Showing 1 - 10 of 24
The case of the disappearing senior generals
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/02/2026
» Armies can be used against both against foreigners abroad and against citizens at home, but the two roles require quite different equipment and tactics. The same applies to their commanders: you need a different kind of general if you think that the primary task of their troops will be controlling dissent at home.
The lost cause of the 'Catalan Pimpernel'
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/08/2024
» Carles Puigdemont, the self-exiled leader of the Catalan separatist movement, aspires to become the new Scarlet Pimpernel. Last week he left Belgium, where he has lived as an unwelcome guest since he led a failed attempt to secede from Spain seven years ago, and had himself smuggled back to Barcelona, the capital of the region of Catalonia.
Rambling Joe Biden officially a lost cause
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/07/2024
» It really doesn't matter whether Joe Biden is in peak condition intellectually during a second term as president. He did some useful things in his first term, but his main job now is to stop Donald Trump from coming back. If he succeeded in doing that and went gaga immediately afterwards, the ship of state would carry on regardless.
Imran Khan: from cricket star to jailbird
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2024
» Pakistan's former prime minister, former cricket superstar and latter-day populist politician Imran Khan was having a quiet week in jail, six months into his three-year sentence for corruption, and suddenly all hell broke loose.
The benign sociopath that is Elon Musk
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/11/2022
» Elon Musk is that rarest of things, a benign sociopath, and therefore a person of considerable value to the world. He has just made a mistake that could ruin his long-term plan, for his purchase of Twitter is almost bound to end in tears. The sharks are always circling the very rich and highly geared, and I find myself worrying about him.
Gifted James Lovelock was Darwin's heir
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/08/2022
» Jim Lovelock was a late bloomer. His first book, Gaia: a New Look at Life on Earth, was published in 1979 when he was already 60 years old. By the time he died last Thursday, on his 103rd birthday, he had written ten more books on Gaia, the hypothesis that has evolved into the key academic discipline of Earth System Science.
Lebanon quickly sinking in more ways than one
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/10/2021
» Off the Lebanese coast about 60 kilometres north of Beirut a 104-metre battleship stands vertically, with her bow and some 30 metres of her length plunged into the mud. The seabed is 140 metres down, but you can even scuba-dive on the stern if you are a technical diver. The ship is a bit like Lebanon, for reasons I'll explain later.
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.
Some good news on the climate front
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/06/2021
» 'I see a huge and growing gap between the rhetoric and the reality," said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, two weeks ago, but he despaired a bit too soon. Last Wednesday a Dutch court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world's biggest oil companies, must cut its global carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030.
Bolsonaro must quarantine Brazil -- now
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/03/2021
» If I were a world dictator, I would immediately place Brazil under total quarantine: nobody gets in, nobody comes out. And I would keep it isolated until they (a) arrest and jail President Jair Bolsonaro; (b) impose a strict countrywide lockdown for at least two months; and (c) vaccinate everybody in the country (all 213,584,556 of them). And then we'll see.