• OPINION

  West's reproach of Russian realism reeks of hypocrisy

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/10/2015

  » It's a week since the Russians began their air strikes in Syria, and the countries that have already been bombing there for over a year -- the United States and some other Nato countries -- are working themselves up into a rage about it. The Russians are not bombing the right people, they are killing civilians, they are reckless, dangerous, and just plain evil.

• OPINION

  After Erdogan's win, Turkey inches closer to civil war

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/11/2015

  » "You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time...", begins Abraham Lincoln's aphorism about democracy -- but in a multi-party democratic system, that is usually enough. In a parliamentary system like Turkey's, 49% of the popular vote gives you a comfortable majority of seats, and so Recep Tayyib Erdogan will rule Turkey for another four years. If the country lasts that long.

• OPINION

  Climate pact underestimates risk

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/12/2015

  » The climate deal that almost 200 countries agreed to in Paris on Saturday was far better than most insiders dared to hope even one month ago.

• OPINION

  North Korea's real nuclear deterrent

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/02/2016

  » Here we go again. North Korea launched a ballistic missile of intercontinental range on Sunday (saying it was just putting up a satellite) only weeks after it carried out its fourth nuclear weapons test (which it claimed was a hydrogen bomb). The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned it, and even the People's Republic of China, North Korea's only ally, expressed its "regret" at what the country had done.

• OPINION

  The triumph and tragedy of Egypt

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/02/2016

  » Exactly five years after Egypt's democratic revolution triumphed, the country is once more ruled by a military office. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in July 2013, and he is even nastier than his predecessors.

• OPINION

  China: Another Chairman Mao?

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/03/2016

  » Opening the National People's Congress in Beijing last week, Prime Minister Li Keqiang set China's growth target for the coming year at 6.5-7%, the lowest in decades. Only two years ago, he said that 7% was the lowest acceptable growth rate, but he has had to eat his words. He really isn't in charge of very much any more.

• OPINION

  Property in Iraq fuelled by dirty money

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/05/2016

  » Property prices in central Baghdad are as high as London's, even though Iraq's national income is down by 70% since the collapse in the oil price. Islamic State's (IS) bombs regularly devastate parts of the capital, and still the real estate market booms. Why?

• OPINION

  Time for war on Zika ahead of Olympics

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/06/2016

  » In the past, the only excuse for cancelling the Olympic Games has been a world war.But if this year's Games had been scheduled for somewhere in West Africa two years ago, when the Ebola outbreak was nearing its peak, they would certainly have been called off. So should the Olympic Games scheduled to begin in Rio de Janeiro on Aug 5 be cancelled, moved or postponed?

• OPINION

  Age of technology will need universal basic income

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/06/2016

  » In a referendum on Sunday, Swiss voters rejected a proposal for a guaranteed annual income for everybody by an overwhelming 78% majority. But the idea was not crazy, and it is not going to go away.

• OPINION

  Macedonia's 'Colourful Revolution'

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/06/2016

  » Abstract expressionism is no longer cutting-edge art in most places, but in one country it is enjoying a massive popular revival: Macedonia. The artists are at work day and night in the capital, Skopje, decorating public buildings and statues with splatters of every colour in the rainbow in a style clearly inspired by Jackson Pollock.

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