Showing 1 - 10 of 13
Fertilisers will not fix food crisis
Oped, Published on 08/05/2024
» The world is confronting an unprecedented food crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia's war against Ukraine, and worsening climate conditions. But the problem is most acute in Africa, where 61% of the population faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2022. And at a moment when effective solutions are urgently needed, policymakers are once again coalescing around the misguided belief that increased use of mineral and synthetic fertiliser is the key to boosting agricultural productivity and ending hunger on the continent.
The baby bonus just does not work any more
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/05/2023
» I was one of five children -- not seen as a particularly big family in Newfoundland at the time -- and there was one year when we allegedly beat Guatemala to have the highest birth rate in the world. (That's probably not true, but people were proud of it anyway.)
Local community key to delivering Myanmar aid
Oped, Published on 11/05/2023
» Last month, I undertook a 10-day trip along the Thai-Myanmar border. In part its purpose was to explore further the nature and workings of the local governance structures which Scott Guggenheim and I had argued needed to be supported by the international community in our piece entitled "Taking risk and supporting local governance", published in the Bangkok Post on March 24.
The worldwide population boon
Oped, Published on 31/03/2023
» An easy way to start a long, heated debate is to mention global population. Thomas Malthus famously ignited furious arguments in the 19th century when he warned that, absent fertility-control policies, exponential population growth would outpace improvements in agriculture and cause recurrent bouts of famine and pestilence. Industrialisation would postpone the crisis, but not forever.
Businesses put on notice
News, Editorial, Published on 26/12/2022
» The recent move by Norway's sovereign wealth fund to drop a Thai energy conglomerate from its portfolio raises questions about the reasons behind the decision but sends a warning to Thai corporates on their overseas investments.
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.
A false new world of empty promises
Oped, Published on 23/09/2022
» The setting is a house on stilts located in a Myanmar military base in the middle of what until then had been known as the civil war's black area. The time was April 2012. The scene was Kyauk Kyi in Myanmar's Bago Region which is basically a free-fire zone for the Myanmar military.
DTAC-True merger must benefit public
Oped, Published on 22/12/2021
» The planned mega merger between Total Access Communication Plc (DTAC) and True Corporation has caused a stir given its far-reaching impacts, not only on investment but also on consumers and other businesses that depend on telecommunication services like fintech suppliers, computer and mobile phone wholesalers as well as retailers.
Tolerance is essential to end war
News, Shigeru Aoyagi, Published on 16/11/2021
» In June 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged a powerful, if tender protest against all wars and related violence in the form of a now-legendary "bed-in" in a Montreal hotel. According to those present as everyone sang a new, anti-war song Lennon had composed for the occasion, when he was asked why he and Ono were doing it, Lennon simply replied, "Give peace a chance".
Norway, oil and the issue of climate change
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/10/2021
» You can see why Saudi Arabia wants to go on pumping as much oil as it can. Oil exports account for 87% of the Saudi government budget and 42% of GDP. The Saudi population, now 35 million, is growing by two-thirds of a million a year, and the country already imports 80% of its food. They'd be starving in a few years if they stopped pumping.