• OPINION

  A tale of two bombs -- in Manchester and Bangkok

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/05/2017

  » There were two bombs on Monday. The one in Britain killed at least 22 people and injured 120 as they came out of a concert at Manchester Arena. It was carried out by a suicide bomber named Salman Abedi and claimed by the Islamic State (IS). The other was in Thailand, and injured 22 people at a military-linked hospital in Bangkok; nobody has claimed responsibility yet. But what happened afterwards was very different.

• OPINION

  Ukrainian breakthrough is a slow affair

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/09/2023

  » It's nothing like the great breakthroughs of the mid-20th century wars, when combined air and ground forces would tear a hole in the enemy line, the tanks would pour through, and the front would roll back several hundred kilometres before it stabilised again.

• OPINION

  China: Message from Russia on 'reunification'

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/08/2023

  » The Ukrainians have been cheering themselves up recently by sending drones to hit targets in Moscow's business district and the more exclusive western suburbs. (The Russians, who bomb Ukrainian cities and kill civilians almost every night, refer to this as "terrorism".)

• OPINION

  3 steps forward, but 2.5 back for populism

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/10/2022

  » The reports about Luiz Inácio 'Lula' da Silva's impending comeback as Brazilian president verged on the ecstatic in the week before the vote on Oct 2. He was after all, fourteen points ahead of his populist rival, incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, in the last opinion poll before the vote.

• OPINION

  Could Boris Johnson make a comeback?

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/09/2022

  » As a child, outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly said he wanted to be "King of the World". He ended up in a somewhat humbler role, was rejected by his own party's members of parliament for his mendacity, corruption and incompetence, and will hand over to his successor, Liz Truss, on Monday. But the Fat Lady still hasn't sung.

• OPINION

  Cuban missile crisis redux in Nicaragua?

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/07/2022

  » It was a piece of news so obscure and implausible that I missed it when it first surfaced last month. The news was that the Russians are going to put hypersonic nuclear missiles into Nicaragua and terrify the Americans into backing down over Ukraine. Or kill them all if they don't.

• OPINION

  What's wrong with the Philippines?

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/05/2022

  » 'Bongbong" Marcos didn't just win the presidential election in the Philippines this week. He won it by a two-to-one landslide, despite the fact that he is the extremely entitled son of a former president who stole at least US$10 billion and a mother who spent the loot partly on the world's most extensive collection of designer shoes (3,000 pairs).

• OPINION

  Lebanon quickly sinking in more ways than one

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/10/2021

  » Off the Lebanese coast about 60 kilometres north of Beirut a 104-metre battleship stands vertically, with her bow and some 30 metres of her length plunged into the mud. The seabed is 140 metres down, but you can even scuba-dive on the stern if you are a technical diver. The ship is a bit like Lebanon, for reasons I'll explain later.

• OPINION

  Peru on edge after Castillo's election victory

  Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/08/2021

  » Peru holds the current record for revolving presidents -- three came and went in a month last November; for coronavirus deaths -- almost 6,000 per million, and for the youngest-looking president -- seen from afar, under his trademark straw hat, he looks like a 13-year-old boy. But appearances are deceiving.

• OPINION

  Tigray split risks ending Abiy's 'empire'

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/07/2021

  » Most analysts thought it would take a year or two of guerilla war for the rebels in Tigray to drive Ethiopian federal forces out of their state, but it has only taken eight months. "The capital of Tigray, Mekelle, is under our control," Getachew Reda, spokesman for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), said last week.

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