Showing 1 - 10 of 14
Somaliland: Mixed motivations
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/01/2026
» Last week Israel was the first country in the world to establish diplomatic relations with Somaliland. Not Somalia, a wreck of a country on the East African coast that has been mired in civil war for the past thirty-five years, but Somaliland, a different country just north of there that has been peaceful, relatively prosperous and even democratic for all those years.
EU leaders must master Trump management
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/08/2025
» It's like one of those slapstick comedies from the early days of silent films: the "Keystone Cops" movies, perhaps, or Buster Keaton's various efforts. Lots of people rushing around, constant reversals of fortune, and many pratfalls.
Why I yelled at the TV during Harris's speech
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/08/2024
» When you find yourself shouting at the TV, you know it's time to take a break. I reached that point last week, watching Kamala Harris's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, and what I yelled at the screen was, "The enemy is us!"
Politics at the root of world's three famines
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/03/2024
» There are three incipient famines in the world today, and politics is at the root of all of them. That's not unusual, actually: famines are almost always political events.
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.
ICJ's efforts to build rule of law must continue
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/01/2024
» Israel's defence minister, Yoav Gallant, dismissed the ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip with the words "Hague Schmague". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was equally dismissive, saying that the case brought before the ICJ by South Africa was "meritless".
Pakistan bound for crisis amid changed reality
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/04/2023
» Last year US President Joe Biden called Pakistan "one of the most dangerous countries in the world", presumably because of its potentially lethal cocktail of nuclear weapons and unstable politics. But somehow it staggers on endlessly, never resolving its permanent political crisis but never quite exploding either.
North Korea: The sting in the scorpion's tail
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/02/2022
» 'They want to have a deterrence system that is like a scorpion's tail," said Professor Kim Dong Yup, a former South Korean naval commander. "North Korea's main purpose is not to attack but to defend themselves." They want a "diversified deterrent capability", and who could blame them?
China: No more being Mister Nice Guy
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/01/2022
» More than 200 Hong Kong police raided and shut down one of the last pro-democracy news websites in Hong Kong before on Wed of Dec 29, in the latest sign that the Beijing regime will no longer tolerate dissent of any kind. It was total overkill -- a couple of cops with a court order would have sufficed -- but they were 'sending a message' to other "malcontents".
Belarus becomes a small storm in a sea of anxiety
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/11/2021
» It's not a tempest in a teapot; it's smaller than that. A few thousand Arabs and Kurds, mostly young men but including women and children, are trapped between Poland, which will not let them in, and Belarusian border guards and militia who will not let them back into Belarus. But the language is getting menacing.