30 July 2022 James Lovelock: Darwin’s Heir By Gwynne Dyer Jim Lovelock was a late bloomer. His first book, ‘Gaia: a New Look at Life on Earth’, was published in 1979, when he was already 60 years old. By the time he died last Thursday, on his 103rd birthday, he had written ten more books …
27 July 2022 Tunisia: The Last Arab Democracy Goes Under By Gwynne Dyer Tunisia would seem to have everything going for it. Average salaries are the third-highest in all of Africa’s fifty countries, just behind Morocco and South Africa. Literacy is 97% among the under-30s, population growth is only 1% a year, and it’s a …
25 July 2022 Monkeypox is a Reminder By Gwynne Dyer Monkeypox is very unpleasant and it spreads very fast, but it’s not a real killer: 16,000 cases in 75 countries in just a couple of months is impressive, but there have been only five deaths. Yet the World Health Organisation (WHO) has just declared monkeypox …
20 July 2022 Ukraine Black Sea Corridor By Gwynne Dyer “Not all issues have yet been resolved, but the fact that there is movement is already good,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran on Tuesday. “We feel that incrementally, there’s been a little bit more progress made, but there’s nothing to announce at this …
Here’s an interesting fact. Only 14 per cent of people in England and Wales are ‘Black, Asian, Mixed or Other’ (i.e. non-white). Yet half the candidates vying to take the place of disgraced British prime minister Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party-and therefore the new prime minister-are non-white. Four out of eight. In …
Political Leaders and the Great Multicultural Experiment Read More »
18 July 2022 Iran Nukes: End of the Road By Gwynne Dyer About six weeks ago Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that the attempt to revive the 2015 deal that restricted Iran’s ability to enrich uranium was on the brink of collapse. Three or four weeks more without …
“The sinking ship has left the rat,” said Keir Starmer, leader of Britain’s Labour Party, as the ruling Conservative Party forced Prime Minister Boris Johnson to resign as party leader. He had told one lie too many, and his own party’s patience finally ran out. There were many other reasons to ditch him. Almost all …
11 July 2022 Sri Lanka: A Band of Brothers By Gwynne Dyer “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked (in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel ‘The Sun Also Rises’). “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” Sri Lanka is much the same. The James Brothers robbed banks. The Marx brothers made people laugh. The Rajapaksa …
It was a piece of news so obscure and implausible that I missed it when it first surfaced last month. The news was that the Russians are going to put hypersonic nuclear missiles into Nicaragua and terrify the Americans into backing down over Ukraine. Or kill them all if they don’t. “If American missile systems …
Cuban Missile Crisis Redivivus: Russian Rockets in Nicaragua Read More »
“He’s finished. There’s no way he will survive this,” said Lord Heseltine, the grand old man of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party. He was talking about Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s latest self-inflicted wound, and he’s an expert in such matters: it was Heseltine who brought down that other Conservative hero, Margaret Thatcher. Two of the most …