Monday, October 02, 2023

Does outer space end – or go on forever?

Jack Singal, Associate Professor of Physics, University of Richmond
Sun, October 1, 2023

THE CONVERSATION

It can stretch your mind to ponder what's really out there.

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

What is beyond outer space? – Siah, age 11, Fremont, California

Right above you is the sky – or as scientists would call it, the atmosphere. It extends about 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the Earth. Floating around the atmosphere is a mixture of molecules – tiny bits of air so small you take in billions of them every time you breathe.

Above the atmosphere is space. It’s called that because it has far fewer molecules, with lots of empty space between them.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel to outer space – and then keep going? What would you find? Scientists like me are able to explain a lot of what you’d see. But there are some things we don’t know yet, like whether space just goes on forever.

Planets, stars and galaxies

At the beginning of your trip through space, you might recognize some of the sights. The Earth is part of a group of planets that all orbit the Sun – with some orbiting asteroids and comets mixed in, too.

A familiar neighborhood. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

You might know that the Sun is actually just an average star, and looks bigger and brighter than the other stars only because it is closer. To get to the next nearest star, you would have to travel through trillions of miles of space. If you could ride on the fastest space probe NASA has ever made, it would still take you thousands of years to get there.

If stars are like houses, then galaxies are like cities full of houses. Scientists estimate there are 100 billion stars in Earth’s galaxy. If you could zoom out, way beyond Earth’s galaxy, those 100 billion stars would blend together – the way lights of city buildings do when viewed from an airplane.

Recently astronomers have learned that many or even most stars have their own orbiting planets. Some are even like Earth, so it’s possible they might be home to other beings also wondering what’s out there.

A galaxy among many other galaxies. Michael Miller/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images

You would have to travel through millions of trillions more miles of space just to reach another galaxy. Most of that space is almost completely empty, with only some stray molecules and tiny mysterious invisible particles scientists call “dark matter.”

Using big telescopes, astronomers see millions of galaxies out there – and they just keep going, in every direction.

If you could watch for long enough, over millions of years, it would look like new space is gradually being added between all the galaxies. You can visualize this by imagining tiny dots on a deflated balloon and then thinking about blowing it up. The dots would keep moving farther apart, just like the galaxies are.

Is there an end?

If you could keep going out, as far as you wanted, would you just keep passing by galaxies forever? Are there an infinite number of galaxies in every direction? Or does the whole thing eventually end? And if it does end, what does it end with?

These are questions scientists don’t have definite answers to yet. Many think it’s likely you would just keep passing galaxies in every direction, forever. In that case, the universe would be infinite, with no end.

Some scientists think it’s possible the universe might eventually wrap back around on itself – so if you could just keep going out, you would someday come back around to where you started, from the other direction.

One way to think about this is to picture a globe, and imagine that you are a creature that can move only on the surface. If you start walking any direction, east for example, and just keep going, eventually you would come back to where you began. If this were the case for the universe, it would mean it is not infinitely big – although it would still be bigger than you can imagine.

In either case, you could never get to the end of the universe or space. Scientists now consider it unlikely the universe has an end – a region where the galaxies stop or where there would be a barrier of some kind marking the end of space.

But nobody knows for sure. How to answer this question will need to be figured out by a future scientist.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

This article has been updated to correct the distances to the nearest star and galaxy.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Like this article? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Jack Singal, University of Richmond.

Jack Singal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

4 myths about green energy being pushed by GOP candidates

Fact-checking some of what got said last week by Trump and other candidates

YAHOO FINANCE

Oct 1st 2023 at 10:00AM

Wind generators and solar panels in Sluiskil, Netherlands. Green energy will be a multi-trillion-dollar industry in the coming years. First-movers will lock in vast amounts of wealth, innovation, employment, and other benefits, as they always do. (Getty Images)

Rick Newman / Yahoo Finance senior columnist

When Yahoo Finance interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence on Sept. 26, he referred to President Biden’s energy policies as the “Green New Deal.”

Biden actually opposed the Green New Deal (GND), which was a fanciful plan hatched by liberal Democrats in 2019 to overhaul the energy and transportation sectors and remake much of the US economy. There was never a chance it would become law, but progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hoped the GND would serve as a vision document for future efforts to combat global warming.

Pence and other Republicans apply the label to Biden because they hope it will tar him with connotations of socialist extremism. Biden has, in fact, signed aggressive green-energy programs into law, but they largely rely on tax breaks meant to trigger private investment, not the mandates and government takeovers contained in the Green New Deal.

Republicans, nonetheless, seem to think Biden’s green-energy agenda is a juicy target as they look for ways to weaken his reelection campaign. Republican front-runner Donald Trump calls the move to green energy a “transition to hell,” while other Republicans blame Biden’s green-energy push for inflation, the autoworkers' strike and assorted other woes.

As ever, embellishments and lies mingle with reality. Here are four myths Republicans are spinning about green energy:

Myth 1: Biden’s policies will force consumers to go green

Trump, for instance, said in Michigan on Sept. 27, that Biden “wants electric vehicle mandates that will spell the death of the American auto industry.” But there are no Biden mandates requiring consumers to do anything. Biden does have a goal, which is to make EVs 50% of all new-car purchases by 2030. But he’s trying to accomplish that through incentives such as tax breaks that make EVs cheaper to buy and federal funding to help build a nationwide charging network. If the market doesn’t hit that 50% EV target by 2030, nothing will happen.

It's possible automakers will retire gas-powered models in favor of electrics and leave some buyers wanting a gas-powered car that no longer exists. But this can only happen if consumers embrace EVs enough to move the market fully away from gasoline. They may not, forcing automakers to keep a blend of EVs and gassers in their fleets. It’s also true that broad consumer trends often leave out buyers who prefer particular features no longer popular. Some drivers love manual transmissions, for instance, but automakers barely make them anymore because the take rate is so low.

[Drop Rick Newman a note, follow him on Twitter, or sign up for his newsletter.]

There are green-energy mandates in some states, where governments are forcing utilities to move away from fossil fuels toward renewables for electricity generation, which can lead to higher prices for retail consumers. Biden has proposed a rule requiring sharp cuts in carbon emissions at power plants nationwide by 2035. The Supreme Court struck down a similar rule the Obama administration tried to impose, and the Biden rule is sure to face litigation if or when a final version goes into effect. Energy consumers who want to stay brown will be able to do so for a long time.

Myth 2: The U.S. auto industry will be driven out of business

It’s not happening any time soon — especially if you include all the non-unionized workers at Tesla and the many foreign automakers that have factories in the United States. Trump told the workers in Michigan that “they want to go all electric and put you all out of business." He gave it two years. Yet U.S. auto-industry employment has been rising — even as virtually every carmaker has begun shifting to electrics. Since the post-COVID recovery began in mid 2020, the number of automotive jobs has risen to nearly 1.1 million, about 60,000 more than the peak under Trump.

The huge green-energy package Biden signed into law last year includes powerful incentives to build more factories in the United States, not fewer. And there is, in fact, an unprecedented boom in U.S. factory production, which will be followed by even more factory hiring as those plants come online. A new U.S. “battery belt” is forming as factories pop up to supply the new components EVs will need. There could even be new mining operations as companies tap needed minerals, such as lithium from a huge deposit in Nevada.

There’s no guarantee new green-energy jobs will be unionized, and that’s something the striking autoworkers hope to address with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. But the Biden green-energy laws also contain added incentives for domestic projects that pay union-level wages. Trump gave his Michigan speech at a non-union automotive plant, and Republicans in general don’t support unions. So if it sounds like they’re bashing green energy to show solidarity with the union cause, don’t buy it.

Myth 3: Biden’s policies benefit China

If Biden did require Americans to buy EVs and other types of green-energy products, with no incentives to boost domestic production, then it probably would benefit China, which has a more robust renewable energy supply chain and lower costs than the United States does. But re-shoring green-energy production is one of the main goals of the Biden policy, and the claim about China winning is only plausible if you accept the first two bogus arguments.

Myth 4: We can just go back to oil and gas

Most of the Republican presidential candidates say they’ll trash Biden’s green-energy agenda and reemphasize oil and gas development if they become president. That would be foolish for two reasons, even if you put aside the need to address global warming.

First, the whole developed world is moving away from carbon and developing new green-energy technologies. This is a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity and everybody is not going to participate equally. First-movers will lock in vast amounts of wealth, innovation, employment, and other benefits, as they always do. The race is still on. Biden’s green-energy plan is a counterbalance to government incentives in China, Europe, and elsewhere aimed at keeping the spoils there.

Second, private-sector firms are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy development in the United States, in part because of the lucrative incentives Biden has signed into law. Would a Republican president really cancel all those incentives and tell green-energy firms to fire their workers and mothball their plants because we’re going back to fossil fuels? That’s basically what Republicans are promising to do. We’ll have oil and gasoline for a long time, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the last ones clinging to it.

Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.

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How Family that Runs Azerbaijan

Built an Empire of Hidden Wealth

Documents peel away three layers of secret ownership in a conglomerate and lead to gold mines and overseas real estate.
By Will Fitzgibbon, Miranda Patrucić and Marcos Garcia Rey
Image: Matthias Hangst / Getty Images for BEGOC

April 4, 2016
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva during the Closing Ceremony for the Baku 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan
On October 31, 2003, Ilham Aliyev, the newly elected president of Azerbaijan, stood behind a podium and a profusion of white flowers to address presidents, prime ministers and 2,000 other guests assembled at the Respublika Palace. First touching the constitution and then the Koran, Aliyev swore to serve his people. That night, fireworks lit up the sky of the Azeri capital, Baku.
Aliyev’s election to lead this energy-rich former Soviet republic bordering both Russia and Iran had been all but guaranteed. His ailing father, Heydar, an ex-KGB officer, had served in the same role for the previous 10 years. Election monitors reported that police had beaten and detained political opponents, in line with the country’s reputation for repression.
Becoming president wasn’t Aliyev’s only ascension during 2003. Using a network of secretive companies in offshore tax havens, his family, advisers and allies set about acquiring expensive overseas homes and positions in the country’s valuable industries and natural resources, including the family’s majority control of a major gold mine that has been unknown until now.
The new details of the Aliyev offshore empire emerge from secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama- headquartered law firm that helps to set up hard-to-trace corporate structures for clients. The more than 11 million documents reviewed by ICIJ and its partners – emails, bank accounts and client records – represent the inner workings of Mossack Fonseca for nearly 40 years, from 1977 to December 2015.

Family alliances

The records show that, in mid-2003, months before the October presidential election, Fazil Mammadov, Azerbaijan’s tax minister, began to create AtaHolding, which has since become one of the country’s biggest conglomerates. Mammadov, influential in his own right, subsequently invited President Aliyev’s family to join him, cementing a potentially potent and advantageous business and political partnership.
AtaHolding is a corporation that has significant interests in Azerbaijan’s banking, telecommunications, construction, mining, oil and gas sectors. Its most recent corporate filing in 2014 shows it held over $490 million in assets.
The leaked files show that the tax minister created a company in Panama through Mossack Fonseca named FM Management Holding Group S.A. Stand-in directors — straw men supplied by Mossack Fonseca — concealed the fact that Mammadov was involved.
Mammadov then created a second offshore entity – this time a foundation – called UF Universe Foundation. Panama foundations are subject to strict confidentiality laws. Anyone who discloses information about them can be fined or imprisoned.
Mehriban Aliyeva, First Lady of Azerbaijan Image: Photo\\: Vugaramrullayev (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The files show that two years later, in 2005, Aliyev’s wife, the fashion-conscious, collagen-infused first lady and member of Parliament, Mehriban Aliyeva, became one of two managers of the UF Universe Foundation, alongside the tax minister, Mammadov.
In attachments to a “High Importance” email sent to Mossack Fonseca in February 2005 by a lawyer representing the Azeris, documents proposed that then six-year-old Heydar Aliyev, the president’s son who is known in the files as “A1,” be made the beneficiary of 20 percent of the foundation’s proceeds. The plan also proposed that the president’s two daughters, Leyla, then 19 and Arzu, then 17, would hold 15 percent each. Mammadov’s son held 30 percent while Ashraf Kamilov, a former tax ministry official, and other former tax officials held smaller stakes. So, too, did AtaHolding’s chairman, Ahmet Erentok.
So the secrecy had three layers: 1) The UF Universe Foundation, which controlled 2) FM Management, the Panama company set up by Mammadov, which owned shares in 3) a United Kingdom-based company named Financial Management Holding Limited. According to a flowchart shared with Mossack Fonseca in 2005, the UK company held 51 percent of shares in AtaHolding Azerbaijan.
While there is no doubt that these secret companies existed and paid hundreds of dollars to Mossack Fonseca in administrative fees, it is unclear whether or not the proposed structure to benefit President Aliyev’s teenage daughters and six-year-old son and other prominent Azeris was ever adopted.
UF Universe Foundation was closed in January 2007. Then, in February 2014, months after President Aliyev was sworn in for his third term, a London-based lawyer sought to reactivate the Foundation and FM Management Holding Group. Mossack Fonseca was happy to oblige and issued a $9,000 invoice in exchange for reactivating the company.
Most recently, majority ownership — 51 percent — of AtaHoldings was held by Hughson Management Inc., according to AtaHolding’s online annual report. A 2010 letter signed by Mossack Fonseca listed Aliyev’s daughters, Arzu and Leyla, and Swiss lawyer Olivier Mestelan as directors.
ICIJ sought comments from all individuals named in this article and received no responses. In response to previous reports about the family’s holdings, the President’s spokesman said the daughters “are grown up and have the right to do business.”

Friendship with U.S.

Despite global criticism of Azerbaijan’s mounting authoritarianism, the Aliyev regime has been a friend of successive U.S. administrations. The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the Aliyevs’ Azerbaijan, including millions for military and security training. Azerbaijan’s government is one of the largest buyers of influence in Washington D.C. and, together with its lobbyists, spent at least $4 million in 2014 alone burnishing the country’s image. The country has taken members of Congress on all-expenses-paid visits to Azerbaijan, lavishing the lawmakers with silk scarves, crystal tea sets and rugs.
U Image: S. President Barack Obama greets Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev during a bilateral meeting in 2010. Photo\\: AP Photo / Susan Walsh

Azerbaijan’s importance in energy, as a supply route to American troops in Afghanistan and its potential role in the fight against ISIS makes the United States a reluctant critic, said former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard D. Kauzlarich, now an adjunct professor at George Mason University.
“Being where it is – bordered by Russia and Iran in a very unstable geopolitical environment – is a factor that makes it among the more unique countries in the region,” said Kauzlarich, who was U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan from 1994-1997.
Its levels of corruption and elite control of the economy make it stand out in a part of the world where these things aren’t unusual, he added.
“The franchising out of economic activity to families and clans that are important for maintaining the current regime in power is not an unusual pattern,” said Kauzlarich. “However, it certainly has been perfected in Azerbaijan.”

Bigger offshore network revealed

The fact that Aliyev’s family can be linked to offshore companies is not new. A 2013 investigation by ICIJ showed that Aliyev, his wife and his daughters owned or were otherwise connected to offshore companies. Now Mossack Fonseca’s files greatly expand on what is known and disclose new companies belonging to the President’s two daughters, Leyla and Arzu.
The documents show Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva controlled two previously hidden British Virgin Islands-incorporated firms — Kingsview Developments Limited and Exaltation Limited. It is unclear from the files the purpose of the first company, but the second was incorporated in January 2015 to own a British property worth more than $1 million.
President Aliyev’s eldest sister, Sevil, is also shown in the files as the owner of another British Virgin Islands company, Setanon Properties Inc. Again, it is unclear from the files what the company was used for. In the Mossack Fonseca documents Sevil Aliyeva, a composer, listed her address in West London in a neighborhood where average home prices touch nearly $9 million.

Sitting on a gold mine

Mossack Fonseca’s records reveal that the first family secured secret control of a gold mine, dwarfing a smaller stake they’d been known to hold.
In 2006, Azerbaijan’s government granted mining leases in the country’s west to a consortium of companies that established the Azerbaijan International Mineral Resources Operating Company Ltd. Under the agreement, the consortium would keep 70 percent of the mine’s profit, and the Azeri government received the remaining 30 percent, according to a 30-year production agreement.
At the time, opposition politicians criticized the deal’s lack of transparency.
In 2012, Azeri journalists working with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a non-profit investigative journalism group focused on Eastern Europe and Central Asia, reported that one of the four consortium members, Globex International LLP, was owned, in turn, by three Panamanian companies controlled by President Aliyev’s daughters and Mestelan, a Swiss businessman and family friend.
Investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after being convicted in a politically motivated trial in Azerbaijan in September 2015 Image: Photo\\: AP

One of the OCCRP reporters was Azeri investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, also a member of ICIJ. In 2015, Azeri authorities imprisoned Ismayilova in what is widely believed to have been retaliation for her exposé of government corruption. Authorities charged Ismayilova with counts of embezzlement, illegal business, tax evasion, and abuse of power and inciting a man to commit suicide. Her sentence: 7½ years.
“Sorting out AIMROC's structure is a daunting task,” Ismayilova wrote in 2012, connecting the consortium’s operating company with an opaque “Panamanian trail” that linked the Aliyev family with the mining consortium.
Mossack Fonseca’s files reveal the leading member of the consortium, Londex Resources S.A., which was incorporated in Panama in 2005 and held 45 percent of the consortium’s stake. The files show that, in April 2008, the same three Panamanian companies owned by President Aliyev’s daughters and Mestelan, who shared control of Globex International, became Londex’s shareholders. Globex International held 11 percent of the consortium’s share of the goldmine.
The trio’s control of Londex Resources meant that President Aliyev’s family and inner circle controlled a majority stake – 56 percent – in the consortium.
There are nearly 400 documents about Londex in the Mossack Fonseca files, including invoices, corporate registry records, instructions to open a bank account, and emails marked “URGENT REQUEST!!!” Londex was a valuable client for Mossack Fonseca. The law firm invoiced Londex for thousands of dollars between 2005 and 2014.
In January 2016, mine workers protested before Azerbaijan’s parliament, alleging that Londex had not paid wages since 2014, when the mine was abruptly closed.
One of the protestors, Cumshud Alasgerli, a 46-year-old married father of three who worked as a geologist on the mine, was interviewed by OCCRP.
“More than 200 workers can’t get their salary,” Alasgerli said. He said he hadn’t received wages owed to him for nearly two years. “And the government doesn’t do anything for us.”
Alasgerli said he has taken his employment case against Londex to court. But he is not optimistic. The company and the government alike have so far failed to help.
“They just don’t want to help us,” Alasgerli said. “They pretend like they don’t know anything.”

AZERBAIJAN

Lawsuit Says NH Guv’s Family May Profit Off Humanitarian Crisis

BLOOD MONEY

A Sununu-linked mining company prepares to exploit resources in a disputed region as ethnic Armenians flee, according to legal docs and other public records.

William Bredderman
Senior Researcher

DAILY BEAST
Published Oct. 02, 2023

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

As thousands of ethnic Armenians swarm toward the border amid Azerbaijan’s attacks on the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a lawsuit filed in D.C. federal court lays out how a leading U.S. political dynasty—one that includes a sitting governor—stands to profit from the humanitarian disaster.

Azerbaijan assaulted the breakaway region earlier this month, after long obstructing the main aid corridor from Armenia, in violation of a Russia-brokered 2020 ceasefire. The Daily Beast provided an exclusive eyewitness account this past week of the unfolding exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh families attempting to escape violence.

The attack marked the latest stage of a long-running Caucasus conflict that dates to the early 20th century and which erupted amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the province declared independence and gained autonomy from Azerbaijan with the help of Armenia. Nonetheless, the international community regards the area as part of Azerbaijan, despite its ethnic Armenian majority.

A lawsuit filed in July describes how, in the intervening years, the Sununu family—led by patriarch John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor and ex-White House chief-of-staff—held stakes and positions in a U.K.-based firm that secured mining rights within the province from Baku, rights only an Azerbaijani reconquest could guarantee. Public records, news reports, and corporate filings support many of the suit’s factual assertions.

What’s more, according to federal filings that NBC News unearthed while investigating the dynasty’s interests in the Amazon, a family investment vehicle has historically held some of the shares in the U.K. company—a vehicle from which sitting New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu still derives income. The Granite State chief executive was the only member of the Sununu family to comment for this story.

“The governor has absolutely no involvement in the operations of Anglo Asian Mining or the operations of Sununu Holdings,” the present governor’s press team wrote to The Daily Beast in answer to questions about both the gold and copper extractor and the clan’s eponymous holding entity.

But the Republican, beloved to some for his criticism of ex-President Donald Trump, did not answer repeated queries about what financial benefits he might derive from Anglo Asian’s activities. His office also would not pledge that the governor would forfeit any potential returns from the company’s prospective business in Nagorno-Karabakh, so as not to profit from Azerbaijan’s alleged ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, his 84-year-old father controls almost 10 percent of the metal miner, according to the most recently available corporate reports, making him the second largest shareholder in the operation.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
Jemal Countess

The largest is president and CEO Mohammad Reza Vaziri, the defendant in the suit, which a Nagorno-Karabakh resident brought with assistance of an Armenia-aligned U.S. foundation. Neither Vaziri nor his attorneys replied to repeated requests for comment, and Anglo Asian declined to remark other than to point The Daily Beast to the company’s filings with the London Stock Exchange. Although Vaziri is the focus of the litigation, the complaint refers by name not just to John and Chris but to Michael Sununu, brother to the sitting governor and a local New Hampshire politician.

The suit dates the Sununu paterfamilias’ involvement in Vaziri’s Azerbaijani adventures to 1997, when the company first struck a deal with the authoritarian state to gain access to its metal reserves. News reports from that year listed the GOP statesman among Baku’s suitors for extractive opportunities, but the earliest document that The Daily Beast could find of a direct holding in Anglo Asian dates to 2005, when he joined its board of directors. The lawsuit further asserts that Sununu has a stake in at least one of Vaziri’s private companies, which The Daily Beast could not independently confirm.

From the start, the lawsuit notes, Anglo Asian sought and received mining concessions within Nagorno-Karabakh—concessions it could not access due to the territory’s autonomous status. Its interest intensified in January 2016 with the completion of an Armenian-owned copper and molybdenum processing plant in the province’s town of Demirli. An image from the site soon adorned the cover of Azerbaijani government report on Yerevan’s economic presence in “the occupied territories.”

The lawsuit highlights several subsequent events: on March 31 of that year, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev met with John Sununu while he was visiting Washington, D.C., and the next day, Azeri forces attacked Nagorno-Karabakh, an advance the lawsuit suggests aimed at Demirli. After four days of fighting, Aliyev’s forces withdrew.

But Azerbaijan grabbed back some of the territory four and half years later, prompting Anglo Asian to applaud in a statement to stockholders what it described as the “liberation” of one of its mining concession zones. After a month and a half of fighting, Moscow intervened to end the bloodshed, resuming its traditional role as security guarantor in its old imperial dominions.

Weeks later, the lawsuit highlights, Anglo Asian appointed Michael Sununu—founder of Sununu Holdings, the entity from which Chris Sununu draws income—to its board. This means that of the company’s five directors, two today are members of the Sununu family.

Almost exactly one year after the 2020 conflict began, Anglo Asian obtained initial Azerbaijani approvals to exploit two sites within the still-autonomous portions of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the Demirli installation.

“The recent cessation of hostilities with Armenia has presented an opportunity for Anglo Asian to develop its remaining contract areas,” Vaziri told Mining Weekly at the time. “Following extensive negotiations, we are very pleased to have secured two additional highly strategic mining properties.”

In December 2022, Azerbaijan demanded access to one of the mines as a condition for restoring Nagorno-Karabakh’s food, medicine, and fuel route from Armenia. The move came precisely one week after Anglo Asian penned missives to the U.S., U.K, United Nations, and the European Union complaining of “illegal mining” at its concession locations in the disputed region.

Despite these efforts, as of June of this year, Anglo Asian reported it was unable to access these locations, and the blockade of the corridor has persisted despite international condemnation and allegations of genocide.

However, on Sept. 26, Anglo Asian had good news for its shareholders.

“There have been reports in the press that the Azerbaijan Government has taken back control of the Demirli/Kyzlbulag mine, which is located in our contract areas,” an executive wrote in a London Stock Exchange report. “I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all Anglo Asian employees, partners and the Government of Azerbaijan for their continued support in what continue to be challenging times.”

The lawsuit against the firm has yet to make headway, and Vaziri’s attorneys have so far not filed a response to the complaint. Michael Sununu declined to comment for this story. His father did not respond to repeated calls and emails.

Sununu Family Continues to Support Azerbaijan through Mining in Karabakh Region

JUNE 4, 2021
by Aram Arkun

CONCORD, N.H. – As the Mirror-Spectator reported last November, the Anglo Asian Mining company, in which Republican politician John Henry Sununu, father of current New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, is the second largest shareholder, plans to resume mining gold in Zangelan province and possibly two other areas that were previously under Armenian control.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with former Governor John H. Sununu pictured at a meeting in Washington, DC in March 2016 (Photo: trend.az)

John Sununu, a former governor of New Hampshire and former chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush, owns a 9.38 percent stake in the company. After the end of the 2020 Artsakh War, the Sununu family increased its direct involvement in the company, when in December of last year, Anglo Asian Mining welcomed Michael Sununu to its board as a non-executive director. Michael is the son of former governor John Sununu and is a founder and manager of Sununu Enterprises and Sununu Holdings.

Anglo Asian Mining’s predecessor company, controlled by the same CEO, Reza Vaziri, signed an agreement with the Azerbaijani government for rights in 1997 to six mines, including three which were then under Armenian control. As a result of the recent Artsakh war, two of these areas are under full Azerbaijani control. A third area, Sotk/Soyudlu, is on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijani controlled Kelbajar.

In the company’s quarterly report of April 13, 2021, CEO Vaziri states: “A recent visit to the Vejnaly [Kovsakan] contract area in Zangilan has identified some high grade ore stockpiles and the feasibility of transporting this ore to Gedabek for processing is being evaluated.” A May 20, 2021 Anglo Asian Mining report further elaborates: “However, due to safety and security concerns, access to Vejnaly and the other restored areas by company personnel remains somewhat restricted. The determination of their final status continues to be reviewed by the government of Azerbaijan.”

Anglo Asian Mining also has an eye on the Kashen deposit with molybdenum and copper in northern Martakert (Kyzlbulag), part of the territory of the Artsakh Republic, which at present is under the control of Russian peacekeepers. As the company website states, “our access to Kyzlbulag will depend on the final resolution of the status of Nagorno Karabakh.”

Non-executive chairman Khosrov Zamani in the May 20 report concludes, “The restoration of the three contract areas in the formerly occupied territories and Karabakh opens up further opportunities for the Company. The contract areas cover a total of 900 square kilometers and contain existing mines and have exceptional exploration potential. Our production sharing agreement is in good standing and will be reset to ‘year zero’ for each of these contract areas once access has been granted. The political situation is still developing and the Company is closely monitoring events. The Government of Azerbaijan has also commenced building infrastructure in the areas such as roads, railways and airports.” The same report also notes, “Development will commence when the Company receives notice in accordance with its PSA [Production Sharing Agreement] that the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe (‘OSCE’) (or comparable international organisation) has acknowledged a liberation of the previously occupied territories and the Company is satisfied the districts are secure.”

Significantly, the government of Azerbaijan takes a hefty cut of Anglo Asian Mining’s profits due to the existing PSA, while the economic ties of the Sununu family with Azerbaijan naturally lead to political consequences. John Sununu serves as a member of the Honorary Council of Advisors of the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce and in 2017 received an award of appreciation from this organization for his “contribution to US-Azerbaijani diplomatic relations.”

Anglo-Asian’s own website attempts to present Azerbaijan in a good light. For example, it glosses over the many problems of Azerbaijan’s undemocratic and authoritarian government with statements like “Azerbaijan is a multiparty democracy and presidential republic with a separation of the executive and legislative bodies. It is among the region’s most stable countries.”

The Azerbaijani connection with the Sununu’s is apparently not one way. BGR Government Affairs, which lobbied for the Republic of Azerbaijan, donated $1000 to Chris Sununu’s campaign for governor in 2017 and hosted a fundraising reception.

A campaign by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) calling on Governor Chris Sununu to divest his family’s shares in this company, calling this investment “blood money,” has not received any response so far, according to the ANCA’s Washington D.C. office. Attempts this May by the Mirror-Spectator to contact Michael and Chris Sununu also received no response and it does not appear that in general Governor Sununu has made any public comments on the Artsakh war.

Mining Company With Ties To Sununu Family Poised To Profit After Peace Deal

New Hampshire Public Radio | By Josh Rogers
Published November 10, 2020

Via Steelguru.Com

A mining company with ties to the family of Gov. Chris Sununu is poised to gain financially after a brokered settlement of an armed conflict between the nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The company, Anglo Asian Mining, is partially owned by former Gov. John H. Sununu, father of the current governor.

Anglo Asian has been mining gold, silver and copper in Azerbaijan since 2009.

The peace deal announced this week ends the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict and clears the way for Anglo Asian to exercise rights to mine in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region under dispute which ethnic Armenians claimed as their own but was internationally recognized as a part of the nation of Azerbaijan.

Armenian groups were angered when Anglo Asian mining recently referenced the “liberation” of the disputed region where it enjoys mining rights.

In a statement published by the website Mining.com, Anglo Asian said it “complies with all international laws and with laws in the countries in which it operates.”

The company has also said it plans to mine in the disputed area only when the government of Azerbaijan confirms all hostilities have ended there.

The settlement has boosted the stock price of Anglo-Asian. Former Gov. Sununu, a director of the company, owns a 9 percent stake in it. That holding is now worth more than $16 million.