800 words (700) 8 May 2025 India and Israel: Parallel Tracks By Gwynne Dyer There is a striking parallel between the twenty-month war in the Gaza Strip and the week-old not-yet-war between India and Pakistan. Both confrontations were set off by horrendously cruel mass murders by terrorists whose goal was obviously to start a war […]
2 April 2025 Nuclear Powers: The Third Wave By Gwynne Dyer The ‘third wave’ of nuclear weapons countries is beginning, and it will be at least as dangerous as the previous waves. Maybe more so, because it will be happening in a world where the old, predatory style of international politics is coming back after
21 January 2024 Routine Rockets By Gwynne Dyer Not all that long ago, attacking another country’s territory was still seen as a big deal. It was, in legal terms, an ‘act of war’, liable to have unpleasant and potentially unlimited consequences including full-scale war. Very powerful countries occasionally made small, one-off attacks on very weak
17 December 2023 Burma on the Brink By Gwynne Dyer The Burmese army is a leading candidate for Nastiest Army in the World. Even more than Pakistan’s army, it is the tail that wags the dog: rather than the army serving the country, it’s the other way around. Its record for massacring civilians whenever they
08 August 2023 Democracy and the Courts by Gwynne Dyer Three of the world’s biggest democracies, all with past, present, and/or prospective leaders facing prison at the same time. In the end, it’s the courts that decide. Donald Trump in the United States is under five indictments in three jurisdictions, potentially involving up to 10
27 March 2023 Precision Fermentation: Catastrophe Lifeline By Gwynne Dyer On Saturday Asteroid 2023 DZ2 flew by our planet at 27,000 km per hour, closer to us than it was to the Moon. It was less than one-hundredth of the diameter of the gigantic asteroid that took down the dinosaurs and most other animals 66
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
27 December 2021 ‘Nuclear Twilight’: Something Else to Worry About By Gwynne Dyer As a dreadful year draws to an end and the Omicron variant turns out to be less lethal than its predecessors, premature outbreaks of cheerfulness have been spotted in many quarters. As I am under a contractual obligation to keep the readers
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20 December 2020 The ‘Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance’ was passed into law in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on 28 November, providing jail sentences of up to ten years for Muslim men who marry Hindu women with the intention of converting them. ‘Love Jihad’ must be stopped at all costs, to
16 December 2020 Ten years ago this week Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia, set himself alight in front of a government building in rage at the corrupt dictatorship that had ruined his young life. His sacrifice wakened hope in millions of others – but then half a million of them also died, although