• OPINION

  Hong Kong: It's purely symbolic

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/08/2019

  » The anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong are now eight weeks old and still going strong, but the level of violence is rising.

• OPINION

  China's Xi shaping up as Chairman Mao of 21st century

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/02/2018

  » The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approved a proposal on Monday that the country's president no longer be limited to two five-year terms of office. The National People's Congress will rubber-stamp the change. And that will be the end of three decades of consensus-seeking collective leadership in the CCP. The god-king model is back.

• OPINION

  Looking back at the October Revolution

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/11/2017

  » China Mieville, a novelist I much admire, has published a history of the "October Revolution" to mark its hundredth anniversary (which is actually on Nov 7, since the Russians were still using the Julian calendar in 1917). It had an unusual effect on me. It made me question whether I was right about the utter futility of that revolution.

• OPINION

  Why China won't budge on N Korea

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/11/2017

  » Over the next few days, Donald Trump will be visiting the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China, and the same topic will dominate all three conversations: North Korea. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in will be looking for reassurance that the United States will protect them from North Korea's nuclear weapons, but in Beijing Mr Trump will be the supplicant.

• 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

  If Trump tries to 'solve' N Korea, his bluff might be called

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/04/2017

  » Never mind the legalities of the situation. Never mind morality either. Just answer the pragmatic question: Is it ever a good idea to start a nuclear war? Because that's the notion that Donald Trump is actually playing with.

• OPINION

  Space 2018: Better to go back out late rather than never

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/01/2018

  » It's going to be a good year in space, and the new players are aiming high. The Indian Space Research Organisation intends to send Chandrayaan-2, an uncrewed orbiter, lander and rover, to the moon in March.

• OPINION

  Another way of looking at the horrors of Hiroshima

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/05/2016

  » Today's Hiroshima doesn't give the TV journalists a lot to work with. It's a bustling, mid-sized Japanese city with only few reminders of its destruction by an atomic bomb in 1945. There's the skeletal dome of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (which was right under the blast), and discreet plaques on various buildings saying that such-and-such a middle school, with 600 students, used to be on this site, and that's all.

• OPINION

  Face-off looms over South China Sea

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/07/2016

  » Next Tuesday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will issue its ruling on China's claim to practically all of the South China Sea. And already the main military contenders are moving more forces into the region.

• OPINION

  Turkey is swiftly heading towards a regime of terror

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/11/2016

  » 'In Turkey, we are progressively putting behind bars all people who take the liberty of voicing even the slightest criticism of the government," wrote author Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's first Nobel Prize winner. "Freedom of thought no longer exists. We are distancing ourselves at high speed from a state of law and heading towards a regime of terror" that is driven by "the most ferocious hatred".

First Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next Last