Nagorno-Karabakh and Armeno/Turkic Relations

South of the immediate Caucasus Mountains lies a clash of cultures between the Armenians and the Azeri Turks. Armenia and Azerbaijan were part of the former Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union broke up, a bitter six-year war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Nagorno-Karabakh is a region within the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan where ethnic Armenians live and are now under the protection of the Armenian army.

Within Azerbaijan's recognized territory live Armenians under the protection of the Armenian army.

Since the Turkish-Armenian War in 1920, Armenia and Turkey are regional enemies. Azerbaijanis are a Turkic people and thus are supported by Turkey in disputes with Armenia. When the war over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan was underway in 1993, Turkey closed its borders with Armenia in support for Azerbaijan. This cut off all economic and diplomatic relations between the two nations that have already had a very long history of animosity.

Recently, however, steps are being made in improving relations between Armenia and neighboring Turkic nations with the presidents of Armenia and Turkey meeting face to face in a symbolic meeting between the two heads of rival states. Some political experts are saying relations will continue to improve and the border between Turkey and Armenia will open within the next few years.

Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan met with Turkish president Abdullah Gul on October 14th, 2009

There still remains the issue over Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey has stated that it will not open its borders with Armenia until they withdraw their troops from this region. Until this disputed territory is settled there is no way to tell how far Turkey and Armenia will go in their trend towards friendship.

Residents Nagorno-Karabakh fear for the loss of their freedom if they are handed over to Azerbaijan. Armenian pensioner Aleksandr Osipov explained to Radio Free Europe last month that the people of Karabakh want to live in their republic among Armenian people and want things to remain as they are.

Aleksandr Osipov,

The situation is very unlikely to remain the same for this region. The international community has its eyes on Armenia and Turkey rather than Azerbaijan to see if there will be a resolution to this ethnically Armenian region in Azerbaijan’s recognized territory.

Greece’s New Government and Mr. Papandreou

The new Prime Minister of Greece

Social-democratic PASOK takes absolute majority

The results of Greece’s national elections showed the expected win of the socialist party, PASOK. They were expected to win, however, they won even moreso than the polls had indicated. Garnering 44% of the vote, they beat the incumbent conservative New Democracy party by over 11%. This made for PASOK’s best showing ever coinciding with ND’s worst showing ever.

Party		Ideology	Affiliation, F.	2009	Seats	2007	Seats
	Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima (PASOK) Panhellenic Socialist Movement	Social democracy -	PES, SI 1981	43,9%	160	38,1%	102
	Nea Dimokratia (ND) New Democracy	Liberal conservatism; Christian democracy	EPP, CDI, IDU 1974	33,5%	91	41,8%	152
	Kommounistiko Komma Elladas (KKE) Communist Party of Greece	Communism; Marxism-Leninism -	- 1924	7,5%	21	8,2%	22
	Laikos Orthodoxos Sunagermos (LAOS) Popular Orthodox Rally	Nationalism; Far right, Right-wing populism	- 2000	5,6%	15	3,8%	10
	Synaspismos tis Rizospastikis Aristeras (SYRIZA) Coalition of the Radical Left (alliance led by SYN)	Democratic socialism; Anti-capitalism, Eco-socialism	EL (SYN) 2004	4,6%	13	5,0%	14
	Oikologoi Prasinoi (OP) Ecologist Greens	Green politics -	EGP, GG 2002	2,5%	-	1,1%	-
Others		-	-	2,4%	-	2,0%	-
Total		-	-	-	300	-	300
Turnout		-	-	70,9%		74,1%

 http://www.parties-and-elections.de/greece.html

PASOK and ND are the two large political parties in Greece and have alternated being in power since 1974. New Democracy is a center-right conservative party and PASOK is a center-left social democratic party. Both large parties have their versions of political dynasties with the outgoing Prime Minister, Kostas Karamalis having an uncle, also names Kostas karamalis, who has been prime minister at the begining of the post-junta age in the 1970′s.

The new prime minister, George Papandreou, comes from a long line of greek premiers. His father and grandfather, whom he is traditionally named after, were also prime ministers of Greece in the past. His grandfather, George, was first prime minister during the, then, exiled Greek government in Cairo towards the end of the Nazi occupation of Greece. He was again head of state the 1960′s before the 7-year military junta that took up power in Greece from 1967 until 1974. His father, Andreas Papandreou was prime minister during PASOK’s glory-days of the 1980′s, and again in the mid-1990′s up until his death in 1996.

Today’s Papandreou was born in the United States in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1952. He was educated at Amherst University in Massachussetts, Stockholm University, and The London School of Economics. Now that he’s risen to the head of the PASOK party and has won the legislative elections of Greece to become prime minister, he brings some new faces to Greece’s new government. Many in Greece feel that there has been a need of some new faces for many years. Papandreou is bringing along many younger ministers, some only in their 30′s, as well as more women then there have been in the past. This is breeding more hope within Greek society that the change in makeup beyond just having a different party in power, will bring some deeper inner changes in attitude among those now in power in this small mediterranian nation.

Greece’s Election Situation

This Sunday in Greece, the people will vote. Prime Minister Costas Karamalis, from the conservative center-right party, called a snap election last month so that there can be a fresh mandate on the governing of Greece during economic crisis.

Many people are dissatisfied with the current government that has been in place since 2004. Since then, rising unemployment, immense public debt, a plundering economy, and scandals within the ruling party have put the opposition socialist party, PASOK , in the lead. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement with the acronym “PASOK” is a center-left political party in Greece that has been in power several times in the past. Their platform runs along a social-democratic ideology, which believes in maintaining a capitalist economy, but increasing the size of the welfare state, similar to what Scandinavian countries have right now. Many people in Greece who remember the 1980’s, which for many Greeks is remembered as a good time, may vote with a sense of nostalgia for that time that was governed by the PASOK party. Political analysts caution against assuming that things will be like they were in the 1980’s should PASOK come back into power.

In Greece, there is a law prohibiting polls from being conducted less than two weeks before election day, but the last polls indicate the PASOK party leading the incumbent New Democracy party by 6-8%. George Papandreou is the leader of PASOK and would become the new prime minister if PASOK wins the election. If the results come in very close between the two large parties, there have been talks of parties forming coalition governments in order to have a more agreeing block of members in parliament to pass essential legislation to bring about economic recoveries. One possible coalition that has been mentioned is one between the two large parties, PASOK and ND. This would create a large centrist policy that may help bridge an ideological gap that has stalled alot of the legislation the Greek government has been trying to pass. It is not said how likely this coalition would be though. Another that has been discussed is one between ND and the right-wing LAOS party, however ND claims they do not wish to form a coalition with a party they view as too right wing.

In a proportional representation parliamentary system, there are several interesting scenarios that can play out in a general election.

The most likely

PASOK wins outright majority with George Papandreou as the new prime minister and the PASOK party with a majority in parliament.

Possible

PASOK gets a slight lead over ND with George Papandreou still becoming the new prime minister, but forming a coalition government with the ND party.

Not likely, but still possible

The incumbent ND party wins re-election with prime minister Kostas Karamalis continuing to be the leader of Greece.

　

Left Pole/Right Pole

US President Barack Obama over the past two weeks have delivered two high profile and controversial speeches to his citizens. The first one was on the first week of school in many public school systems across the country. Some school districts decided not to show the president giving the speech because they felt that he was pushing a political agenda on America’s children. The second one was the speech to Congress on healthcare in which the fox network decided not to air the presidents’ speech to lawmakers.

Presidents of any country, especially the United States are subject to shunning and opposition from their citizens and the biases of media networks. It is well known that the fox network is biased towards the right wing of American politics and would not favor his rethoric. Same goes for school districts like the ones that decided to sheild their schoolchildren from the president’s address to them if the district is more conservative and has a bias against a more liberal president.

The issue that comes about with this, however, is that this highly indicates how polarized we’ve become in America. The left and right of mainstream American politics has divided so much so that a president from a side that the other opposes is seen by many of those opposing citizens as an enemy rather than a leader they just don’t favor. This issue progressed over time even before Obama became president, but it seems as though its a pattern that is progressing into more extreme levels. My question now is….will this polarization lead to the rise of political extremism in America? With their own biases, will the mainstream media  go along with this polarization and move further away from simply informing the citizens on what their government is doing so that they can come up with their own conclusions?

A Journalist I Admire

There are several journalists and broadcasters that I admire and aspire to be like as I learn to become one myself. One of the ones that stands out for me is Dan Rather. He was the anchor of the CBS Evening News for many years. He had a great on-air presence and was easy to understand when watching him and listening to his reports. I also liked the fact that he would go report the news from wherever a major international event was going on, such as the seige of Sarajevo in the 1990′s or Tiennamen Square back in 1989. I also like that he wasn’t afraid to report on something as controversial as documents showing that, then president George W. Bush, was AWAL during parts of his service in the National Guard back in the early 1970′s.

Remembering 9/11

This blog post is a special one that I am dedicating to the victims and their families of the 9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Center and United flight 93. 

The whole world knows how infamous that day was for Americans when a group religious extremists from a terrorist organization called Al-Queda hijacked four planes sending two of them into the trade center towers and one to the pentagon. The fourth plane failed to reach its target due to the bravery of the people onboard that United Airlines flight 93 that were able to overtake the hijackers and divert the plane, even though it crashed in an open Pennsylvania field.

At the world trade center, firefighters died while the buildings collapsed as they rushed up to the burning floors to save those traped in and above them. This is the type of bravery that we honor on this day of rememberence.

I hope that everybody can take a moment of their time to day to remember those who died on September 11th, 2001 due to the terrorist attacks and never forget that extremism, whether religious or political, can lead to this kind of irrational violence where innocent people suffer.

Where I like to get the news

I prefer to get my news through the internet. I am a follower of world news and enjoy the wider option of news sources available on the internet from various sources like the BBC, NPR, and ERT for news from my ancestrial homeland of Greece. 

I’ve found that news sources other than mainstream television media in the United States have more variety in content and are more in depth when it comes to stories from outside the U.S.  You don’t hear as much about the social-political situations within and between many nations and regions the U.S. is involved with. So as an aspiring journalist and informed citizen of the most powerful country in the world, I like to use the internet as my favorite source of news to see many different perspectives other than the two main perspectives that are usually served to us by mainstream American television media.