Showing 1 - 10 of 38
Balkan-style chaos covers big area
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/07/2020
» 'Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown," says an old friend to Jack Nicholson as the mother is killed, the little girl is handed over to the bad guy and the police wash their hands of it at the end of the 1974 classic film Chinatown.
Civil Partnership Bill # Marriage Equality
Guru, Pornchai Sereemongkonpol, Published on 17/07/2020
» Last week, the Cabinet endorsed a bill allowing partnership registration of same-sex unions, along with related legal amendments to ensure people of all genders to have most of, if not all, the same rights as married couples.
A lovely bunch of coconuts and all that
News, Roger Crutchley, Published on 19/07/2020
» The humble coconut (ma prow) has been in the news lately following allegations of abuse of Thai monkeys used in harvesting the fruit. I admit to not being familiar enough with the training of the monkeys to know if they are maltreated as alleged and certainly would not endorse any cruelty. But if they are treated well it shouldn't be a problem. On sporadic visits to the South I've seen the monkeys at work and play, and they appeared to be quite happy scampering up the coconut palms. They certainly have more fun than those used in medical research.
Battle of Warsaw in 1920 a victory for Europe
Oped, Published on 20/08/2020
» There are crucial moments in history that define the world's future. For Poland and Europe, one such moment in the 20th century was the day of Aug 15, 1920. It was then that Poland, newly reborn in 1918, fought a decisive and victorious battle with the Bolshevik forces that aimed to spread the fire of the communist revolution all across Western Europe, devastated by the human and material losses of World War I.
Things are warming up in Death Valley
News, Roger Crutchley, Published on 23/08/2020
» The other day I was sitting in the garden fighting another losing battle with the cryptic crossword, but the afternoon heat was taking its toll -- it was the standard 34ºC -- and when several blobs of sweat landed on No.4 down, it felt prudent to admit defeat and retreat indoors.
Vladimir Putin, Navalny and Thomas à Becket
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/08/2020
» In 20 years of writing about Russia's President Vladimir Putin -- he was completely obscure before 1999 -- I have never before had reason to mention him and Saint Thomas à Becket in the same sentence. Finally, however, the time has come.
Premature to mourn death of Bolivia's democracy
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/10/2020
» The quotation is usually given as "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely", but Lord Acton's original remark went on to say: "Great men are almost always bad men." And so they are.
France's failings a lesson for Thailand
News, Editorial, Published on 15/11/2020
» Five years on after the Bataclan massacre, France is once again facing a resurgent Islamist threat. Over the past few months, three separate attacks have rocked the proud secular nation which champions freedom of expression: stabbings near the former office of political satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, the beheading of 47-year-old school teacher Samuel Paty, who showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, and a knife attack in Nice.
Anti-abortion laws and radicalisation
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/12/2020
» 'Get your rosaries off our ovaries," chanted the women marching in support of the referendum that made abortion legal in Ireland in 2018. Two years later the 2020 election broke the century-long stranglehold on power of the two centre-right parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. They got fewer than half the votes even together.
António Guterres does not deserve a second term
Oped, Published on 22/01/2021
» United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced on Jan 11 that he would be seeking a second five-year term. Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal, campaigned for the position in 2016 with an agenda focused on UN reform, as well as positioned himself as someone who could bring consensus to persistent global challenges such as climate change and the forced displacement of people from around the globe. However, his tenure as the world's top diplomat has been disappointing, marked by failures to address human rights abuses, initiate fundamental institutional reforms, or champion multilateralism in the face of withering criticism by an isolationist American administration.