Archive for May, 2010

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Israel Navy raid on aid flotilla. Right or wrong?

Monday, May 31st, 2010

JULY 12TH – HAARETZ Reports Israel’s IDF is to blame the Israeli Navy in scathing report on the Gaza flotilla raid
An Israeli military report to be released today on the Israel Navy’s deadly May raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla is expected to accuse the navy of failing to sufficiently consider the possibility that the commandos would encounter violent resistance when attempting to keep the ships out of Gaza. The report is also expected to criticize the navy for not cooperating sufficiently with the Mossad in gathering information ahead of the flotilla’s arrival and to discuss the process by which the raid was approved. It is not, however, expected to call for disciplinary action against particular officers. Read the full article here.

UPDATE: AS AT 700 GMT ON JUNE 12TH THERE WAS NO CHANGE IN PERCENTAGES WITH 65% VOTING ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 33% IT WAS IN THE RIGHT. With 3000 votes cast 25% of the votes are from Turkey (down 2%) and 17% from Israel (down 5%) with 14% from the US (up 3%). People from 74 countries have voted (up 4). VOTE HERE.

UPDATE: AS AT 1200 GMT ON JUNE 5TH 65% SAID ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 33% SAID IT WAS IN THE RIGHT. With 2400 votes cast 27% of the votes are from Turkey and 22% from Israel with 11% from the US. People from 70 countries have voted. VOTE HERE.

Quite a few people have also sent us tweets, DMs and emails expressing their point of view or suggesting problems with how we phrased the poll or what stories we Tweet. The Israeli Foreign Ministry did Tweet us to say “The interception of the flotilla followed numerous warnings given to the organizers of the flotilla”

All of this is very psotiitve from our point of view as it brings more interaction and involvement with VoteGlobal and what we are seeking to acheive. As ever we are very conscious to remain neutral and simply provide a platform for the democratic sharing of views by everyone.

UPDATE: AS AT 1200 GMT ON JUNE 4TH 65% SAID ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 32% SAID IT WAS IN THE RIGHT. With 2300 votes cast 28% of the votes are from Turkey and 22% from Israel with 10% from the US. People from 69 countries have voted. VOTE HERE.

UPDATE: AS AT 1200 GMT ON JUNE 3RD 65% SAID ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 30% SAID IT WAS IN THE RIGHT. With 2200 votes cast 30% of the votes are from Turkey and 23% from Israel with 9% from the US. People from 67 countries have voted. VOTE HERE.

UPDATE: AS AT 1300 GMT ON JUNE 2ND 67% SAID ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 30% SAID IT WAS IN THE RIGHT. With nearly 2000 votes cast 32% of the votes are from Turkey and 24% from Israel with 7% from the US. People from 64 countries have voted. VOTE HERE.

UPDATE: AS AT 1300 GMT ON JUNE 1ST 65% SAID ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 32% SAID IT WAS IN THE RIGHT. With 1300 votes cast in 24 hours (our Hottest Poll yet) from 54 countries (our best geographic spread for a single poll) it is interesting to note that 33% of the votes are from Turkey and 28% from Israel where clearly the issue has the greatest resonance.

UPDATE: AS AT 2200 GMT ON MAY 31ST 66% SAID ISRAEL WAS IN THE WRONG AND 32% SAID IT WAS IN THE RIGHT.

A new Political poll has been created. Vote here.

Israel says that the organizers of the Gaza aid flotilla have connections to international terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Al-Qaida, and called the aid convoy a violent and provocative attempt to break the blockade on Gaza. Israel says it found weapons aboard the Gaza flotilla, which were used against IDF troops.

The Turkish agency that organized the Turkish ships carrying aid to Gaza, International Humanitarian Relief, or IHH, denied activists onboard attacked Israeli soldiers and says “The ships went through several customs. No one on board was armed,”

“Israel broke all international laws,” said Abdurahman Dilipak, a Turkish intellectual speaking at the press conference on behalf of several NGOs.

What do you think?

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Posted in Politics - Middle East, QuickPolls | 4 Comments »

Colombia Presidental Election Run-Off June 20th

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

UPDATED June 20th 2300 Bogotá time
Governing party candidate Juan Manuel Santos has won the final round of Colombia’s presidential elections. With almost all the votes counted, Mr Santos had won 69% of the ballots and was more than 40 points ahead of his rival – Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus. Mr Santos shares outgoing President Alvaro Uribe’s tough line on security. Click here for BBC article

A new Politics/Elections poll has been created.

In the first round of polling on May 30th,2010 Juan Manuel Santos gained a commanding vote with 46.56% however not an outright majority so there will be a run off on June 20th, 2010 against Antanas Mockus who polled 21.49%. Who is your pick?

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Posted in Politics - U.S. | 3 Comments »

Colombian Presidential Election, 2010

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

UPDATED June 20th 2300 Bogotá time
Governing party candidate Juan Manuel Santos has won the final round of Colombia’s presidential elections. With almost all the votes counted, Mr Santos had won 69% of the ballots and was more than 40 points ahead of his rival – Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus. Mr Santos shares outgoing President Alvaro Uribe’s tough line on security. Click here for BBC article

UPDATED May 30th 2015 Bogotá time
With 99% of the vote counted Juan Manuel Santos has a commanding lead with 46.56% of the vote however not an outright majority so there will be a run off against Antanas Mockus who has 21.49%. The run-off will be held on Sunday June 20th.

Consequently we now have a run-off poll loaded. Please click here to vote.

RESULTS of May 30th Presidential Election
Juan Manuel Santos – 46.56% – Votes: 6,758,539
Antanas Mockus – 21.49% – Votes: 3,120,716
German Vargas – 10.13% – Votes: 1,471,377
Gustavo Petro – 9.16% – Votes: 1,329,512
Noemí Sanín – 6.14% – Votes: 892,323
Rafael Pardo – 4.38% – Votes: 636,624

The Colombian presidential elections of 2010 will be held on May 30. A referendum proposal that would have allowed incumbent President Álvaro Uribe the opportunity to run for a third term was rejected by the Constitutional Court of Colombia in a 7-2 ruling on February 26, 2010. Should no candidate receive over half of votes on May 30, a run-off will happen on June 20 between the two candidates receiving the highest percentages of votes. (Source Wikipedia)

Click to Vote in VoteGlobal QuickPoll

The Washington Post says; Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday is among the most compelling in Latin America in a long time, pitting a quirky former university president and big-city mayor who wears an Abraham Lincoln-like beard against the scion of a powerful establishment family who became one of the country’s most successful defense ministers. Full article.

MICHAELA CANCELA-KIEFFER (AFP):
Colombians head to the polls on Sunday to choose from among nine candidates their next president, with former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos and former Bogota mayor Antanas Mockus neck-and-neck to replace President Alvaro Uribe. Sunday’s ballot is the first round in the election, in which the nine candidates will be whittled down to just two — likely Santos and Mockus — in a knockout round on June 20. The latest opinion polls indicate a second round is unavoidable given how close the two top contenders are running — around 35 percent each, with some of the trailing rivals, especially conservative Noemi Sanin and leftist Gustavo Petro gaining enough ground to carry some negotiating weight before the climax vote. The Organization of American States, which has sent 85 observers to the election, has warned Colombia’s voting system — manual count and results sent by phone — could pose some difficulties. Read full article

Posted in Elections - General, Politics - Latin America, QuickPolls | 3 Comments »

Colombia Presidential Election 2010

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

A new Politics/Elections poll has been created.

Colombian Presidental election

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Posted in Politics - U.S. | No Comments »

US federal and Arizona officials discuss migration law

Friday, May 28th, 2010

From the BBC: Officials from the American Department of Justice have met the attorney general of Arizona to discuss the US state’s controversial immigration law. No details have been released. Read the full article on BBC website.

The passage of the Arizona bill on immigration, SB1040 has certainly created a lot of political discussion. Our poll on the subject has tracked votes fairly quickly by our standards so its clearly topical. You can vote or see the results at our poll.

Posted in Politics - Latin America, Politics - U.S. | 2 Comments »

Dutch groups want to expand assisted suicide rights

Friday, May 28th, 2010

The Netherlands is one of a handful of countries where very ill people have the right to medical assistance to kill themselves if they choose to do so. But right-to-die advocates say that right should also be extended to those who want to end their lives before the onset of illness and incapacitation that comes with age.

A petition asking the Dutch parliament to debate whether all people over 70 have a right to suicide gathered more than 117,000 signatures. The petition’s sponsors hope to put it on the parliamentary agenda after elections in June. You can read the full article on the Deutsche Welle website at http://bit.ly/dmaGWU

We have had a poll running for some time on Euthenasia at http://bit.ly/8ceiQn So far 27% support euthenasia and 35% support it “with safeguards”

Posted in lifestyle/health | 6 Comments »

Who is your pick for new UK Labour Party Leader?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

A new Politics/Elections poll has been created.

Gordon Brown announced his resignation as leader of the Labour Party after leading Labour to a manjor loss in May elections.The new leader will be elected through a ballot of MPs, MEPs, party members and members of affiliated organisations such as trade unions, with the outcome being announced at the party conference in September.
The ballot will be Labour’s first contested leadership election since 1994. Gordon Brown did not face a challenge in 2007. The lsit below is not confrimed but based on press statements and will be updated progressively. Candidates need the backing of 33MPs to get on the ballot.

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Posted in Politics - UK | 2 Comments »

VoteGlobal Update

Monday, May 24th, 2010

As we near the conclusion of our somewhat extended soft launch period we wanted to reach out to everyone that has registered at the site or signed up as a volunteer. If that seems like spam please do go ahead and take yourself off the list by hitting unsubscribe. VoteGlobal is a not for profit and apolitical site that’s all about democracy and choice so we certainly don’t want to be in anyone’s face
Where we are up to
VoteGlobal has been in soft launch while we test the system and get the bugs out. While there are many features we now know we would like to add we at least do know that the basic site functionality works and our polling engine is quite rugged thanks to great work by Chris Jones and we know that people can find their way around and react to the navigation well thanks to all the efforts of Andy Davies who has been the driving force behind turning the vision into reality. We have only had one outage of our service at Amazon though that was problematic in that it was hard to get help from them in finding out what was wrong.

To date we have promoted the site to friends and family only and we have experimented with various social media. We have done a little bit with Facebook and do update our page there with new polls and we did some successful experiments with minor advertising on Facebook too. Mostly however we got wrapped up in running a Twitter feed which was something we experimented with and found we got good traction in bringing people to vote. Currently we have about 3200 followers across our various Twitter accounts which is not earth shattering but a good start given the modest outreach. There are a few hundred members and we have processed about 14,000 votes.

What comes next?

We are now entering a period in which we want to expand our activity and support a tilt at some serious fund raising. The plan is to approach a number of Foundations that are active in the democracy and political space and seek funding to enable us to grow into a mainstream site and realize our vision. We aim to raise enough funding that we can afford to complete all the feature development of the existing site and develop an iphone and other mobile apps but in particular we want to be able to beef up our content. To this end we are keen to hire a paid full time Editor in Chief who can really build out the depth of the site. We have an excellent candidate in mind and there are some great people out there. Over time we see funding the editorial process as a key function so that ultimately whilst we always draw from a strong array of volunteers we also have core full time editors covering each major region and language and specialists in different media channels. We also need to fund some straightforward marketing and buy advertising to promote hot polls.

Over the next 90 days we would like to draw on the generosity of our members to devote time as volunteers so that we can ramp up the activity at VoteGlobal and better demonstrate to potential funders just what a properly funded VoteGlobal could achieve. We are also going to start a press outreach campaign. So to this end we are very keen to get more help with content creation (not just in English) and editing along with people to help manage and edit our twitter streams and develop out our other social media strategies.

PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN – even a few hours here and there will make a big difference. Please email me if you are prepared to volunteer at mjgale@voteglobal.com

Thank you

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Thailand protests: Red or Yellow?

Monday, May 17th, 2010

A new Politics/Elections poll has been created.

Thailand has been gripped by an escalating political crisis since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted from office in a military coup in September 2006.

The Red Shirts, the protesters, primarily come from Thailand’s rural north and strongly support Mr Thaksin.
The opponents of Mr Thaksin call themselves the Peoples’ Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and wear yellow shirts.

Where do you stand on this crisis?

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Posted in Politics - Asia-Pacific, Politics - U.S. | No Comments »

Iran-Turkey Nuclear Deal: Positive Step or Bad Idea?

Monday, May 17th, 2010

A new People_and_Places poll has been created.

Iran has agreed a deal with Turkey to send its low-enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel from the United States, France and Russia. What is your reaction?

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

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