30 August 2023 Pope Francis: Some Confusion, Perhaps By Gwynne Dyer Javier Milei, who is very likely to be elected president of Argentina in the October election, is fairly frank in his view of Pope Francis, a fellow Argentine. He calls Francis “a Communist turd” and “the representative of the Evil One on Earth”. Even …
27 August 2023 Expanding the BRICS By Gwynne Dyer You can expand the curious organisation called the BRICS, but you can’t define it. In fact, it’s hardly even an organisation: no headquarters, no secretariat. Even the (British) Commonwealth and la Francophonie have more substance: at least they share a former oppressor. Yet the BRICS are …
23 August 2023 China: A Message from Russia By Gwynne Dyer The Ukrainians have been cheering themselves up recently by sending drones to hit targets in Moscow’s business district and the more exclusive western suburbs. (The Russians, who bomb Ukrainian cities and kill civilians almost every night, refer to this as ‘terrorism’.) On Monday evening …
20 August 2023 Zimbabwe and the ‘Ruling Party Syndrome’ By Gwynne Dyer “No-one will stop us from ruling this country. You will be lost if you don’t vote for ZANU-PF,” said President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe. A bit more arrogant than the usual election pitch in most parts of the world, perhaps, but not unusual …
16 August 2023 Trump: The Mills of the Gods By Gwynne Dyer “The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine,” wrote Sextus Empiricus, a Sceptic philosopher who lived mainly in Athens and Alexandria almost 2,000 years ago. Justice may be slow to come, but in the end the wicked will be …
13 August 2023 Moon Race By Gwynne Dyer Don’t say ‘Moon Race’. Perish the thought! But there is a race to land on the Moon, and the Russians are cheating. Well, sort of cheating. It’s the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), renowned for its ability to do big things on a relatively small budget (ca. …
10 August 2023 Cambodia: Another Generation of Huns By Gwynne Dyer On Monday the most amazing political survivor of the 20th century, Hun Sen, formally passed the rule of Cambodia down to his eldest son Manet after 38 years in power. From youthful commander in the genocidal Khmer Rouge to Vietnamese puppet to coup-maker to …
2 August 2023 El Salvador: ‘The World’s Coolest Dictator’ By Gwynne Dyer “It’s not perfect, but it’s good. We’ve done something really good here,” said El Salvador’s vice-president, Felix Ulloa, defending the government’s no-quarter war against the street gangs that have dominated the Central American republic for decades. President Nayib Bukele agrees, calling himself “the …