Showing 31 - 38 of 38
Happy ending if US strikes Iran? Not a chance
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/05/2019
» US President Donald Trump is well known for his desire to cut American military commitments overseas. Indeed, it is one of his most attractive characteristics. But his attention span is short, he plays a lot of golf, and he does not have the knack of choosing good advisers.
Golan Heights show conquest still an option
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/03/2019
» When President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday affirming Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, there was an outcry that went far beyond the Arab world. His action went against the international rule on the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force", we were told -- conquest, in less lawyerly language. Alas, that is just an ideal, not a hard-and-fast international law.
Is Pakistan's dilemma self-defeating?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/11/2018
» 'India is shrinking the flow of water into Pakistan," said Pakistan's Chief Justice Saqib Nisar on Saturday, renewing a ban on showing Indian TV shows and Bollywood films on Pakistani television. "They are trying to [obstruct the construction] of our dam and we cannot even close their [television] channels?"
Migrants: The borders are closing
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/06/2018
» There are actually fewer migrants crossing the Mediterranean and landing in European Union countries this year than in any other recent year: only 37,000 so far, although the flow will increase with good summer weather. But they are nevertheless the "last straw" as far as some EU countries are concerned. Patience is running out.
Muslims do fit in, though more slowly
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/04/2018
» 'Every Continental [European] under the age of 40 -- make that 60, if not 75 -- is all but guaranteed to end his days living in an Islamified Europe," wrote polemicist Mark Steyn in 2006. "Native populations on the continent are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic."
Self-driving cars are safer than you behind the wheel
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/03/2018
» There are always some casualties when a new form of transportation comes along. In 1830, at the official opening of the world's first railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, a well-known British politician, William Huskisson, was struck and killed by a locomotive. He was known to be clumsy and accident-prone, but it still cast a pall over the proceedings.
Silly buggers: Russia, US play chicken
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/06/2017
» I don't remember which navy I was in when I first heard the term "silly buggers", but the meaning was clear. It included some sensible exercises like "man overboard" drills, but the heart and soul of the game was high-speed manoeuvres by ships travelling in close company. These sometimes got quite exciting, because ships don't have brakes.
So much for the wave of populism
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/04/2017
» In his victory speech on Sunday night Emmanuel Macron, the next president of France, said: "I want to become...the president of the patriots in the face of the threat from the nationalists." The distinction would be lost on most Trump supporters in the United States and on the "Little Englanders" who voted for Brexit in Britain, but it's absolutely clear to the French, and indeed to most Europeans.