Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Argentina must break its vicious political cycle
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/11/2023
» Bertolt Brecht lived in Germany, not in Argentina, and he has been dead longer than he was alive, but his famous question applies to the Argentine election next Sunday: "Would it not be simpler if the government dissolved the people and elected another?"
The 'pink tide' is rising in Latin America
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/06/2022
» 'Corruption isn't fought with slogans on TikTok," complained veteran Colombian presidential candidate Gustavo Petro. But social media can win elections, and a right-wing dark horse called Rodolfo Hernández, who calls himself the "King of TikTok", may crush Mr Petro's hopes of becoming Colombia's first-ever leftist president next Sunday.
No real choice in Nigerian election
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/02/2019
» Lengthy delays before announcing the results of African elections are commonplace (the Democratic Republic of Congo last month, Zimbabwe last July, etc.). It just means that people voted the wrong way, and the government needs time to re-arrange the results before publishing them. Postponing the vote at the last moment is much less common, and not so easy to explain.
One step forward, two steps back for cultural progression
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/10/2018
» There was bound to be a backlash to the "Me Too" movement, and the struggle over the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court is clearly part of that culture war. "Me Too" is going to lose this battle unless there is some new and horrendous revelation of Mr Kavanaugh's past behaviour in the next few days, and lots of people in the US and elsewhere see this as evidence that the war itself is being lost.
The dawn of a second Great Recession?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/09/2018
» Ten years ago this month the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, triggering the 2008 crash and the subsequent Great Recession from which the world's economies have still not fully recovered. Will we look back on this month as the turning point when Donald Trump's trade war with China unleashed the Second Great Recession?
Saudi Arabia is a populist dictatorship
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/06/2018
» Joy and pride among Saudi women who are at last allowed to drive. Delight in the car dealerships that anticipate a lot of new business. And dismay in the families of the 1.4 million chauffeurs, almost all from South Asia, who have been earning around US$1,000 (32,960 baht) a month driving Saudi women around. But it will take a lot more than this to change Saudi Arabia.
Purge needed so South Africa's ANC can revive economy
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/02/2018
» As a passer-by in the upscale Johannesburg suburb of Saxonwold observed, the South African police would never have raided the enormous, high-walled compound of the Gupta family if President Jacob Zuma were not on the brink of being removed. But early on Wednesday morning, the police did exactly that.
It could be a lot worse in South Africa
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/12/2017
» 'We have three gangsters, one suspect, and a president who is prisoner of a Top Six that is clearly compromised," said Zackie Achmat, Aids activist and Nobel Prize nominee, on hearing that Cyril Ramaphosa, a former trade union leader and businessman, had been elected president of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC).
Qatar crisis could turn nasty quick
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/06/2017
» Public-spirited businessman Moutaz al-Hayat is flying 4,000 cows into Qatar from the US and Australia to boost milk supply in his country, which is being blockaded by most of its Arab neighbours in the Gulf. It will take 60 flights, and is definitely not cost-effective. But that may not be his biggest problem.
Still not a smoking gun
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/07/2017
» Like the diligent journalist I am, I went online within minutes of the news that Donald Trump Jr had put "incriminating" emails about his meeting with Russian lawyer and lobbyist Natalia Veselnitskaya on Twitter. I opened the Washington Post site and there, nestled between the paragraphs of their lead story on Mr Trump Jr, was an ad for a box set of The Walking Dead. And I thought ...