Armenia and the information war

[Icy]

Re: Armenia and the information war

That's the thing only a small amount of
the channels use them.
I flip through the Aztv the show a map of Azergayjan
with karabkakh in red.

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

That's the thing only a small amount of
the channels use them.
I flip through the Aztv the show a map of Azergayjan
with karabkakh in red.

i guess all the channels should use that map but im thinking the other ones probably dont have Artsakh part of Armenia because they have it as its own country. Maybe thats why they have it in red and in azerbaijan.

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

azeris are always talking about Armenia's situation, maybe they should look at theres.

Nothing says, “You suck at life,” quite like landing at the top of the Failed States Index, compiled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace (which sounds like something George Costanza would have come up with), except for possibly joining a Ron Paul dating website.


I was very interested in these rankings because A)I am immensely interested in international affairs B) The most failed states are a former part of the Great USSR or in the Middle East, my two particular areas of focus and C) I am a proud former denizen of one of the countries that is rising on the failed states index, Russia. I sure know how to party.

You can find an interactive map of the index here. I wanted to find out more about how they compiled it, so I perused the methodology section, which states:

The 12 indicators are: Demographic Pressures, Refugees/IDPs, Group Grievance, Human Flight, Uneven Development, Economic Decline, Delegitimization of the State, Public Services, Human Rights, Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites, and External Intervention. Click here for more information.

A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community. The 12 indicators cover a wide range of elements of the risk of state failure, such as extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay. States can fail at varying rates through explosion, implosion, erosion, or invasion over different time periods.

What this tells me is that there is a crystal ball involved somewhere.

But, what I thought was really cool was that they take into account reading hundreds of thousands of articles over a 10-month period to really gauge the tempo of a particular country. However, given how biased the press can be, I hope they take press clippings with a mountain of salt. Here are some of the results they’ve come up with :

Iraq and Afghanistan are in the top 10 (naturally).
Bangladesh and North Korea are in the top 20, which is rounded out by small and violent East Timor.
Israel (listed with the designation “Israel/West Bank”) is pretty high up on the list, at number 58. Obviously this is surprising for me, because, even though I often write about how Israel is one big bowl of crazy, I can’t imagine the Middle East’s only democracy and one that seems to be surviving the global recession as a failed state.
Regarding Eurasia, the news doesn’t look so good, either. While none of the Eurasian states are in the top twenty, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran show up in the top 40. Other than their ranks, there is little mention of any of the Eurasian states in Foreign Policy’s analysis of the situation. In fact, Uzbekistan’s rank has improved, from rank 28, to 31 over the past year. So has Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

The hotspots, predictability, continue to be Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The only two countries with a borderline stable rating were tiny Armenia and Kazakhstan, which is surprising, given the crisis in Kazakhstan’s banking sector.

I could play around with this index forever, but anyway, go look for yourself. There’s interesting data and implications there, paritcularly if you analyze year-over-year growth rates in the index.

http://www.neweurasia.net/cross-regional-and-blogosphere/failed-states-index-2009-you-suck-at-life/comment-page-1/

This is the map of all the countries. Armenia is the only stable country in the region.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/2009_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry investigates fact that Nagorno Karabakh is shown as separate state on Microsoft-MSN website

[ 05 Aug 2009 16:31 ]


Baku. Viktoria Dementieva – APA. Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told the country’s embassy in the US to clarify the fact that Nagorno Karabakh is shown as a separate state on the website of Microsoft-MSN, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s press service told APA.
In the section “Weather” of the website Nagorno Karabakh is shown in the list of states. It is noted in brackets that this territory is disputable. Microsoft-MSN has not commented on the fact yet.
(http://weather.msn.com/region.aspx?wealocations=Asia).

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=105884

AZERBAIJAN: BAKU ANGRY AT MICROSOFT FOR "RECOGNITION" OF BREAKAWAY NAGORNO-KARABAKH
8/05/09

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Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has demanded an explanation from Microsoft Corp. for allegedly indicating the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory as an independent state on its portal MSN.com, the APA news services reported on August 5.

The site’s search listings for the weather in Nagorno-Karabakh do not include "Azerbaijan" as the country of location; rather, the territory exists on its own. MSN.com, however, places the word "disputed" in parentheses after Nagorno-Karabakh’s name, and also used the Azerbaijani name for Karabakh’s capital. (Khankendi; Karabakh’s government uses the Armenian Stepanakert -- ed).

Baku has tasked its embassy in the United States to seek an explanation from Seattle-based Microsoft, the APA report said.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/news/articles/080509c.shtml

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

How accurate do you guys think this poll is?

Ukraine has the most unpopular government ever

bne
August 7, 2009


Ukraine has the most unpopular government ever recorded, says pollster Gallup.

Some 85% of Ukrainians asked said they disapproved of their government and only one in 25 thought the government was doing okay. Ukrainians were equally disparaging of their leaders: 84% said they disapprove of President Viktor Yushchenko and 69% thought that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was doing a bad job. The 4% approval rating of the government is the worst result that Gallup has ever found in any country in the world.

Julie Ray and Neli Esipova of Gallup wrote in report on the results: "Ukrainians' high disapproval likely reflects frustration with the bitter political infighting between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The conflict between the former allies has essentially paralyzed policymaking for the past year and a half.

The irony of the results is that Ukraine is arguably the only true democracy in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and its low marks contrast starkly with the more authoritarian regimes, which are much more popular. Azerbaijan tops the CIS ranking, where the government enjoys a 77% approval rating, followed by Kazakhstan (71%), Armenia (62%) and Russia (56%). The most liberal countries in the region have all scored badly: crisis-plagued Lithuania did worst out of the three Baltic states, scoring a 13% approval rating, while Latvia did best. Even so, only one in four Latvians think the government is doing well.

http://businessneweurope.eu/storyf1721/Ukraine_has_the_most_unpopular_government_ever

Do you think they just asked azeri government officials and there family members to get a 77% approval rating? Because Ive been reading about all the protests happening lately about the arrests and deaths taking place. For example i read that azeri police beat up an old man to death and then said he died of a heart attack (http://ow.ly/jbUS) and a few weeks before that a taxi driver was beaten to death and his death was also said to have been caused by a heart attack. Also lets not forget about the arrests of the youth activists.

[Federate]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Google partially corrects errors related to Azerbaijan (PHOTO)
07 August 2009 [10:41] - Today.Az
Google has partially corrected errors related to Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

On a previous Azerbaijani map posted to Google Web site, three Azerbaijani towns were indicated with Armenian names. Khankandi was indicated as Stepanakert, Agdara as Mardakert and Khojavand as Martuni.

The errors were partially removed after Day.Az intervened. So, Google renamed Mardakert into Agdara and Martuni into Khojavand.

Unfortunately, Stepanakert has not been removed from the map yet. The word Khankandi is shown under the Armenian name. We are hopeful that the option Stepanakert will be fully removed from Azerbaijan’s map.

/Day.Az/



URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/54459.html

[Federate]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Azerbaijani media in knockdown

Within last 5-6 years thesis on Armenia’s isolation laid the foundation for Azeri propaganda. Isolated Armenia, that further will have to bow to Azerbaijan, that became nearly crossroad of all civilizations – here is the main plotline of leading Azeri mass media. And therefore recent speech of Ilham Aliyev in this regard sounded discordant after his Moscow meeting with Serzh Sargsyan. If Armenia fully realizes the progress in Azeri economy and the military, then it will be easier to agree on Karabakh issue – he stated. While an even-handed analysis indicates that Azerbaijan can sense a not gaudy lot of the “isolated state”. All the more, it seems to be already doing so…

It was Turkey that unexpectedly and toughly stroke Azerbaijani information strategy a blow first. The plot of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement and possibility of Armenian border gate opening was a wet blanket for excited with their own thoughtful fantasies representatives of Azeri media.

News on agreed ‘roadmap’ and possible launch of Armenia-Turkey direct railway, Abdullah Gul’s visit to Yerevan, negotiations in Switzerland and invitation of Serzh Sargsyan to Turkey – all this upset the balance in anti-Armenian propaganda logic. No one could match or explain these facts. Moreover, other plotlines like Azerbaijani in tandem with Turkey against Armenia, Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku railway bypassing Armenia were misbalanced too. Azeri journalists even started to mention less the artificiality of Armenian Genocide, though before the Yerevan-Ankara dialogue were far beyond their Turkish colleagues in diligence. Thus, this dialogue knocked down state funded anti-Armenian media machine of Azerbaijan.

This is just a part of the process. Armenian-Turkish dialogue supported by world powers generated discord in minds of Azeri politicians. We witnessed the hysterics of high-ranking Azeri officials, darts in foreign policy and Karabakh peace process talks. Eventually, Azerbaijan raised substantial choppy sea at regional, then at international level. Refusal of Ilham Aliyev to meet with Barack Obama in Turkey, feigned convergence with Moscow and hoping to give it a gate sticking to Nabucco at the cost of Turkmenistan, daring challenge to Iran security, issued to win US favour, impudent paternalism toward Georgia visible in gas prices – here is the Azeri foreign policy’s true face.

The results of that policy are on our hands: like nervousness, Turkey feels to Azeri’s caprices, actually hindering the development of dialogue with Europe and U.S., danger sensed in Tehran, recalling the Ambassador from Baku after Shimon Peres’ visit, as well as the lawsuit filed by Turkmenistan realizing its factual robbery. Azerbaijan considering Georgia a corridor to Turkey, abuses it like its own territory.

Taking advantage of Moscow-Tbilisi bad terms, Azerbaijan could do nothing but palming off Georgia the energy careers at prices higher than to Russia. In addition, preserving complete liberty of actions in Kvemo Kartli, delivery of Azerbaijani literature there and smuggling backing etc. Saakashvili’s last visit to Armenia proved Georgian authorities reluctance to keep on standing this further and pursue more prudent policy with Yerevan.

As for Moscow, it discovered Azerbaijani mean ‘wiles’ long ago. GUAM member-country tends to win Moscow’s favor in Karabakh conflict settlement only for 500 mln c.m. of gas a year. It is no longer a bait to be swallowed by Kremlin.

Hence, Azerbaijan losing confidence in Turkey and Georgia kept down by Ashgabat lawsuits from Caspian Sea, while living in hindsight Iran, slowly but persistently moves towards its isolation. As regards the border with Armenia, that Azerbaijan year after year makes a full front line, purveying more armament, it will eventually become the main and completely inaccessible isolation line of Azerbaijan.

http://news.am/en/news/1682.html

[Federate]

Re: Armenia and the information war

The New York Times archive – misinformation and propaganda source for Azerbaijan, truth source for Armenia

Global crisis shook one of the main Azerbaijani economy sectors — oil industry, however “misinformation industry” still exists and moreover it flourishes.

Firstly, Azerbaijan convinced its readers that Armenian writer and public figure Zori Balayan in his “Resurrection” monograph supposedly tells about Armenian violence towards Azerbaijani prisoners (this book never existed), then they got at the roots of the publishing house named Vanadzor (surprisingly it does not exist either). Secondly, Azerbaijani authorities flared up tension spreading rumors that “Hayastan” Hungarian Armenians organization demands to execute the officer Ramil Safarov in Yerevan (there is no such organization in Hungary). The fact that Armenia appeared in world map in May, 1918 is not even worth commenting. Eventually, Azerbaijan started studying New York Times archive.

On March 29, 2009 Day.az published a real masterpiece of Azerbaijani information or better to say misinformation war. New York Times publication of August 4, 1920 available in Azerbaijani website was aimed at proving that Karabakh and Zangezur (South region of Armenia, bordering with Karabakh) were parts of Azerbaijan in 1918-1920. “There appeared another historical proof of the belonging of these regions to the Azerbaijan People's Republic in 1918-1920 and recognition of the said fact by the world community,” Day.az reports, referring to Near East Relief US humanitarian organization press release published in US bulletin.

Well, what did Near East Relief actually report? It reads: “Armenian populated Karabakh and Zangezur regions were not under Armenia’s control, as they were separated from the Armenian republic due to the lack of roads and any means of communication.” That’s it. I wonder which sentence of this text indicates “historical proof” of these regions’ belonging to Azerbaijan that Day.az is speaking about. To tell the truth, the word ‘Azerbaijan’ is not mentioned in the press release at all.

It stands to reason that in 1918-20 communication system was not really developed, mountainous regions were difficult to be ruled by Armenian Government, and temporary commissars with certain autonomy from Yerevan were authorized to govern the region. The Head of Zangezur Garegin Ter Harutyunyan (Garegin Nzhdeh) retained power till July 1921, while Soviet regime was already established in Yerevan. Chronologically Zangezur became the last spot in South Caucasus map that Soviet regime was established in. Bolsheviks did not forgive Nzhdeh’s steadfastness and he was arrested in 1943 in Bulgaria and sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.

Nevertheless, let’s go back to The New York Times archive.

The articles from July 18, 1856 are scanned and available on U.S. Congress Library and other websites. Searching system can find all the articles of New York Times on the necessary subject for mentioned period. It can be affirmed that typing the word “Karabakh” Azerbaijani side found the mentioned article. It is difficult to search anything on the site another way.

Spending several days in the library, one can definitely state that there is no article in the archive that mentions Karabakh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan to be the parts of Azerbaijan in any historical period. Once Baku finds this document, they will immediately use it as a means of propaganda.

What did The New York Times write about Karabakh region in 1918-1921?

July 26, 1920 article titled “Bolsheviki marching to join the Turks” reads: “Considerable Russian Bolshevist forces, chiefly cavalry, are overrunning the Karabagh district of Armenia, known as the ‘Black Garden,’ apparently with the purpose of joining the Turkish Nationalists.”

March 17, 1918 article about 19th century Russian-Persian and Russian-Turkish wars reads: “…Armenian regions Kars, Erivan and Karabakh are joined to Russia.”

July 19, 1919 U.S. Air Force Major Joseph Greene reports from Tiflis: “Turks and Tatars are advancing towards Karabakh and Alagez. The considerable part of Russian Armenia is occupied. Armenian Government called for military mobilization.”

July 16, 1921 during the revolt against Bolsheviks in Armenia, New York Times writes: “Radiogram from Armenian Cabinet Chairman Simon Vratsian reports: Bolsheviks are defeated and all the country from Karabakh to Alagez, that is the territory not under Turkish occupation, is controlled by Armenian Government.”

We can go on with examples.

Obviously, the above mentioned publications could not be skipped by Azerbaijani expert working in the archive. However laying aside many articles of US newspaper with information about Karabakh, Azerbaijani side chose and promoted the press release with the “proof of the belonging of these regions to the Azerbaijan” (Azerbaijan is not even mentioned). It is nothing but deliberate fallacy of Azerbaijani society.

While searching the articles on Azerbaijan one can make an interesting discovery. No article of US newspaper before 1918 contains the geographical name “Azerbaijan”, as an area that we today refer to as Republic of Azerbaijan. Till 1918 Azerbaijan was implied as North part of Persia, not Apsheron, let alone Karabakh. The word ‘Azerbaijanian’ is not used at all. The newspaper writes about Caucasian Tatars or more generally — Muslims.

But, certainly Day.az hidden this fact.

References:

1. http://www.azeriunited.com/content/b.../lang,english/

2 “Hayastan organization demands Ramil Safarov to be executed in Yerevan”, “Ekho” 17.02.2005

3. “Bolsheviks marching to join the Turks”, “New York Times”, July 26, 1920.

4. “New situation in Turkey”, 17.03.1918, “New York Times”

5. “Turkish army moves to destroy the Armenians”, 31.07.1919, “New York Times”

6. “Greeks said to plan new drive on Turks”, by Edwin James, “New York Times”. 16.03.1921

Haykaram Nahapetyan

http://news.am/en/news/1508.html

[Federate]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Azerbaijan using Israel’s name against Armenia


Azerbaijan is deliberately trying to involve Israel and the xxxish public in the senseless information confrontation with Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora, which has nothing to do with the interests of the xxxs. Specifically, an article entitled “Azerbaijani, Turkish and xxxish Diasporan organizations turn to Barack Oabma” is available on the Azeri 1news.az website. The article contains an anti-Armenian message signed by a number of organizations.

By “xxxish Diasporsan organizations” the authors most likely mean the Cultural Center of Caucasian xxxs (CCCJ). In any case, no other organizations with a xxxish component are listed.

A representative of Armenia’s civil sector, who is in close touch with South Caucasian NGOs, told NEWS am that the CCCJ is headquartered in Baku. It has about ten members residing in the Azerbaijani capital. They are either xxxs or persons of mixed race (Azeri-xxxish mixed marriages).

“A letter to Obama is information bluff. No xxxish organizations have signed it. xxxs have questions to put to Obama, especially the community’s influential organizations. Azerbaijan created this structure to make use of the name of Israel and issue statements on behalf of the xxxs to achieve its own aims,” the source said.

A number of Turkish and Azerbaijani Diasporan organizations addressed a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama raising issues related to the situation in the South Caucasus and to the prospects of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. It was kind of response to a similar step made by the Armenian Assembly of America, which requested the U.S. leader to make an estimate of Turkey’s policy. Turkey is not going to meet the requirements set by the road map of Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, which was agreed with the Armenian and Turkish Foreign Offices through the mediation of Switzerland. The U.S. Armenian lobby is sure that Turkey is shirking its commitments – it conditions the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

http://news.am/en/news/2084.html

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

apparently Armenia and Iran arent the only countries azerbaijan has claims against.

Turkmenistan Bigger Problem For Azerbaijan Than Karabakh

The leadership of Azerbaijan keeps insisting that it wants the Nagorno Karabakh problem be solved keeping the territorial integrity of the country intact. Now an expert from Turkey says that the territorial dispute in the Caspian Sea with Turkmenistan is a bigger worry for Azerbaijan than Nagorno Karabakh.

As the talks and negotiations have increased between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the later has not missed a single opportunity to remind the international community that the Nagorno Karabakh issue should be solved within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and making the right for self-determination of the Nagorno Karabakah Armenians inferior to that. However, come and see that the international borders of Azerbaijan are also disputed by Turkmenistan, which will take a dispute with Azerbaijan over Caspian oil and gas fields to the International Court of Arbitration.

Speaking to Sunday's Zaman, the head of the Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis (TÜRKSAM) Sinan Oğan called the issues between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan "a bigger problem." He said that Turkmenistan's decision to sue Azerbaijan in the last minute over the status of the Caspian Sea can create a problem for the Nabucco pipeline's gas supply. “It seems it will be a problem,” he concluded.

This growing problem will be another headache for Azerbaijan and as TURKSAM expert from Turkey called it may create a problem for the Nabucco's gas supply. The feasibility of the Nabucco gas pipeline project depends mostly on the ability to use the Caspian gas.

On July 24, speaking at government meeting, the president of Turkmenistan Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov slammed Azerbaijan for its "intransigence." "For a long time, mainly because of Azerbaijan's stance, the issue of settling seabed borders, dividing natural resources and defining the boundary line between the two countries has not been resolved," Berdymukhamedov said in televised comments.

According to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet the president of Turkmenistan instructed its Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to examine the legality of Azerbaijan's claims to disputed offshore fields. He said the case would be taken to the international body and "we will accept any decision on this questions made by the International Court of Arbitration." Azerbaijan has begun unilateral development of disputed oil and gas fields, and is seeking rights to other deposits in the Caspian, Berdymukhamedov said.

Azerbaijan has been in another territorial dispute with Nagorno Karabakh's Republic, which used the right of self-determination and has declared independence after a national referendum. United States, France and Russia are mediating a process hoping to bring about a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. To this date Azerbaijan's actions are hindering the peace process because the country is not willing to recognize the right of self-determination of the people of Nagorno Karabakh. However, prolonging the conflict and making occasional war-like statements and now being involved in a new territorial dispute with Turkmenistan (which according to the Turkish political expert is a bigger problem for NABUCCO) will weaken Azerbaijan's position and it may lose more than what the country can achieve today by making honorable peace with Armenia based on mutual compromise.

Otherwise, while Azerbaijan's leadership has not so far explained how a war can bring back Nagorno Karabakh it may seriously endanger its another big project: the NABUCCO. Many European countries are hopeful on NABUCCO's gas supply and will be interested to see Azerbaijan to solve these two disputes in peaceful and swift way.

Written by Armen Hareyan

http://www.huliq.com/1/84692/turkish-expertturkmenistan-bigger-problem-azerbaijan-karabakh