Showing 1 - 10 of 645
A small Slovak assassination bid; few hurt
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/05/2024
» Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State, once called Slovakia "the black hole at the heart of Europe", which seems a harsh judgement on five million Slovaks. The assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico was alarming, but we can narrow the problem down to a more specific group of people.
Iran, Israel is a panto crisis, not a real war
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/04/2024
» Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's "Supreme Leader", is embarrassed and humiliated by the complete failure of his drone and missile attack on Israel, but does US President Joe Biden have the empathy to feel sorry for his old adversary in his time of trouble?
Russian moves block UN probe of North Korea
Oped, Published on 05/04/2024
» In a classic under-the-political radar ploy, Russia has vetoed a UN committee investigating North Korean nuclear missile and banking sanctions violations. The low-profile but highly significant sanctions committee regularly monitors illicit actions by Pyongyang to develop, improve and implement the regime's nuclear weapons and offensive missile programmes.
Deepfakes will hijack your brain -- if you let them
News, Published on 22/02/2024
» Realistic AI-generated images and voice recordings may be the newest threat to democracy, but they're part of a longstanding family of deceptions. The way to fight so-called deepfakes isn't to develop some rumour-busting form of AI or to train the public to spot fake images. A better tactic would be to encourage a few well-known critical thinking methods -- refocusing our attention, reconsidering our sources, and questioning ourselves.
The true cost of our 'wars' and 'wreckonomics'
Oped, Published on 16/02/2024
» In Constantine Cavafy's poem Waiting for the Barbarians, the much-feared barbarians never turn up. "Now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?" the poem asks. "Those people were a kind of solution."
Iran-US: Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/02/2024
» In the immediate aftermath of the massacre of 1,140 Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists last October, US President Joe Biden went to Israel and gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu some good advice.
Mideast missile madness gets even worse
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/01/2024
» Not all that long ago, attacking another country's territory was still seen as a big deal. It was, in legal terms, an "act of war", liable to have unpleasant and potentially unlimited consequences, including full-scale war. Very powerful countries occasionally made small, one-off attacks on very weak ones to "discipline" them, but even that was relatively rare.
Red Sea raids push US and allies to crunch point
News, Peter Apps, Published on 15/01/2024
» When the United States and 11 allies published a joint statement last week calling for an end to Houthi attacks from Yemen on Red Sea shipping, they hoped the implicit threat of force might at least reduce the intensity of fire on foreign vessels.
Predicting 2024's global challenges
Oped, Published on 03/01/2024
» Looking into the snow globe, it's that time of year to predict and prognosticate what awaits this tired world in the new year. There's a certain trepidation in the air as we view the current and emerging crises, especially during a highly contested election year in so many key countries.