22 December 2012 2012 Year-Ender By Gwynne Dyer To begin on a happy note, the world didn’t end this year. December 21st came and went without a sign of the Four Horsemen, leaving the Mayans (or rather their ancestors) with egg all over their faces. It just goes to show the perils of prediction – […]
28 November 2012 Separatist Dreams By Gwynne Dyer In other parts of the world, separatist movements are usually violent (e.g. Kashmir, Sri Lanka, the various Kurdish revolts) and they sometimes succeed (South Sudan, Eritrea, East Timor). Whereas in the prosperous, democratic countries of the West, they are generally peaceful, frivolous, and unsuccessful. A case in
14 October 212 Nobel Booby Prize? By Gwynne Dyer Maybe they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union because they couldn’t think of anybody else who wouldn’t embarrass them. Nelson Mandela already has one. So does Aung San Suu Kyi. Even Barak Obama has one, though what for is not exactly clear. They
6 June 2012 Another Euro Election By Gwynne Dyer It’s probably the first time that events in Spain have decided the outcome of a Greek election. Last weekend the European Union agreed to loan Spain’s nearly insolvent banks 100 billion euros on relatively easy terms. Syriza, the hard-left protest party that came from nowhere to
12 December 2011 Euro Crisis: Barking Up the Wrong Tree By Gwynne Dyer One senior European politician said angrily that British Prime Minister David Cameron was “like a man who comes to a wife-swapping party without his wife,” and there was some truth in that. Britain does not even use the euro currency, shared by
6 November 2011 Euro Crisis: Muddling Through By Gwynne Dyer In December 1893, the Greek prime minister of the day stood up in parliament and announced: “Regretfully, we are bankrupt.” Nobody was greatly surprised, because the country had already defaulted on its foreign debt three previous times during the 19th century. It defaulted once more
25 September 2011 Will The Euro Survive Until Tomorrow Afternoon? By Gwynne Dyer Few things are as galling as being right too soon. Back in 1970, dissident Soviet historian Andrei Amalrik wrote a book boldly called “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?” He predicted that it would not, which greatly annoyed the Communist regime.
18 April 2011 The Mediterranean Frontier By Gwynne Dyer “I wonder whether in this situation it makes sense to remain within the European Union,” said Italian foreign minister Roberto Maroni two weeks ago, in a crude attempt to blackmail other EU countries into taking more of Italy’s illegal immigrants. But the time may come when
20 June 2010 Today Belgium, Tomorrow the European Union By Gwynne Dyer Bart de Wever, the Flemish politician who promises the “evolutionary evaporation” of Belgium, is now the political king-maker in Brussels. The bureaucrats and politicians of the European Union, who also hang out in Brussels, will therefore have a ringside seat for the dismantling
14 May 2010 The Euro: a Near-death Experience By Gwynne Dyer What on Earth ever persuaded the Mediterranean members of the European Union to join the euro. The “single European currency” is currently used by 16 of the 27 EU countries, but all the others except Denmark and the United Kingdom have expressed their intention