Showing 51 - 60 of 96
The game of Beijing versus Taipei
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/12/2019
» One of the lesser unsolved mysteries of our time is why countries whose names end in 'u' prefer the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People's Republic of China (Beijing). Of the 15 countries that still recognise Taiwan as the real and legitimate China, three have 'u' at the end of their names: Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu.
Cameroon's war on anglophones is self-defeating
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/11/2019
» Sometimes Donald Trump gets it right. In February he cut off US military aid to the central African country of Cameroon because of its appalling human rights record (and didn't even offer to restore it if the Cameroon government dug up dirt on his political opponents at home). Last Friday he acted again, dropping Cameroon from a pact that promotes trade between sub-Saharan African countries and the US.
Proroguing parliament was Johnson's only option
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/08/2019
» Shock! Horror! Johnson prorogues Parliament! End of democracy in Britain! The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, says he was not even consulted, and calls it "a constitutional outrage".
'Dysfunctional' Trump and Iran
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/07/2019
» Iran has "begun its march ... towards nuclear weaponry", said Israel's energy minister Yuval Steinitz, and that is technically correct. Only one year and 60 days after US President Donald Trump tore up the treaty that guaranteed Iran won't make nuclear weapons, Iran has taken a tiny step towards reviving its nuclear programme.
No populist breakthrough yet in Europe
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/05/2019
» For the second time in a month, a member country of the European Union has not voted a populist into power. Could it be that the populist wave has broken?
Israel's election and the West Bank
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/04/2019
» It shouldn't have been a surprise when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday, three days before the Israeli election, that he is going to annex all the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. After all, every other member of his Likud Party in the Israeli parliament (28 out of 29) had already said they wanted to do that. Yet it did come as a surprise.
Welcome back to the Troubles?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/03/2019
» The other Europeans are not laughing at the English for the most part. They are looking at them with pity and scorn. But also with a great deal of impatience.
The silence over China's Muslims in Xinjiang
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/03/2019
» Muslim governments were not silent when Myanmar murdered thousands of Rohingya, its Muslim minority, and expelled 700,000 of them across the border into Bangladesh. They were unanimous in their anger when the Trump administration moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But they are almost silent on China's attempt to suppress Islam in its far western province, Xinjiang.
India-Pakistan: Maybe war, but not a water war
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/03/2019
» After the terrorist attack on Indian troops in Kashmir two weeks ago that killed 40 Indian soldiers, but before Tuesday's retaliatory air strikes across the border into Pakistan by the Indian Air Force, the Indian government did something unprecedented. It threatened to cut off Pakistan's water. Or at least, it sounded like that.
The Great Dying, the Little Ice Age, and little old us
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2019
» The Black Death killed about 30% of the European population in a few years in the middle of the 14th century. A century and a half later the native people of the Americas were hit by half a dozen plagues as bad as the Black Death, one after another, and 95% of them died. The plagues of the "Great Dying" had much less terrifying names like measles, influenza, diphtheria and smallpox, but they were just as efficient at killing.