Showing 451 - 460 of 484
Trump, Kim have reasons to be civil
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/03/2018
» I think I know why President Donald Trump suddenly agreed to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after a year of mutual threats and verbal abuse.
Aleppo and the media's distortions
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/03/2018
» The stop-go evacuation of rebel fighters and civilians from Aleppo had begun again as I write, but the reason for the last interruption was instructive. It was Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) that burned the buses coming to evacuate the wounded from Foah and Kefraya.
China's Xi shaping up as Chairman Mao of 21st century
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/02/2018
» The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approved a proposal on Monday that the country's president no longer be limited to two five-year terms of office. The National People's Congress will rubber-stamp the change. And that will be the end of three decades of consensus-seeking collective leadership in the CCP. The god-king model is back.
The Putin factor and Russia's future
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/02/2018
» Why wait another month to report on the Russian election when we can wrap it up right now? Vladimir Putin is going to win another six years in power by a landslide -- probably between 60% and 70% of the vote. The real question is what happens after that, because he will be 72 by the end of his next term and will not legally be allowed to run for president again.
Amateur hour in the Middle East -- and not much love
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/02/2018
» On Sunday it was revealed that the Syrian army has made a deal to help the Syrian Kurds (who are technically rebels) fight off the Turkish invasion of Afrin, a chunk of Syrian territory on the northwestern border with Turkey that has been held by the Kurds since 2012.
Purge needed so South Africa's ANC can revive economy
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/02/2018
» As a passer-by in the upscale Johannesburg suburb of Saxonwold observed, the South African police would never have raided the enormous, high-walled compound of the Gupta family if President Jacob Zuma were not on the brink of being removed. But early on Wednesday morning, the police did exactly that.
Robots declare war on the middle class
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/02/2018
» Don't bother asking if jobs are being lost to computers. Of course they are, and the current wave of populist political revolts in Western countries is what Luddism looks like in an era of industrialised democracies. The right question to ask is: What kinds of jobs are being lost? Moravec's Paradox predicted the answer almost 30 years ago.
A healthcare no-brainer for Mr Trump
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/02/2018
» It began, as so many things do these days, with a Donald Trump tweet. Frustrated by his inability to kill the “Obamacare” expansion of public healthcare provision in the United States, Mr Trump seized on a protest about the under-funding of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) in London last Saturday to trash the entire concept of universal healthcare paid out of taxes and free at the point of delivery.
US military revives its tired 'limited' nuclear war theory
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/02/2018
» The US "Nuclear Posture Review" recently published by the Pentagon announced the United States will get two new types of nuclear weapons to provide, in the words of US officials, "more flexible capabilities to give tailored deterrence".
Time to annul Suu Kyi's Nobel Prize
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/02/2018
» Nobel Peace Prize winners sometimes go on to undistinguished later careers, and some seem to have got the prize by mistake. Barack Obama, for example. But there has never before been one who went on to become a genocidal criminal.