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 …
4 October 2023 A Short War Fifty Years Ago By Gwynne Dyer In 1973, fifty years ago on Friday, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, coincided with Ramadan, the Islamic lunar month of fasting. But nobody raised an alarm in Israel when it was reported, two days before the Arab attack, that …
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. …
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 …
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 …
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, …
14 June 2023 Populism: End of an Era – or Just a Pause? By Gwynne Dyer We’re going to miss the populist ‘big beasts’ now that they’re gone. Who will now tell us that “Voting Conservative will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3”? (Boris Johnson) …
10 May 2023 Turkey: A Hundred Years of Culture War By Gwynne Dyer Turkey’s elections are fairly free, and there is going to be one this Sunday (14 May). President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been in power for two decades, and he should really lose by a landslide. Imagine what the United States would be …
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 …
12 April 2023 Taiwan: Ignore China’s Conniptions By Gwynne Dyer China has been having conniptions again. President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan had a courtesy meeting last week with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy. Beijing reacted by issuing a “stern warning” to the United States, and then “encircled” the island (its …