3 April 2024 Russia: The Really Dangerous Ones Are Sane By Gwynne Dyer There are plenty of crazies in Russian politics who make bizarre claims about their country’s victim status (“the evil West made us do it”) and issue blood-curdling but implausible threats about using nuclear weapons on their enemies. But the really dangerous ones […]
13 March 2024 Haiti: The Curse of History By Gwynne Dyer It may seem that the violence and chaos that have gripped Haiti are finally being addressed. The unelected acting president nobody wanted, Ariel Henry, has resigned. An international police force may soon arrive in the Caribbean island to restore order. There is even talk
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
4 May 2022 By Gwynne Dyer We were talking recently about how clever the Ukrainians had been to call the invading Russian troops ‘Orcs’ even before all the atrocities in the Russian-occupied towns around Kyiv came to light. Then Tina said: “If Putin’s troops are Orcs, then he must be Sauron.” You can guess what
14 February 2022 World War 2.1? By Gwynne Dyer Columnists are not supposed to write about the same subject twice in a row, and only last week I wrote my umpteenth piece saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not going to invade Ukraine. But US President Joe Biden just gave us a hard date
16 Jan 22 Will Russia Play The ‘Cuban Card’? By Gwynne Dyer After a week of intense discussions about ‘security’ between Russia and the NATO countries, this is the week when the Western allies will send their written replies to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Various pundits, some of whom have actually been to Russia, warn
9 August 2021 Friday, 13 August, is the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, fell to the invaders after a long siege, and became Mexico City instead. It was a major historical event, still mourned by millions and celebrated by millions more five centuries after it
The Conquest of Mexico: Some History is Inevitable Read More »
4 July 2021 First the ‘heat dome’, with temperatures in the mid-to-high forties Celsius in many parts of western North America for up to a week (49.6° C in Lytton, B.C.). Then, when the forests were tinder-dry, came the wildfires (which wiped Lytton out). From northern California to northern BC, the records were being broken
29 March 2021 “We’re waiting on food goods like coconut milk and syrups, some spare parts for motors, we’ve got some fork lift trucks, some Amazon goods on there, all sorts,” said Steve Parks of Seaport Freight Services in England, who is awaiting twenty of the 18,300 containers aboard the recently freed ‘Ever Given’. Which
30 September 2020 I have just spent two weeks driving around Germany interviewing people (mostly climate scientists, since you ask), and I have come to the conclusion that it is the best-run – and quite possibly just the best – major country in the world right now. Some small countries are absolute jewels, of course,