A Bit More Detail

• Window on Eurasia notes the post-Soviet collapse of the numbers of learners of the Russian language, here.


• Window on Eurasia reports the claim of a Russian politician that in 1991, securing the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine was a bigger priority than trying for borders changes, here.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Belarus cannot protect itself from Russia, here.


• Window on Eurasia explains why the Soviet Union let the Armenians and Georgians keep their alphabets, here.


• Window on Eurasia explains how Russia's naval and marine power is not doing well, here.

• This Shane Mitchell op-ed at Spacing warns about how plans for a new hospital in Windsor can threaten to promote sprawl.


• Debates over bike traffic laws are ongoing in Calgary. Global News reports.


• Guardian Cities looks at how the downtown of the French city of Mulhouse has been successfully regenerated.


• Guardian Cities looks at how the infamous housing estate of Scampia outside of Naples, famously derelict and a nexus for crime, is finally being torn down.


• Atlas Obscura notes an Armenian church in Dhaka, last remnant of a once-vast Armenian trading diaspora that extended out to Bengal.

• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility of carbon dioxide being a biosignature in the atmospheres of exoplanets.


• D-Brief notes the discoveries of Hayabusa2 at asteroid Ryugu, including the possibility it was part of a larger body.


• Gizmodo links to a new analysis suggesting the behaviour of 'Oumuamua was not so unprecedented after all, that it was a simple exocomet.


• JSTOR Daily looks at Agnes Chase, an early 20th century biologist who did remarkable things, both with science and with getting women into her field.


• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to a new article of his analyzing the new aircraft carriers of Japan, noting not just their power but the effective lack of limits on Japanese military strength.


• Marginal Revolution notes the substantial demographic shifts occurring in Kazakhstan since independence, with Kazakh majorities appearing throughout the country.


• Neuroskeptic considers if independent discussion sections for online papers would make sense.


• The NYR Daily shares a photo essay by Louis Witter reporting on Moroccan boys seeking to migrate to Europe through Ceuta.


• Roads and Kingdoms has an interview with photographer Brett Gundlock about his images of Latin American migrants in Mexico seeking the US.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explores the mass extinction and extended ice age following the development of photosynthesis and appearance of atmospheric oxygen on Earth two billion years ago.


• Window on Eurasia notes that, in Karabakh, Jehovah's Witnesses now constitute the biggest religious minority.

• This r/unresolvedmysteries thread asks the question of where the Armenian language, a unique Indo-European language, came from.


• This Ragnar Jónasson article in The Guardian asks the question of how long the Icelandic language, with relatively few speakers and facing a tidal wave of influence from English, can outlast this competition.


• The Irish Times notes that the Irish language was heard in the British House of Commons for the first time in a century, spoken by a Plaid Cymru MP asking why this language has so little institutional support in Northern Ireland.


• Over at the BBC, Susanna Zaraysky takes a look at the Ladino language--a Spanish variant--traditionally used by the Sephardic Jews of Bosnia, and how this language is declining here as elsewhere among the Sephardim.


• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the Scots language, a distinctive Germanic language that was never quite broken away from English, and how this language persists despite everything.

• Centauri Dreams notes the remarkably complex system of Proxima Centauri, with multiple belts and more possible planets, as does D-Brief.


• D-Brief notes the discovery of a new sort of fusion reactions, involving not atoms but quarks.


• Hornet Stories notes a new acoustic cover of the Kinky Boots song "Not My Father's Son."


• Language Hat takes a brief look at Cyrillic, since the Soviet era written in Cyrillic script.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the Trump Administration is unconcerned by the latest report regarding catastrophic climate change.


• The LRB Blog notes how Armenia and Armenians remember past genocides and current refugee flows.


• The Planetary Society Blog notes the further extension of the Dawn mission at Ceres.


• Drew Rowsome shares some of Stephen King's tips for aspiring writers.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how some long-exposure Hubble photographs of galaxies picked up nearby asteroids.


• John Scalzi shares his cover of "Rocket Man".


• Window on Eurasia wonders if ISIS is spreading into Russia via migrant workers from Central Asia.

• The Big Picture shares shocking photos of the Portuguese forest fires.


• blogTO notes that, happily, Seaton Village's Fiesta Farms is apparently not at risk of being turned into a condo development site.


• Centauri Dreams notes a new starship discussion group in Delft. Shades of the British Interplanetary Society and the Daedalus?


• D-Brief considers a new theory explaining why different birds' eggs have different shapes.


• The Frailest Thing's Michael Sacasas commits himself to a new regimen of blogging about technology and its imports. (There is a Patreon.)


• Language Hat notes the current Turkish government's interest in purging Turkish of Western loanwords.


• Language Log's Victor Mair sums up the evidence for the diffusion of Indo-European languages, and their speakers, into India.


• The LRB Blog notes the Theresa May government's inability post-Grenfell to communicate with any sense of emotion.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen wonders if the alt-right more prominent in the Anglophone world because it is more prone to the appeal of the new.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw wonders if Brexit will result in a stronger European Union and a weaker United Kingdom.


• Seriously Science reports a study suggesting that shiny new headphones are not better than less flashy brands.


• Torontoist reports on the anti-Muslim hate groups set to march in Toronto Pride.


• Understanding Society considers the subject of critical realism in sociological analyses.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Russia's call to promote Cyrillic across the former Soviet Union has gone badly in Armenia, with its own script.

• Bloomberg notes the closure of Poland's frontier with Kaliningrad, looks at how Google is beating out Facebook in helping India get connected to the Internet, notes British arms makers' efforts to diversify beyond Europe and examines the United Kingdom's difficult negotiations to get out of the European Union, looks at the problems of investing in Argentina, looks at the complications of Germany's clean energy policy, observes that the Israeli government gave the schools of ultra-Orthodox Jews the right not to teach math and English, examines the consequences of terrorism on French politics, and examines at length the plight of South Asian migrant workers in the Gulf dependent on their employers.


• Bloomberg View notes Donald Trump's bromance with Putin's Russia, examines Melania Trump's potential immigrant problems, and is critical of Thailand's new anti-democratic constitution.


• CBC looks at how some video stores in Canada are hanging on.


• The Inter Press Service notes that the Olympic Games marks the end of a decade of megaprojects in Brazil.


• MacLean's approves of the eighth and final book in the Harry Potter series.


• The National Post reports on a Ukrainian proposal to transform Chernobyl into a solar farm, and examines an abandoned plan to use nuclear weapons to unleash Alberta's oil sands.


• Open Democracy looks at the relationship between wealth and femicide in India, fears a possible coup in Ukraine, looks at the new relationship between China and Africa, examines the outsized importance of Corbyn to Britain's Labour Party, and looks how Armenia's defeat of Azerbaijan has given its veterans outsized power.


• Universe Today notes proposals for colonizing Mercury, looks at strong support in Hawaii for a new telescope, and examines the progenitor star of SN 1987A.


• Wired emphasizes the importance of nuclear weapons and deterrence for Donald Trump, and looks at how many cities around the world have transformed their rivers.

view.com/articles/2016-04-21/malaysia-s-immigration-mess">examines immigration controversies in Malaysia.

• CBC notes that Manulife is now providing life insurance for HIV-positive people.


• Gizmodo reports from the Pyongyang subway.


• The Guardian notes the sequencing of Ozzy Osbourne's DNA.


• The National Post reports that Québec NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau might well be considering a run for the NDP leadership.


• Newsweek reports on the decision of the Wall Street Journal to run an ad denying the Armenian genocide.


• Finally, there has been much written after the death of Prince. Some highlights: The Atlantic looks at how he was a gay icon, Vox shares 14 of his most important songs, the Toronto Star notes his connection to Toronto, Dangerous Minds shares videos of early performances, The Daily Beast explains Prince's stringent control of his content on the Internet, and In Media Res mourns the man and some of his songs.

• Bloomberg notes that Azerbaijan's oil wealth lets it outspend Armenia on military good, looks at a hydropower project in Congo intended to eventually protect mountain gorillas, and notes that spending on solar and wind energy is outpacing fossil fuel spending.


• CBC notes the alarming possibility that smart devices could be bricked by their manufacturers.


• The Dragon's Tales linked to a Eurekalert press release examining how population levels in the pre-Columbian Southwest were intimately tied to climate.


• Fortune reports about the many failures of the F-35 project.


• The National Post notes that a gay atheist Malaysian student in Winnipeg has received asylum and looks at the discontent of Jewish groups with an inclusion committee at York University.


• Vox suggests
  

Conspiracy theories are no stranger to resourceful leaders. They can consolidate political power, cultivate the image of an external enemy and reduce their responsibility for the nation's ills. And in the ex-Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, conspiracy theories help keep incumbent president Ilham Aliyev in power.

According to these conspiracies, Azerbaijan has two main enemies: the Armenian lobby and the jealous west. As the former is often said to finance the latter, these two enemies become one: an omnipresent and all-powerful ‘Armenian lobby’. This powerful structure has become a commonly used weapon in the hands of the authoritarian leadership of Azerbaijan to crack down on dissent. By referring to all of its critics both at home and abroad as Armenian, pro-Armenian, and representing Armenian interests, the authorities have created a quick conspiracy formula for muzzling independent voices by labelling them as traitors.

In Azerbaijan, Armenia wasn’t always used as a political tool—at least, not as much as today. Between 1988 and 1994, the two countries fought a bitter war over the mountainous area of Nagorno Karabakh. The ceasefire that ended the conflict in 1994 failed to maintain a buffer zone.

Casualties on the front line continue to this day, and the failure to reach an agreement between the two states to this day leaves the territory administered as an unrecognised state under Armenian protection. Thousands of civilians have been displaced. Warlike rhetoric has significantly increased over the years and, these days, it is the rubber stamped government policy in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.