Showing 1 - 10 of 11
Brazil and the US: Same crime, different fate
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/09/2025
» If Donald Trump were a religious man, he might have said "There but for the grace of God go I" when he heard that former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had been sentenced to 27 years in prison. Bolsonaro's crime was to have plotted a coup to take back the presidency he lost in the 2022 election.
Over in Canada, PM Trudeau bites the dust
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/01/2025
» Donald Trump excels in every field, including surrealism. Leonard Cohen sang "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin!", but it's completely outclassed by Mr Trump's "First we take Greenland, then we take Canada!" And he's going to take the Panama Canal too!
Nobody really wants to be a Nazi, but....
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/12/2024
» 'Alternativ fur Deutschland" (AfD) means "The Alternative for Germany", and the alternative on offer is fascism. Not actual Naziism, but the AfD uses fascist rhetoric and tactics to attract German voters. It has also attracted some improbable foreign admirers.
Ukraine War: South Korea to the rescue?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/11/2024
» The consensus assumption is still that Donald Trump will force Ukraine to yield to Russia as soon as he takes office on Jan 20. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself said on Friday that once Mr Trump becomes president the war with Russia will "end sooner" than it would otherwise have done.
Iran's theocracy simply cannot go on forever
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/07/2024
» 'I have heard that people's zeal and interest is higher than in the first round [of Iran's presidential election]," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian TV just before the second round of voting on Sunday. "It is wrong to assume those who abstained in the first round are opposed to Islamic rule."
What's wrong with the Philippines?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/05/2022
» 'Bongbong" Marcos didn't just win the presidential election in the Philippines this week. He won it by a two-to-one landslide, despite the fact that he is the extremely entitled son of a former president who stole at least US$10 billion and a mother who spent the loot partly on the world's most extensive collection of designer shoes (3,000 pairs).
English speakers feel Covid's wrath
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/02/2021
» To those who obsessively followed Covid websites over the past 11 months, one thing demanded an explanation above all: Why were the worst death rates-per-million in the richest, most developed countries, and in the United States and the United Kingdom most of all?
What if Trump triumphs again?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/09/2020
» 'To lose one parent... may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness," wrote Oscar Wilde in his play The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895.
Ukraine has nothing left to lose in latest vote
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/04/2019
» Ukraine has a new president, and he's a comedian! Oh, wait a minute, that's not such a big deal. Guatemala was the first country to elect a comedian as president: Jimmy Morales, back in 2015. Although Mr Morales turned sort of serious once he took office: he's a right-wing nationalist who supports the death penalty and opposes abortion. Whereas Volodymyr Zelensky hasn't turned.
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.