Showing 1 - 10 of 14
What went so wrong in Latin America?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/10/2025
» Javier Milei, the Elon Musk wannabe who became president of Argentina two years ago, chainsaw in hand, is now in deep trouble with the voters, and the mid-term elections are due this month. He has the same political agenda as Donald Trump, give or take a folly or two, so he asked his populist big brother for help, and Mr Trump delivered.
The slide back to war: Kagame and Trump
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/01/2025
» We seem to be drifting back into the world of "Might Makes Right". That would be a bad place to be.
Francis not the liberal Pope the world is keen for
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/09/2023
» Javier Milei, who is very likely to be elected president of Argentina in the October election, is fairly frank in his view of Pope Francis, a fellow Argentine. He calls Pope Francis "a Communist turd" and "the representative of the Evil One on Earth". Even for a ranter like Mr Milei, who ranks very high on the Trump scale of invective, that's rare praise.
Which way for Malaysia under Anwar Ibrahim?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/12/2022
» If Anwar Ibrahim had become prime minister of Malaysia in the late 1990s, when he was in his early 50s, instead of being jailed on trumped-up sodomy and corruption charges, Malaysia might now be a very different place. He's finally getting his chance, but now he's 75. Is it too late for the kind of Malaysia he promised?
Vinland history: a question of dates, timing
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/11/2022
» 'If the 20th century AD were dated at the same resolution as the 20th century BC, the two World Wars would be indistinguishable in time; and the Montgomery Bus Strike might post-date the release of Mandela." So wrote the Exact Chronology of Early Societies' (ECHOES) team of palaeohistorians at Groningen University in the northern Netherlands -- and then they fixed the problem.
War sounds death knell for The Last Empire
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/09/2022
» This is not another pipe-sucking reassessment of Mikhail Gorbachev's failed attempt to democratise the Soviet Union thirty years ago. He wasn't actually trying to do that anyway; he was attempting to save the Soviet Union and Communism by civilising and softening the harsh Bolshevik dictatorship that had prevailed since 1917.
Chagos: a 50-year-old UK-US crime
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/02/2022
» 'The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours.... There will be no indigenous population except seagulls," wrote Sir Paul Gore-Booth, a senior official at the British Foreign Office, as the plan to expel the 2,000 Chagos Islanders from their homes was taking shape in 1966. "We must surely be very tough about this."
Peru on edge after Castillo's election victory
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/08/2021
» Peru holds the current record for revolving presidents -- three came and went in a month last November; for coronavirus deaths -- almost 6,000 per million, and for the youngest-looking president -- seen from afar, under his trademark straw hat, he looks like a 13-year-old boy. But appearances are deceiving.
Taiwan is still in China's web of war games
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/01/2021
» Most news agencies reported on Sunday that China sent large groups of fighters and bombers into the Taiwanese airspace two days in a row. Much fluttering in the dovecote: the Chinese are testing the resolve of newly installed US President Joe Biden.
Premature to mourn death of Bolivia's democracy
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/10/2020
» The quotation is usually given as "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely", but Lord Acton's original remark went on to say: "Great men are almost always bad men." And so they are.