidal ideology," he said in a statement.

"Armenophobia is in the essence of Pan-Turkism, and today we can see its most disgusting manifestations in Azerbaijan as fostered by the authorities of that country."

Arms supplies from Turkey helped the Azerbaijan army win a decisive victory in the war.

Under a truce agreement -- which was seen in Armenia as a national humiliation -- Yerevan ceded to Baku swathes of territory it had controlled for decades.

"The old wound opened up and bleeds," 72-year-old Sonik Petrosyan told AFP, speaking of the war that has claimed the lives of some 6,000 people.

"Armenians must stand united so that our country re-emerges strong from these hardships," the pensioner said as she laid flowers at the eternal flame at the centre of the monument commemorating the mass killings.

On Friday evening, about 10,000 people staged an annual torch-lit march in central Yerevan to mark the anniversary, with activists of the nationalist Dashnaktsutyun party -– who led the procession -- burning Turkish and Azerbaijani flags.

mkh-im/tgb

Armenia: What to know about the mass killings a century ago
By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN 

4/24/2021

The massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman forces during World War I -- and the question of whether it should be called a genocide -- remains highly contentious a century after the event.

© Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images People visit the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on October 30, 2019. - Armenians on October 30, 2019 rejoiced over the historic vote in the US House of Representatives that recognised as "genocide" mass killings of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire a century ago. (Photo by KAREN MINASYAN / AFP) (Photo by KAREN MINASYAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The issue is an emotional one, both for Armenians, many of whose forebears were killed, and for Turks, the heirs to the Ottomans. For both groups, the question touches as much on national identity as on historical facts.

Some Armenians feel their nationhood cannot be fully recognized unless the truth of what happened to their people, beginning in April 1915, is acknowledged. Some Turks still view the Armenians as having been a threat to the Ottoman Empire in a time of war, and say many people of various ethnicities -- including Turks -- were killed in the chaos of conflict.

© BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty Images People march with Armenian flags as they commemorate the 103rd anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces on April 24, 2018, in Marseille, France.

In addition, some Turkish leaders fear that acknowledgment of a genocide could lead to demands for huge reparations.

The declaration by US President Joe Biden on Saturday that it was a "genocide" risks a potential fracture with Turkey -- but will fulfill a campaign pledge of his and signal a commitment to human rights.

© DENIS SINYAKOV/AFP/Getty Images Armenians living in Moscow view photographs of Armenian victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks during a memorial on 23 April, 2005, at the building site of a new Armenian Cathedral in Moscow.

April 24, known as Red Sunday, is commemorated as Genocide Remembrance Day by Armenians around the world.


What was the backdrop to the mass killings?

The Ottoman Turks, having recently entered World War I on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were worried that Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire would offer wartime assistance to Russia. Russia had long coveted control of Constantinople (now Istanbul), which controlled access to the Black Sea -- and therefore access to Russia's only year-round seaports.

Many historians agree that about 2 million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire at the time the killings began. However, victims of the mass killings also included some of the 1.8 million Armenians living in the Caucasus under Russian rule, some of whom were massacred by Ottoman forces in 1918 as they marched through East Armenia and Azerbaijan.

© ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/AFP/Getty Images Armenian clergy and activists react after German lawmakers vote to recognise the Armenian genocide after a debate in the Bundestag in Berlin on June 2, 2016.

By 1914, Ottoman authorities were already portraying Armenians as a threat to the empire's security.


Then, on the night of April 23-24, 1915, the authorities in Constantinople, the empire's capital, rounded up about 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders. Many of them ended up deported or assassinated.


How many Armenians were killed?

This is a major point of contention. Estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million deaths between 1914 and 1923, with not all of the victims in the Ottoman Empire. But most estimates -- including one of 800,000 between 1915 and 1918, made by Ottoman authorities themselves -- fall between 600,000 and 1.5 million.

The government in Turkey puts the number of dead Armenians at 300,000.

Whether due to killings or forced deportation, the number of Armenians living in Turkey fell from 2 million in 1914 to under 400,000 by 1922.

While the death toll is in dispute, there are a number of photographs from the era documenting mass killings. Some show Ottoman soldiers posing with severed heads, others with them standing amid skulls in the dirt.

Victims are reported to have died in mass burnings and by drowning, torture, gas, poison, disease and starvation. Children were reported to have been loaded into boats, taken out to sea and thrown overboard. Rape, too, was frequently reported.

In addition, according to the website of the Armenian National Institute, "The great bulk of the Armenian population was forcibly removed from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the vast majority was sent into the desert to die of thirst and hunger."


Was genocide a crime at the time?

Although the mass killings of Armenians are said by some scholars and others to have been the first genocide of the 20th century, "genocide" was not even a word at the time, much less a legally defined crime.

The term was invented in 1944 by a Polish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin to describe the Nazis' systematic attempt to eradicate Jews from Europe. He formed the word by combining the Greek word for race with the Latin word for killing.

Genocide became a crime in 1948, when the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The definition included acts meant "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."


Who regards the mass killings as genocide?

Armenia, the Vatican, the European Parliament, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Argentina and the United States are among dozens of states and other bodies formally to have recognized what happened as genocide. Britain is among those that have not.

The government of Turkey often registers complaints when foreign governments describe the event using the word "genocide." They maintain that it was wartime and there were losses on both sides.

Ankara also insists there was no systematic attempt to destroy a people.


What is the US position?

Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump both avoided using the word genocide in order not to anger Ankara.

But Biden has apparently determined that relations with Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan -- which have deteriorated over the past several years anyway -- should not prevent the use of a term that would validate the plight of Armenians more than a century ago and signal a commitment to human rights today.

Biden told Erdoğan on Friday that he planned to recognize the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Readouts from the White House and Turkish presidency did not mention the issue. The call was Biden's first with his Turkish counterpart since taking office in January.

In 2019, both the US House of Representatives and the Senate passed a resolution formally recognizing the mass killings as genocide. Prior to the resolution's passage in the Senate, the Trump administration had asked Republican senators to block the move several times on the grounds that it could undercut negotiations with Turkey.

                                         

                                         

HIV drugs run short in Kenya as people say lives at risk

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyans living with HIV say their lives are in danger due to a shortage of anti-retroviral drugs donated by the United States amid a dispute between the U.S. aid agency and the Kenyan government.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The delayed release of the drugs shipped to Kenya late last year is due to the government slapping a $847,902 tax on the donation, and the U.S. aid agency having “trust” issues with the graft-tainted Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, activists and officials said.

Activists on Friday dismissed as “public relations” the government's statement on Thursday that it had resolved the issue and distributed the drugs to 31 of Kenya's 47, counties. The government said all counties within five days will have the drugs needed for 1.4 million people.

“We are assuring the nation that no patient is going to miss drugs. We have adequate stocks,” Kenya Medical Supplies Authority customer service manager Geoffrey Mwagwi said as he flagged off a consignment. He said those drugs would cover two months.

The U.S. is by far the largest donor for Kenya's HIV response.

Kenya’s health minister, Mutahi Kagwe, told the Senate’s health committee earlier this week that USAID had released the drug consignment that had been stuck in port. Patients are expected to receive them during the week.

He said USAID had proposed using a company called Chemonics International to procure and supply the drugs to Kenyans due to “trust issues” with the national medical supplies body.

Bernard Baridi, chief executive officer of Blast, a network of young people living with the disease, said the drugs would last for just a month.

He said the delay in distributing the drugs, in addition to supply constraints caused by the coronavirus pandemic, meant that many people living with HIV were getting a week's supply instead of three months.

Many of those who depend on the drugs travel long distances to obtain them and may find it difficult to find transport every week, and if they fail to take them they will develop resistance, Baridi said.

"Adherence to medication is going to be low because of access. ... If we don’t get the medication, we are going to lose people,” he said.

According to Baridi, children living with HIV are suffering the most due to the shortage of a drug known Kaletra, which comes in a syrup form that can be taken more easily. Parents are forced to look for the drug in tablet form, crush it and mix it with water, and it's still bitter for children to ingest.

Baridi urged Kenya's government and USAID to find a solution on who should distribute the drugs quickly, for the sake of the children.

On Thursday, about 200 people living with HIV in Kisumu, Kenya's third largest city, held a peaceful protest wearing T-shirts reading “My ARV’s My Life” and carrying posters that read “A sick nation is a dead nation" and “A killer government."

Some 136,000 people live with HIV in Kisumu, or about 13% of the city's population, said local rights activist Boniface Ogutu Akach.

“We cannot keep quiet and watch this population languish just because they can’t get a medicine that is lying somewhere, and that is happening because the government wants to tax a donation,” he said.

Erick Okioma, who has HIV, said the government’s attention has been diverted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected even community perception.

“People fear even getting COVID than HIV,” Okioma said, asserting that local HIV testing and treatment centres were empty.

Tom Odula, The Associated Press

Biden wants to hit wealthy Americans with new tax hikes to fund childcare and education. Here's what it could mean for you. 

NOTHING UNLESS YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE 1% (WHO ARE NOW CLAIMING TO BE THE MIDDLE CLASS!!!)

The vast majority of US households - 98%, by Penn Wharton's calculations - isn't likely to experience a tax hike.

jzeballos@businessinsider.com (Joseph Zeballos-Roig) 

Biden wants to levy new taxes on wealthy Americans to fund sweeping childcare and education programs.

The vast majority of US households - 98%, by Penn Wharton's calculations - isn't likely to experience a tax hike.

The top marginal income tax could be raised, along with the capital gains tax.

President Joe Biden is preparing to unveil a new set of tax hikes on the richest Americans to fund a collection of new education and childcare programs.

The New York Times and Bloomberg reported on Thursday these tax increases will be central to financing Biden's latest infrastructure plan, in line with the "Build Back Better" agenda he outlined during the campaign.

The so-called American Families Plan may come in at around $1.5 trillion in new spending aimed at curbing poverty, expanding tax credits for families, and establishing a new universal pre-K initiative. That's on top of the $2.3 trillion proposal called the American Jobs Plan that focuses on roads, broadband, in-home elder care, and domestic manufacturing. The White House has so far ruled out any tax hike on people earning below $400,000 annually.

Among the tax hikes the White House is eyeing: Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, and doubling the capital gains tax for Americans earning above $1 million to 39.6% from 20%. This latter change would tax investment gains at the same rate as wages. Combined with a 3.8% surtax that's already levied on wealthy investors to fund the Affordable Care Act, it could lift the overall tax rate on capital gains as high as 43.4%.

Biden's campaign promise to shield households earning below $400,000 annually from tax increases only opens the top 2% of US households to new taxes as part of his agenda, per an estimate last year from the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The vast majority of Americans are not likely to experience one.

Indeed, the higher capital gains tax rate would hit only the wealthiest investors. IRS data from 2018 indicated only 0.32% of US taxpayers reported adjusted gross incomes higher than $1 million and capital gains or losses on their tax returns.

Administration officials are defending the tax hikes ahead of the plan's introduction next week. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted the taxes on investors would affect only a sliver of Americans, or less than 1%.

Still, it's possible centrist Democrats may balk at ramping up taxes on investors. Greg Valliere, chief policy strategist at AGF investments, projected the capital gains tax would rise to a lower level after congressional negotiations.

"It's entirely possible that the top capital gains rate for millionaires will rise from 23.8% now to something like 30%," he wrote in a blog post. "Most of the administration's proposals will get watered down later this year."

UBS Global Wealth Management's Solita Marcelli wrote in a note published Friday that lawmakers will ultimately settle on a capital gains tax rate of 28%.

While also noting many families will not be subject to the higher capital gains tax being proposed, she wrote options will remain for people making $1 million or more from capital gains. "If you are able to defer your capital gains taxes to years where your taxable income is below the proposed USD 1 million threshold, it may be possible to continue paying the current long-term capital gains tax rate of 23.8%," she said.

Separately, she found no likely impact on the stock market from the news: "History shows no relationship between capital gains tax rate changes and stock market performance."

More money has flowed into the stock market over the past 5 months than in the past 12 years, according to Bank of America

More money has flowed into the stock market over the past 5 months than in the past 12 years, according to Bank of America

mfox@businessinsider.com (Matthew Fox) 4/23/2021

© AP Photo/Richard Drew Traders at a post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 4, 2020. AP Photo/Richard Drew WALL ST CRASH AND BURN

Money is quickly pouring into the stock market as the S&P 500 trades near record highs.

Bank of America said $602 billion had flowed into global stocks in the past five months, compared with $452 billion in 12 years.

A rotation out of bonds and into stocks could continue to favor stocks, the bank said.

Investors have mostly shunned the stock market over the past decade even as stocks cruised to record highs, but that trend seems to finally be reversing.

More cash has flowed into stocks in the past five months than in the past 12 years, Bank of America said in a note on Friday. It said $602 billion had flowed into global stocks in five months, compared with $452 billion over 12 years.

The trend reversal could lead to further upside, Bank of America said. In the past week alone, $14.6 billion flowed into stocks, according to the note.

While investors have shunned stocks over the past decade, companies have not. The fund flows that helped drive the market higher as investors stuck with bonds were from corporations via stock buybacks, which have totaled $6.3 trillion since 2008, the note said.

But now chief investment officers rather than CEOs could drive fund flows into stocks and drive the market higher amid a rotation into stocks and out of bonds, Bank of America said.

The lack of fund flows into stocks over the past decade has served as evidence to Fundstrat's Tom Lee that stocks are not in a bubble. In January, Lee said he didn't see how the data "marks even the proximity of a top for equities."

Read the original article on Business Insider'

Biden wants to hit wealthy Americans with new tax hikes to fund childcare and education. Here's what it could mean for you. 

RACIST IDIOT COVID DENIER
Tory MP sorry after calling lockdowns greatest civil liberties breach since WWII internment camps
Rachel Gilmore 

Conservative MP David Sweet has apologized after issuing a tweet on Friday claiming there is “no evidence” that COVID-19 lockdowns work, stating they are the “the single greatest breach" of civil liberties "since the Internment Camps during WW2.”

© Office of David Sweet, MP Flamborough-Glanbrook Conservative MP David Sweet is seen in this photo.

He did not, however, walk back his comments about lockdowns -- which a doctor said were a vast departure from the facts.

"My tweet yesterday regarding the freedom of Ontarian's was to give a timeline only. In no way was I comparing today with the atrocities of war," Sweet wrote on Twitter.

"For anyone offended I unequivocally apologize."

Read more: Hidden Hate: Exposing the roots of anti-Asian racism in Canada

In his initial tweet, issued Friday night, Sweet used the example of internment camps to highlight his firm opposition to lockdowns.

"We are experiencing the single greatest breach of our Civil Liberties since the Internment Camps during WW2," he wrote.

He doubled down in a second tweet, also issued Friday.

“To be clear I am referring to Canadian internment camps of innocent immigrants during WW2,” he wrote. “Unjustly, because of their ethnic association had their civil liberties suspended even though they were landed immigrants or Canadians.”

About 24,000 people, including 12,000 Japanese Canadians, were forced into internment camps during the Second World War. Men in the camps were often separated from their families and forced to do physical labour, according to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Many lost all their property and thousands were later exiled to Japan.

One expert said the comparison was “disgusting.”

“To compare lockdowns to [Second World War] internment camps is wrong for so many reasons,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, assistant dean at McMaster University’s department of biochemistry and biomedical sciences.

“[Second World War] internment camps disproportionately affected a minority racialized community in Canada. And this pandemic, we know, is disproportionately affecting minority racialized communities, equity-seeking groups. And these lockdowns, frankly, protect those groups.”

Miller said Sweet’s comparison show such a “naiveté” and a “lack of understanding of the situation on the ground.”

As legions of Twitter users questioned his choice of comparison with hundreds of replies, Sweet issued a third tweet claiming he wasn't comparing the two issues.

“For those who just can’t hold back outrage "since" is Not the same or interchangeable with “as” or “like”! So cancel your disingenuous leap of comparison!” he fired out.

Less than half an hour before apologizing for his remarks, he tweeted in direct response to this Global News report.

"I guess I messed up my quiet reserved persona with you!" he wrote on Twitter.
Lockdowns are effective, experts say

During his tweetstorm, Sweet also called into question the efficacy of the lockdowns, despite resounding evidence that they’ve been an effective method of combatting the virus.

“ABSOLUTELY NO evidence that lockdowns work but dozens and dozens of papers proving they don’t,” claimed Sweet in his tweet.

“I’m am saddened and appalled at my political colleagues' silence!”

Global News reached out to Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole's office but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Sweet's claims are totally contrary to all the evidence to date, which has clearly shown the efficacy of stricter lockdown measures at pushing down otherwise swelling case counts, according to Miller. Canada's disease trajectory was following a steady growth pattern, according to federal officials -- but that changed when hard-hit jurisdictions like Ontario brought down new measures.

"In recent days, following the implementation of restrictions in heavily impacted areas of Canada, the national RT has finally dipped below one," said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam.

"This means that for the first time in many weeks, the epidemic has dropped out of a growth pattern."

The current reality on the ground makes Sweet's tweet all the more "naïve and ignorant," according to Miller.

"ICUs are overwhelmed. We're having to shuttle patients all around the province to ensure that they're able to get the care they need. You know, it's just such an absolute disconnect from reality," Miller said.

The evidence is clear, he added: lockdowns are effective.

"There's absolutely no doubt that they do work," said Miller.

"Look, the reality is that no one wants to have to institute a lockdown. There's no one in the medical field, and there's certainly no one in government, who wants to do this."

He said that because of the impact on finances and mental health, lockdowns are a "last resort."

"Unfortunately, we're in an unprecedented public health crisis and nothing but the most stringent lockdown has worked. And frankly, we were too slow to institute a lockdown that could have easily prevented the severe third wave we're in now," Miller said.

"So all objective evidence points to the fact that these lockdowns have worked to curb these numbers."

Miller said he hopes that elected officials will do better in their use of social media.

"I certainly expect better from our elected officials," he said.

"Unfortunately, things like Twitter provide a platform for misinformed and uneducated people to have an audience and say whatever they want."

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Canada's First Internment Camps