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What the Gaza War Means for the Middle East – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

August 8, 2014

Peter Singhatey Middle East Conflict, International Security, Middle East, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

What the Gaza War Means for the Middle East – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

With intensifying international pressure to end hostilities, a brief lull in fighting currently prevails in Gaza. But a formal ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has proven elusive and the death toll continues to mount following sporadic attacks.

Carnegie experts assess how the crisis will impact Palestinians, Israelis, and the rest of the Middle East.

What are the immediate implications for both Israelis and Palestinians?

How can Gaza be rebuilt after this latest round of fighting?

How will the conflict with Israel impact the Palestinian leadership and relations between Hamas and Fatah?

What are the implications of the turmoil in Gaza for Egypt?

How will the conflict in Gaza influence regional dynamics?

17 aid workers abducted in Sudans Darfur region

June 24, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Conflict, Darfur, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

17 aid workers abducted in Sudans Darfur region.

Seventeen aid workers have been abducted in the Sudanese troubled Darfur region, sources said.

Irish NGO GOAL and local SAK reported that the abduction took place on Thursday.

They said three GOAL employees and 14 members of the Sudanese SAK were abducted in Kutum, North Darfur.

The sources said the three Goal employees included the country director.

The SAK members included the head of the Kutum branch and an engineer.

“Militiamen in three Land Cruisers stopped the GOAL country director and two staff members who were on their way to Kutum airport. They pulled them from their vehicle at gunpoint and took them to an unknown destination,” the sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorised to talk to the media, told the Africa Review.

“At about the same time, gunmen in Land Cruisers abducted 14 employees of the Sudanese SAK organisation, in the Um Lyon in Kutum locality,” they added…

On Iraq, Echoes of 2003 – NYTimes.com

June 19, 2014

Peter Singhatey International Security Conflict, ISIS, Peace & Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey 1 Comment

On Iraq, Echoes of 2003 – NYTimes.com.

Is this 2014 or 2003?

I’m flinching at a painful sense of déjà vu as we hear calls for military intervention in Iraq, as President Obama himself — taunted by critics who contend he’s weak — is said to be considering drone strikes there.

Our 2003 invasion of Iraq should be a warning that military force sometimes transforms a genuine problem into something worse. The war claimed 4,500 American lives and, according to a mortality study published in a peer-reviewed American journal, 500,000 Iraqi lives. Linda Bilmes, a Harvard expert in public finance, tells me that her latest estimate is that the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war will be $4 trillion.

That’s a $35,000 tax on the average American household. The total would be enough to ensure that all children could attend preschool in the United States, that most people with AIDS worldwide could receive treatment, and that every child worldwide could attend school — for the next 83 years. Instead, we financed a futile war that was like a Mobius strip, bringing us right back to an echo of where we started.

Terrorism and transnational organised crime in West Africa

May 14, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Conflict, Gambia, peter singhateh, Transnational Crime Leave a comment

Terrorism and transnational organised crime in West Africa.

West Africa is a highly complex region caught between affluence and affliction. The region is made up of 16 states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Apart from Mauritania, the remaining states are members of the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) formed in 1975. The region’s states vary in territorial size, colonial history, economic strength, internal cohesion, and external linkages. They also differ in terms of population size, levels of development, stages of state building, and nature of resource endowments. They are confronted with different levels of security, governance and development challenges that have made them poor despite being greatly endowed with natural resources.

Although West African states gained political independence before any other region in colonial Africa, they have failed to achieve a high degree of political stability due to corruption, weak or failed governance institutions, conflicts and porous borders among others. Overall, they all share a common feature of multiple layers of insecurity, associated with conflicts and crime at community and national levels, often across borders and with regional ramifications. Threats like terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal oil bunkering, piracy, and arms trafficking have acquired worrisome transnational dimension in recent times. Consequently, terrorism and TOC have emerged as formidable threats to human security and is now taking on a singular importance in terms of national, regional and international engagements…

Illicit Financial Flows: The Elephant in the Room at the EU-Africa Summit | Think Africa Press

April 7, 2014

Peter Singhatey Politics Africa, Conflict, Gambia, People & Society, peter singhateh Leave a comment

Illicit Financial Flows: The Elephant in the Room at the EU-Africa Summit | Think Africa Press.

“A $35 million mansion in California, artwork totaling €18 million ($25 million), and a $33 million dollar private jet.

These sound like items purchased by the world’s wealthiest oligarchs, Hollywood actors or investment bank CEOs, right?

Well, they were actually acquired by Teodorin Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang. When Teodoro convenes with other leaders for this week’s EU-Africa summit, a wide range of topics will be covered, but there’s one issue in particular that should be given a loudspeaker during the talks in Brussels: illicit financial flows.

Africa and Europe have a unique financial relationship. It is one marked by illicit capital flowing out of African countries and into bank accounts in financial centres across the EU. While the younger Obiang’s official salary is less than $7,000 per month, he managed to spend more than $315 million between 2004 and 2011 on sports cars, beachfront mansions, lavish apartments, and even some Michael Jackson memorabilia. And Teodorin is just the tip of the iceberg….”

Calculating Coups: Can Data Stop Disasters? | Think Africa Press

February 22, 2014

Peter Singhatey International Security Africa, Conflict, Coups, Gambia, Peace & Security, peter singhateh, West Africa Leave a comment

Calculating Coups: Can Data Stop Disasters? | Think Africa Press.

In March 2012, junior officers stage a coup in Mali, throwing the country into disarray. A year later, rebels oust the government of the Central African Republic (CAR), paving the way for widespread violence that has made refugees out of a quarter of the country’s population. And at the end of the year in December, an internal political conflict in South Sudan’s governing party and army escalates into a full-scale civil war, killing ten thousand or more.

These conflicts differ widely in almost every aspect, apart from the sense of surprise and helplessness that they instilled in the international community. Mali was lauded as a democratic role model before some soldiers took power almost by accident. The French government, for decades the kingmaker of the Central African Republic, confessed to being taken blindsided by the speed and viciousness with which the conflict escalated. And in South Sudan, the regional organisation IGAD struggled to respond to the conflict, finding themselves unprepared and at odds over how exactly to proceed.

In all three cases the surprise greatly limited the influence of the international community, which if better prepared could not only have intervened earlier and more effectively but could perhaps even have taken pre-emptive measures. This unpreparedness was even more of a shame because in all three cases, the outbreak of conflict had been predicted by statistical models…

Bosnia’s Lessons for Syria – NYTimes.com

January 24, 2014

Peter Singhatey International Security Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Middle East, People & Society, peter singhateh, Syria 1 Comment

Bosnia’s Lessons for Syria – NYTimes.com.

“Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, many observers have drawn parallels between Syria and Bosnia. The Geneva II talks echo efforts to resolve the conflict in the Balkans 20 years ago.

What are the lessons? If there is a general one from Bosnia for the parties meeting in Switzerland, it is the need for humility. As determined as the international community may be to resolve conflict, civil war is extraordinarily resistant to outside intervention. This has three important implications.

The first is that peace initiatives are often an unreliable lens through which to view a conflict. There is a tendency to assume that facts on the ground in places like Bosnia or Syria are primarily controlled by strategies and timetables devised by foreigners. They are not…”

Building gender equality into Sierra Leone’s potential – The Irish Times – Mon, Jul 15, 2013

July 16, 2013

Peter Singhatey Articles on Africa Africa, Conflict, Gender Equality, peter singhateh, Sierra Leone Leave a comment

Building gender equality into Sierra Leone’s potential – The Irish Times – Mon, Jul 15, 2013

via Building gender equality into Sierra Leone’s potential – The Irish Times – Mon, Jul 15, 2013.

Imagine starting a country from scratch. That’s what it feels like everyone is doing in Sierra Leone, a country now 10 years out of a civil war, but still struggling to restore infrastructure to pre-war levels.

It’s not a disaster zone and it’s not like countries such as Brazil or Nigeria with extremes of wealth and poverty, luxury living and slums. Almost everyone – eight out of 10 – in Sierra Leone is poor according to the UN development index.

That said, the country is bursting with energy and optimism. “Sierra Leone is not going backwards,” says Dr Mohamed Yilla, an obstetrician and country director for Evidence 4 Action, a programme funded by British aid aimed at reducing maternal and baby mortality.

“With the windfall taxes coming from the mines, the potential for improvement is enormous,” he says…