18 July 2005 The Varieties of Corruption By Gwynne Dyer If you are a politician, there are few more embarrassing experiences than to be caught at an airport with the equivalent of $100,000 stuffed into your underpants. Only one political gaffe has a higher embarrassment quotient: being tape-recorded on the phone to a senior electoral …
17 February 2005 Lula: Losing Track By Gwynne Dyer Brazil is a rough place even for ordinary citizens; it is hell on wheels for social and political reformers. Even when the reformers win power there, they can’t protect their own. That is why Sister Dorothy Stang was murdered on 12 February. In the late 70s …
8 January 2004 Lula’s Brazil By Gwynne Dyer “All the hallmarks of an impending default are visible: a soaring public sector debt burden; high short-term interest rates; low growth; a rapidly depreciating currency; and an international loss of confidence. At current market rates, even an optimist would admit Brazil is insolvent.” That was the verdict …
15 October 2003 The ‘Brics’: Back To The Future By Gwynne Dyer Thirty-three years after China launched its first satellite, a high-tech boom-box called Mao 1 that broadcast a tinny version of ‘The East Is Red’ to an underwhelmed world, it has finally put a man into space. But the pace is picking up: Beijing …
17 September 2003 New Gang in Town By Gwynne Dyer Something very important happened in Mexico last week. You could tell, because the European and American trade negotiators were so cross as they left the 146-nation trade talks at Cancun that they were practically spitting. The European Union’s trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, damned the World …
THE EU AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER GAVE SUCH A GOOD QUOTE YESTERDAY THAT I RE-WROTE THE ARTICLE. DON’T WORRY IF YOU’VE USED IT ALREADY. 4 September 2003 Farming Is Different By Gwynne Dyer On 9-14 September the World Trade Organisation brings together the trade ministers of 146 countries in Cancun, Mexico to try for a new deal …
5 October 2002 Lula and the Markets By Gwynne Dyer George Soros, the world’s leading currency speculator, told a Brazilian newspaper in August that the 170 million Brazilians simply wouldn’t be allowed to have Labour Party leader Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva as their president. The higher his standing rose in the opinion polls, the …