International Security | Peter "Just Loves Flying"

US election pollsters get predictions wrong by underestimating white turnout in rural areas | Daily Mail Online

November 9, 2016

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Donald Trump, Gambia, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, politics, Pollsters & Pundits Wrong, US Elections 1 Comment

How How did the pollsters get it so wrong? They underestimated white turnout in rural areas and overestimated black and millennial voters

Until the eleventh hour predictions were that Hillary had an 85 percent chance of winning the election
Even Tuesday’s exit poll had Clinton winning almost everywhere at 5 p.m.
Trump supporters claim the speculators got it wrong because of partisan bias after the Republican won a stunning victory
‘People have been told that they have to be embarrassed to support Donald Trump, even in a telephone poll,’ says consultant Frank McCarthy
Of all major national surveys, the LA Times and IBD/TIPP tracking polls were the only two to call a Trump victory
Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight – which correctly called the last two elections – forecast a 66 per cent likelihood that Clinton will take the White House
CBS, ABC/Washington Post, Bloomberg, Rasmussen, Monmouth University and NBC News/Survey Monkey all got it wrong

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3919098/Pollsters-kicking-getting-predictions-wrong-underestimating-white-turnout-rural-areas-overestimating-black-millennial-voters.html#ixzz4PWi9j0ei
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebookntil the eleventh hour predictions were that Hillary had an 85 percent chance of winning the election. Even Tuesday’s exit poll had Clinton winning almost everywhere at 5 p.m.

Source: US election pollsters get predictions wrong by underestimating white turnout in rural areas | Daily Mail Online

How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets – The New York Times

September 1, 2016

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized International Security, Julian Assange, People & Society, wikileaks Leave a comment

Julian Assange was in classic didactic form, holding forth on the topic that consumes him — the perfidy of big government and especially of the United States.

Mr. Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, rose to global fame in 2010 for releasing huge caches of highly classified American government communications that exposed the underbelly of its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and its sometimes cynical diplomatic maneuvering around the world. But in a televised interview last September, it was clear that he still had plenty to say about “The World According to US Empire,” the subtitle of his latest book, “The WikiLeaks Files.”

From the cramped confines of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he was granted asylum four years ago amid a legal imbroglio, Mr. Assange proffered a vision of America as superbully: a nation that has achieved imperial power by proclaiming allegiance to principles of human rights while deploying its military-intelligence apparatus in “pincer” formation to “push” countries into doing its bidding, and punishing people like him who dare to speak the truth.

Notably absent from Mr. Assange’s analysis, however, was criticism of another world power, Russia, or its president, Vladimir V. Putin……

Source: How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets – The New York Times

The Democracy Activist Who Became a Suicide Bomber – WSJ

April 11, 2016

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Arab Spring, Comflict, International Security, Middle East, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey 1 Comment

An idealistic young Egyptian who helped lead the Tahrir Square protests died three years later in Iraq as an Islamic State jihadist.

“Five years ago, Ahmad Darrawi was one of the idealistic young Egyptians whose bravery stirred world-wide admiration. In 2011, he stood among the protest vanguard in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and in the months afterward he often appeared on TV, outlining reforms for Egypt’s brutal and corrupt police. In the fall of 2011, he ran for parliament as an independent. His campaign ads showed a smiling, clean-shaven man in a gray suit under the slogan “Dignity and Security.” He was 32.

Three years later, Darrawi blew himself up on the battlefields of Iraq, where he was fighting as a loyal soldier of Islamic State, according to the terrorist group.

How did it happen? How did a hopeful, principled young man from a middle-class family turn into a coldblooded suicide bomber? It is hard to separate that question from the Arab world’s broader descent over the past five years: from nonviolence to mass murder, from proclamations of tolerance and civic idealism to the savagery of Islamic State.

The gap between those ideals is so vast that any attempt to link them can seem like madness. But for Darrawi and others like him—in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia and more—the road from democracy to Islamic State wasn’t so strange…”

Source: The Democracy Activist Who Became a Suicide Bomber – WSJ

Peacekeeping is a tool for political, not military solutions – Eliasson | defenceWeb

February 22, 2016

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Africa, conflicts studies, International Security, peacekeeping, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, UN Leave a comment

United Nations peacekeeping is “a tool to advance political, not military, solutions to conflict,” Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.

He made the comments this week when the General Assembly subsidiary body opened its 2016 session. Noting existing mechanisms are not always suited to meet new challenges he stressed the critical role of the Special Committee plays in setting the direction of comprehensive reform of peace operations.

“Strengthening UN peace operations is a multi-year agenda,” Eliasson said in the opening session, which was also addressed by Under-Secretaries-General Hervé Ladsous and Atul Khare, who respectively head the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), and the Department of Field Support (DFS).

He said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon established the High-Level Panel on Peace Operations to examine and develop the range of United Nations tools in order to prevent and resolve conflicts, as well as to sustain peace.

Ban’s agenda centres on three priorities for action: strengthen conflict prevention; build more effective global and regional partnerships and improve the planning and conduct of UN peace operations.

Source: Peacekeeping is a tool for political, not military solutions – Eliasson | defenceWeb

Blogger BlogThis! – Saved

January 17, 2016

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

The Jan. 2 execution of Saudi Shiite cleric and political activist Nimr al-Nimr has escalated sectarian hostilities in the Middle East to dangerous new levels. Following the sacking of a Saudi embassy in Iran, Saudi Arabia has severed ties with Iran and expelled its diplomats. Tensions are running high, with apocalyptic rhetoric on all sides.

Marc Lynch

However, for all the fireworks, this escalation will probably not change much. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been engaged in a proxy war at various temperatures over regional order for many years. The Syrian peace process may be derailed, and even more weapons pour into its horrifyingly destructive stalemate, but few really believed in its prospects anyway. The war in Yemen will likely continue on the same current destructive course as before, where even the coming and going of a cease-fire affected fighting on the ground little. The campaign against the Islamic State may become a bit more complicated, but the Gulf states long ago shifted most of their military attention toward Yemen. The United States has not become any more likely to walk away from its painstakingly negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran.

Source: Blogger BlogThis! – Saved

W. African leaders seek ban on full-face veil to prevent attacks – Yahoo News

December 19, 2015

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Africa, Ban Full Face Veil, Gambia, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

West African leaders said Thursday they were seeking to “forbid” women wearing full-face veils in an effort to curb the growing number of female suicide bombers unleashed by Boko Haram jihadists. Losing swathes of territory to the Nigerian army, Boko Haram jihadists have since July started using young women and girls as suicide bombers by hiding explosives in their loose-fitting clothes. The radical Sunni group has also used the tactic in Cameroon, Chad and Niger — countries that have already enforced bans on veils this year.

Source: W. African leaders seek ban on full-face veil to prevent attacks – Yahoo News

Syria air strikes: How we got to this point – BBC Newsbeat

December 3, 2015

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

This is what Syria looks like now.

Source: Syria air strikes: How we got to this point – BBC Newsbeat

More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed, including nearly 12,000 children, according to the United Nations.

More than half of the county’s population have had to leave their homes.

Four million are living as refugees in other countries.

Others soldier on…

How to Fight ISIS – The New York Times

November 19, 2015

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Conflict, Fighting ISIS, International Security, ISIL, Middle East, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

“The mass murder of civilians in Paris has inevitably reignited the debate over using military force in the Middle East to attack the Islamic State. The debate, like anything that gets tangled up in American presidential politics, is divorced from reality. The United States, and other nations, is already engaged in military action with some ground forces in Iraq and Syria.

The panicked reactions, fanned by right-wing politicians in the United States and Europe, to “declare war” on the Islamic State are mostly just noise. None of those proposing that kind of response offer the slightest idea of how it would be done; all they have is an understandable desire, which we share, to obliterate the terrorist group also known as ISIS.

President Obama struck the right note in his remarks on Monday: Military action can be only one part of a broader strategy that the United States and its partners will have to pursue over many years. Important Muslim nations, notably Saudi Arabia, will simply have to stop paying for and politically enabling the mosques, imams and paramilitary groups that fuel extremists and their virulent perversions of Islam. Moderate Muslims need to redouble efforts, begun after 9/11, to ensure that their vision of a more tolerant and inclusive Islam prevails…”

Source: How to Fight ISIS – The New York Times