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Israel-Hamas Ceasefire

22 November 2023 Israel-Hamas Ceasefire By Gwynne Dyer There are really three parties to the ‘pause’ – nobody is officially using the word ‘ceasefire’ – that brings at least a temporary end to the fighting in the Gaza Strip. Two of the three parties, Hamas and the United States, would very much like it to …

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Guyana: Oil and Time

17 September 2023 Guyana: Oil and Time By Gwynne Dyer Guyana is not a ‘hellhole country’ of the sort Donald Trump complained about when he said he wanted immigrants to come to the US from white places like Norway instead, but it did used to be poor, tropical and largely populated by people of colour. …

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El Salvador: ‘The World’s Coolest Dictator’

2 August 2023 El Salvador: ‘The World’s Coolest Dictator’ By Gwynne Dyer “It’s not perfect, but it’s good. We’ve done something really good here,” said El Salvador’s vice-president, Felix Ulloa, defending the government’s no-quarter war against the street gangs that have dominated the Central American republic for decades. President Nayib Bukele agrees, calling himself “the …

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Heat Waves and Tipping Points

17 July 2023 Heat Waves and Tipping Points By Gwynne Dyer “What we’re seeing is climate impacts that scientists thought would accompany certain temperatures happening far more rapidly, with far more devastating effects than had been forecast,” said Dr. Simon Nicholson of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment at American University. “We didn’t think that …

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Violence in France

2 July 2023 Violence in France By Gwynne Dyer On Saturday, the fifth day of violent protests all over France against the police killing of an unarmed teenager, Nahel Merzouk, the daily arrests dropped below 1,000 for the first time – but the violence became even more extreme. In L’Haÿ-les-Roses, a southern suburb of Paris, …

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Massacres and Guns

7 May 2023 Massacres and Guns By Gwynne Dyer Here’s how to sound wise when writing a story about mass killings and gun control. Last week saw two such massacres in Serbia (eight deaths and nine deaths respectively) and only one in the United States (eight killed in a mall in Allen, Texas). There was …

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