Showing 1 - 10 of 12
Venezuela: Performative purging
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/12/2025
» 'If you're on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever, headed to the United States, you're an immediate threat to the United States," said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week. So it's perfectly reasonable for the US armed forces to kill everybody on that boat (including a "double tap" on any survivors in the water).
Jane Goodall and the chimp wars
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/10/2025
» Jane Goodall died last week, still on the road at the age of 91 and still advocating for biodiversity in general and the welfare of chimpanzees in particular. She was a hero to me and millions of others for her courage, her wisdom and her compassion. She was also one of the greatest self-taught scientists in history.
Here's a taste of things to come in the US
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/10/2025
» 'Predictions are hard, especially about the future' (Danish proverb), but still we make them, especially when we care about the future. Here are some about the future of the United States in the next three and a bit years, expressed as probabilities, although you should not trust the numbers.
Will Xi Jinping be in charge of China forever?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/10/2022
» In the Chinese Communist Party's 20th National Congress, which begins in Beijing on Sunday, President Xi Jinping is expected to be confirmed as president-for-life. If that actually happens, China's ascent to genuine superpower status will be at least delayed. At worst (from the Chinese perspective), it may not happen at all.
The rise and fall of sociopathic leadership
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/02/2022
» Igenerally leave the psychohistory to Hari Seldon, but just this once I feel sufficiently motivated to venture into the field. The immediate spur for this departure is the spectacle -- half-fascination, half-disgust -- of Boris Johnson, Britain's part-time prime minister, gradually foundering in a sea of his own lies. But there are other examples, too.
Pantomimes, Brexit and Boris Johnson
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/10/2020
» The British pantomime is a traditional Christmas entertainment in which stock characters face imaginary dangers and audience participation is encouraged ("He's behind you!"), but the play never frightens the children and it always has a happy ending.
What if China won't back down to Trump?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/05/2019
» Donald Trump is playing hard-ball with China over trade, and the worry-warts are fretting that he's going to start a real trade war by accident. The bigger threat, however, is that he will push first China, and then the whole world, into a deep recession.
A journalist's funeral in Ireland reignites deadly past
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/04/2019
» On Wednesday, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of the Republic of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, and Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom, both showed up in Belfast in Northern Ireland for the funeral of a young woman called Lyra McKee. So did the president of the Republic, Michael Higgins and UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. It's quite possible that none of them had even heard of her a week ago.
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.
No real choice in Nigerian election
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/02/2019
» Lengthy delays before announcing the results of African elections are commonplace (the Democratic Republic of Congo last month, Zimbabwe last July, etc.). It just means that people voted the wrong way, and the government needs time to re-arrange the results before publishing them. Postponing the vote at the last moment is much less common, and not so easy to explain.