Showing 1 - 10 of 36
Who is next for the United States?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/01/2026
» The Crazy Gang are high on the "brilliant success" of their Venezuela caper and looking for new targets. Like Alexander the Great, US President Donald Trump weeps because there are no more worlds to conquer. But wait! Actually, there are still lots of places to conquer.
Musk's Starship: If it sounds too good to be true...
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/12/2025
» Elon Musk promised to build a spaceship that would put people and cargo into Earth orbit at one-hundredth of the current cost per kilo and even enable human beings to create a colony on Mars. A great many people were seduced by the idea, including me.
Kingdom of Denmark vs the Shadow Fleet
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/10/2025
» Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, two-thirds of the Danish kingdom's income came from taxes paid by every ship passing through the Øresund ('The Sound') Strait, the only exit from the Baltic Sea. Each ship had to declare its cargo -- and if the Danes thought they were undervaluing it, Denmark had the right to buy it at the declared price.
Three hours in Greenland and plenty of bluster
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/04/2025
» 'We need to wake up from a failed, 40-year consensus that said we could ignore the encroachment of powerful countries as they expand their ambitions," said US Vice-President JD Vance during his brief visit to the US military base at Pituffik in northern Greenland. (It was brief because the Greenland authorities wouldn't let Mr Vance go anywhere else.)
Trump can't do that much climate damage
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/01/2025
» 'Drill, baby, drill", exulted the new President of the World (American branch), but he will find that the oil and gas industry isn't listening. As Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, tactfully put it in November: "I'm not sure how 'drill, baby, drill' translates into policy."
Vintage tonnage keeps Russian oil flowing
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/01/2025
» The name is brilliant: "vintage tonnage". It evokes 17th-century pirate vessels flying the skull-and-crossbones, 18th-century ships-of-the-line bristling with cannons, or even 19th-century clipper ships in full sail bringing tea to England and America. The images are always romantic and often beautiful.
There's no happy ending for the Chagos Islands
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/10/2024
» If you believe the British government (which you should never do), a new agreement will bring justice for the people of the Chagos Islands, who have lived in exile for more than half a century after the main island, Diego Garcia, was turned into a giant American airbase in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The link between climate and talk of 'remigration'
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/10/2024
» 'Remigration": the word had a harmless origin, as a term academics used to describe the phenomenon of migrants who failed to thrive in their new home and decided to go back to their birth country.
The mother of all climate feedbacks?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/05/2024
» 'Just like this year, last year the heatwave extended from parts of India to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and all the way to Thailand. This year it went further east, into the Philippines. So, it's the same pattern," said Prof Krishna Achutarao of the Indian Institute of Technology. "I do not particularly buy into this idea that El Niño is the cause."
Hope on horizon for starving Palestinians?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/03/2024
» Good news! The US logistical support ship General Frank S. Besson Junior has just sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, carrying the equipment needed to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza. That will enable the US to deliver food to the starving (yes, literally starving) Palestinian population of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip.