Vote 2012 Analysis: Now the real campaign begins (PERSPECTIVE)

(Video: OSCE election observer statement on Armenia's May 6 parliamentary elections)

By Naira Hayrumyan

May 6 saw general elections in several European nations, including France, Greece, Serbia, as well as their eastern neighbor - Armenia.

Experts usually make references to ideological differences between contestants in elections. In referring to the Armenia vote, most foreign media would call it a contest between the presidential party and the party of a billionaire former arm wrestling champ – the Republican Party of Armenia led by President Serzh Sargsyan and the Prosperous Armenia Party of Gagik Tsarukyan.

In France, people went to the polls in the presidential runoff to choose between the right-wing ideology, which is based on the support of those “who know how to make money”, and the socialist one, which stands for higher taxes for the rich and more money spent on the opening of new jobs. In France, the Socialists won (with their candidate Francois Hollande beating incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy), and the people of France, still experiencing the effects of the recent global economic crisis, decided that they needed social benefits more than the financial strengthening of Europe.

Greece was also making its difficult ideological choice: two major parties that have alternately ruled the country since 1974, have been in favor of austerity measures, including the sale of national wealth, if only to stay in the euro zone and to get loans to repay the debt. The Conservatives and the right-wing forces think they can sacrifice the future of the euro zone to preserve the national wealth and social guarantees. And in Greece, the latter ideology has prevailed.

In Serbia, the choice has been between the forces espousing concessions on national issues for the European future, and those who have a hard line on issues related to sovereignty, including on Kosovo. The pro-European party is enjoying a slim advantage, with President Boris Tadic still facing a tense runoff. 

And what have the political forces in Armenia been fighting for? What ideologies do the parties that entered the fray stand for? Perhaps, it is only clear that ARF Dashnaktsutyun is a nationalist and socialist party. It speaks of social reform, about promoting national issues. The other parties are quite amorphous.

For example, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, which spent much of the past five years trying to grapple with the crisis, has been running on the platform of reforms. What it hasn’t said, however, is what kind of reforms it wants to press ahead with. Nor has the opposition Armenian National Congress elaborated in plain terms what kind of reforms it wants to implement. Sometimes it stresses social issues, stating that it is necessary to curb migration, resulting in a dwindling of the population, then it speaks of a liberal economy that is far from being social-oriented.

(PHOTO: Gagik Tsarukyan)The most obscure position is of the Prosperous Armenia Party, whose leader Tsarukyan, known for his charity projects, would state at campaign rallies that after the elections he will be doing “even more for the people than he has done before.”

An ideological struggle, when everyone could try this ideology on themselves and see what their lives would be like if one ideology or another prevails, would have entailed a real competition. But this time, the presidential party prevailed.

France and Greece, in fact, have changed their ideologies and the power along with it. In Armenia, the power remained, and this means that nothing will change in people’s lives. Do people going to the polls really want their life to stay unchanged?

Still before the parliamentary elections both the government and opposition were saying that they were preparing for the February 2013 presidential election. And from this point of view it is interesting what the list of presidential candidates will look like against the new backdrop of the alignment of forces in the National Assembly.

Still last year President Serzh Sargsyan publicly spoke about his plans to run for a second term in 2013. And the victory by his party, which is expected to gain some 70 seats in the National Assembly and an opportunity to form the government single-handedly, is likely to become a solid support for his reelection bid. The question is whether or not the first and second presidents of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan, mount any serious challenge to him.

The opposition Armenian National Congress led by Ter-Petrosyan has overcome the 7% hurdle for election blocs in the May 6 parliamentary elections and has got the right to form a faction in the next parliament. The result appears to be much more modest than expected by Ter-Petrosyan, whose bloc, however, has been speaking about large-scale violations during the Sunday polls.

(PHOTO: Serzh Sargsyan)But the real question here is whether Ter-Petrosyan will estimate his chances as good enough to try to join another presidential campaign against Sargsyan (the last time they had a rivalry in 2008 the opposition leader got some 21%, as against Sargsyan’s 52%, and the eventual street standoff resulted in deadly clashes).  As things stand now, Ter-Petrosyan hasn’t got any reassuring result percentage-wise.

As for Kocharyan, he had implied he would announce his decision on whether or not to return to active politics after the elections, after May 6. Prosperous Armenia and the ARF, both of which are believed to be loyal to Kocharyan, according to preliminary vote results, have about 36% of the vote. This appears to be a formative resource, and Kocharyan may just put everything on the line.

In this view, new alliances could already be in the offing, such as those that have already been formed once during the pre-election month. If the ANC also backs the candidate from the PAP (whether Kocharyan or former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian), then an alternative to Sargsyan is possible.

One way or another, May 7 marks not only the end of the grueling parliamentary campaign, but the start of perhaps a similarly strenuous presidential race.

---This commentary originally appeared in ArmeniaNow.

Classroom at Sea, Teaching the World (FEATURE)

(Video via OceanLeadership)

By Vickie Chachere

It's not every day that the view from class is a deep blue Caribbean sea and misty volcanic mountains in the distance. Nor does your professor normally have to shout over the hum of engines and the whooshing of a brisk sea breeze, the 470-foot vessel beneath her feet swaying just enough to induce the slightest feeling of sea sickness.

But for University of South Florida Marine Science Professor Teresa Greely, the exotic setting and the expansive research vessel the JOIDES Resolution has been her classroom for the past four weeks, and the international scientific effort a living lesson for classrooms around the world via the magic of Skype.

The JOIDES Resolution is on six-week scientific journey through the Lesser Antilles with an international team of scientists and crew members from 15 nations. They are exploring the volcanic processes along the island arc of the Lesser Antilles, an area formed by the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean that has a history of intense seismic activity, including frequent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the occasional tsunami.

(PHOTO: Professor Teresa Greely uses Skype to show her students the JOIDES Resolution, the research vessel she's been living on for 4 weeks/Vickie Chachere | USF News)The journey is part of the massive Ocean Drilling Program, an international effort funded by the US National Science Foundation and 22 nations to study the history of the world’s ocean basins and the earth’s subsea crust. The 10-year program is so extensive some scientists describe it as the oceans version of the Hubble Telescope program.

Greely, a marine biologist who heads up notable education and outreach efforts at the College of Marine Science in St, Petersburg, Florida such as the girl’s oceanography camp, was selected as the expedition’s education officer – a position which has had her teaching college students, public school teachers and scientific groups around the world about the JOIDES Resolution mission and how scientists will examine the geologic, chemical and biological records left below the sea floor hundreds of thousands of years ago.

“I am here as a scientific educator, my job is to translate the science that is happening on board,” Greely explained to a group of USF Honors College students Thursday in a 45-minute Skype session as she introduced to the vessel and explained.

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Because her Skype sessions are being held all over the world, Greely has worked 12 to 16 hours a day teaching groups in France, Guadeloupe, Martinique, the United Kingdom and Germany. Next week she will Skype with South Africa. Thursday she completed the second of three sessions with her students at USF’s Honor College on the Tampa campus, after having conducted a classroom session with students at USF St. Petersburg a day earlier.

Also joining her on the JOIDES Resolution is USF doctoral candidate Michael Martinez, a biological oceanographer, who is serving as a member of the scientific crew, and has pitched in on the Skype educational segments. Additionally, the entire JOIDES scientific crew has joined in on the social media effort by blogging and through Facebook, allowing thousands to follow along on their journey.

Greely has used a small camera to take groups on a tour of the vessel, with its massive drilling capabilities that pull up long cores of ancient sediments from beneath the sea floor to undergo analysis. With as the eons have passed, the seismic activity has deposited layers of material on top of each other. Scientists can analyze chemical and biological markers to understand how the Earth’s activity changed over the years and altered the environment.

“It is nice to be able to 'see' the students in the class via Skype and hearing their response to the different visuals from the vessel,” Greely said. “This is not your typical classroom and it is wonderful to have USF students experience this at sea learning.”

The JOIDES Resolution is drilling at several sites near Montserrat, home of the Soufrière Hills volcano, which has been erupting continuously since 1995, sending much of the resultant ash and volcanic material into the ocean.  Later to moving toward a site off Martinique, the scientists are investigating underwater traces of pyroclastic flows – fast-moving, deadly mixtures of gases and rock debris –from Martinique’s infamous Mt. Pelée, whose 1902 eruption killed 30,000 people and devastated entire towns. The event remains one of the deadliest volcanic disasters of the 20^th century.

Thursday, Greely explained to USF students how 70 percent of the materials that erupt from a volcano end up on the sea floor, making the geological record an unparalleled window on the past. Erik Moortgat, a Marine Lab Specialist on the JOIDES Resolution, showed the students one of the sediment cores and explained the techniques for extracting scientific information and data from the sample.

Walking through the vessel on Thursday amid brisk winds at sea, Greely struggled to keep the camera steady as she moved across the vast deck. “It’s like you’re on the vessel with me!” she quipped, even though she couldn’t have seen the USF students looking away to avoid the dizzying image.

The journey just isn’t an education for students and elementary and middle school teachers – Greely has held sessions for teachers in Massachusetts, California and North Carolina in addition to Tampa Bay area schools - but for Greely herself. Remarking on the international diversity of the JOIDES community, Greely said she is learning Hindi, Japanese and French from her fellow scientists and ship crew members.

“It’s personally been very exciting for me to work with scientists from around the world and learn about other cultures from around the world,” she told the USF students.

--This article written by Vickie Chachere of USF News along with contributions from Matthew Wright and Sharon Cooper of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership first appeared on UNF).   To read Teresa Greely’s blog Adventures at Sea, click here.

UNEP Report Says World Soil Management is Key to Food, Water, Climate Future

(PHOTO: Soil, side by side/Treehugger) (HN, 2/14/2012) - According to the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Year Book 2012 released Monday on the eve of the 12th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, 24% of the global land area has already suffered declines in health and productivity over the past quarter century as a result of unsustainable industrial land-use and dramatic improvements in the way the world manages its precious soils will be key to food, water and climate security in the 21st century.

WHY? Soils contain huge quantities of carbon in the form of organic matter that in turn binds the nutrients needed for plant growth and allows rainfall to penetrate into underground aquifers.

Since the 19th century, an estimated 60% of the carbon stored in soils and vegetation has been lost as a result of land use changes, such as, clearing land for agriculture and cities and by some estimates, the top one metre of the world's soils store around 2,200 Gigatonnes (or, a billion tonnes) of carbon; three times the current level held in the atmosphere.

The report states some kinds of agriculture processes have triggered soil erosion rates at 100 times greater than the rates at which nature can form soil and by 2030, without changes in the way land is managed, over 20% of habitats such as forests, peatlands and grasslands in developing countries alone could be converted to cropland which also aggravate losses of vital ecosystem services and biodiversity.

There could also be profound implications for climate change as amounts of this carbon could be released to the atmosphere, aggravating global warming linked to the burning of fossil fuels and points to the world's peatlands as an area of special concern. WHY?  The draining of super carbon-rich peatlands is currently producing more than 2 Gigatonnes of CO2 emissions annually; equal to around 6% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions and is happening at a rate 20 times greater than the rate at which the peat, and thus the carbon, is accumulated.

The Year Book, launched 4 months in advance of the Rio+20 Summit, highlights another issue of emerging global concern - the challenges of decommissioning the growing numbers of end-of-life nuclear power reactors.

There are plans to close up to 80 civilian nuclear power reactors in the next 10 years, as the first generations of reactors reach the end of their `design lives’. So far in world history, 138 civilian nuclear power reactors have been shut down in 19 countries, including 28 in the United States, 27 in the United Kingdom, 27 in Germany, 12 in France, 9 in Japan and 5 in the Russian Federation.

Decommissioning has only been completed for 17 of them, so far but events such as the tragedy of the tsunami that struck Fukushima and its nearby nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011 has caused heightened concern.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of developing countries have built or are considering building nuclear power plants, including the United States which just announced at least 2 new reactors to be built on February 4.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director said: "The Year Book spotlights the challenges, but also the choices, nations need to consider to deliver a sustainable 21st century and urgently improve management of world's soils and the decommissioning of nuclear power reactors".

"Superficially they may seem separate and unconnected issues, but both go to the heart of several fundamental questions: how the world will feed and fuel itself while combating climate change and handling hazardous wastes," he added.  "The thin skin of soil on the Earth's surface is often one of those forgotten ecosystems but it is among the most important to the future survival of humanity. Improved, sustainable management such as no-till policies can assist in productive agriculture without draining peatlands," said Mr. Steiner.

Across the globe, there are examples of how multiple benefits can be delivered through effective management of soil carbon. In Kenya, the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund is providing the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project with US $350,000 to pay smallholder farmers to improve their agricultural practices, to increase both food security and soil carbon sequestration.

From Dakar to Djibouti, the `Great Green Wall’ initiative is a massive forestation project creating a 15 km wide strip of trees and other vegetation along a 7000 km transect to improve carbon sequestration, stabilize soils and conserve soil moisture amongst others.

In China, similar approaches are being monitored to assess whether land degradation in arid areas can be reversed.  In Brazil, changes in crop production and rotation practices have been found to have significant effects on soil carbon stocks and conversion to no-till techniques in soybean, maize and related crop systems resulted in a decrease of soil carbon degradation. And in Argentina, significant increases in soil carbon stocks have also been achieved, where farmers changed to no-till systems, along with enhanced benefits in water retention, infiltration and erosion prevention.  The UNEP Year Book 2012 is available at: http://www.unep.org

--- HUMNEWS