4 December 2022 Ukraine – Winter War By Gwynne Dyer When the two most senior military and intelligence officials in Washington make the same obvious error in public three times in three weeks, you have to wonder what they are really up to. Can it just be simple ignorance, or do they have a hidden …
30 November 2022 China’s Covid Trap By Gwynne Dyer “Our COVID-19 policy is the most scientifically effective, the most economical, and yields the best result,” insisted the ‘People’s Daily’ newspaper in China after mass public protests against the government’s ‘zero covid’ policy last weekend. If President Xi Jinping believes that, he is in for a …
27 November 2011 Malaysia: Change At Last? If Anwar Ibrahim had become prime minister of Malaysia in the late 1990s, when he was in his early 50s, instead of being jailed on trumped-up sodomy and corruption charges, Malaysia might now be a very different place. He’s finally getting his chance – he was sworn in …
23 November 2022 Vinland: A Question of Timing By Gwynne Dyer “If the 20th century AD were dated at the same resolution as the 20th century BC, the two World Wars would be indistinguishable in time; and the Montgomery Bus Strike might post-date the release of Mandela.” So wrote the ECHOES team of palaeohistorians at …
21 November 2022 COP 27: Glass Half Full By Gwynne Dyer As after every climate summit, the air is filled with shouts of rage and despair. What was agreed was unclear and inadequate, and what was left undecided or simply ignored was vast and terrifying. For example, they still haven’t managed to agree that the …
16 November 2022 Eight Billion and Counting By Gwynne Dyer I must have missed the memo, because there was no newborn baby picked out at random last Tuesday to be the designated eight billionth human being. Perhaps they finally realised how tacky that journalistic device was, or maybe they just got tired of nagging us. …
13 November 2022 Ukraine: Where Next? By Gwynne Dyer The recovery of the city of Kherson is the third big victory for the Ukrainian armed forces in three months: first, the reconquest of all of Kharkiv Oblast (province) in September, then the partial destruction of the Kerch Strait bridge linking Crimea with Russia in October, …
2 November 2022 Climate, Cairo and the Amazon By Gwynne Dyer This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) opens in Cairo next Sunday and continues for two weeks, but all that hot air is less important than the single fact that ‘Lula’ da Silva narrowly won the Brazilian presidency last Sunday. He may be …
31 October 2022 Musk: The Benign Sociopath By Gwynne Dyer Elon Musk is that rarest of things, a benign sociopath, and therefore a person of considerable value to the world. He has just made a mistake that could ruin his long-term plan, for his purchase of Twitter is almost bound to end in tears. The …
26 October 2022 Israel: Yet Another Election By Gwynne Dyer Israeli voters are indefatigable. The election on November 1st will be the fifth in just three-and-a-half years, and yet the turnout is still likely to be around 70%. That’s especially remarkable because all five elections have really been about the same question: should Binyamin ‘Bibi’ …