• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  South Korea: Very competitive and childless

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/03/2024

  » There are enough people to go around: eight billion now, compared to two billion less than a hundred years ago. Fifty-one million in South Korea, compared to only twelve million a hundred years ago. So why are South Koreans obsessed about their low birth rate?

• OPINION

  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?"

• OPINION

  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.)

• OPINION

  Earthquakes, Turkish politics and culpability

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/02/2023

  » If you are trying to dodge the blame for a great disaster, the best policy is to say that it was God's will. So Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visiting one of the 6,000 buildings that collapsed on their sleeping residents in eastern Turkey last week, said: "Such things have always happened. It's part of Destiny's plan."

• OPINION

  US startup's climate gig stirs up controversy

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/01/2023

  » It was the moral equivalent of a fart in a hurricane. The "hurricane" was the explosion of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991, which boosted 17 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere.

• OPINION

  South Africa's cash-stuffed sofa saga lingers

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/12/2022

  » 'Don't have a couch stuffed with cash? Don't worry, you can keep reading for free," read the ad on the website of the Daily Maverick, a tough and sometimes very funny South African news site. President Cyril Ramaphosa's cash-stuffed sofa has become a powerful, universally recognised meme, but it still hasn't brought him down.

• OPINION

  The benign sociopath that is Elon Musk

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/11/2022

  » Elon Musk is that rarest of things, a benign sociopath, and therefore a person of considerable value to the world. He has just made a mistake that could ruin his long-term plan, for his purchase of Twitter is almost bound to end in tears. The sharks are always circling the very rich and highly geared, and I find myself worrying about him.

• OPINION

  Afghanistan faces famine, it can't be ignored

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/02/2022

  » Because the Taliban have been designated as "terrorists", it is possible for the United States not only to embargo American aid and trade to Afghanistan, but also to block or at least seriously hinder efforts by other countries to send humanitarian aid. As a result, more than half the country's people -- 23 million at last count -- are suddenly near starvation.

• OPINION

  It pays to have the right enemy in election races

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/12/2021

  » The right enemy can be a major asset in politics, as Chilean voters have just demonstrated once again. All the opinion polls had the two presidential candidates neck and neck before Sunday's election, but a few days before the vote it came out that the father of far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast was a Nazi.

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