Showing 101 - 110 of 148
'Dysfunctional' Trump and Iran
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/07/2019
» Iran has "begun its march ... towards nuclear weaponry", said Israel's energy minister Yuval Steinitz, and that is technically correct. Only one year and 60 days after US President Donald Trump tore up the treaty that guaranteed Iran won't make nuclear weapons, Iran has taken a tiny step towards reviving its nuclear programme.
The Chinese People's Republic of Amnesia
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/06/2019
» Another of the five-yearly anniversaries has rolled around, and it's time to write another think-piece about the long-term meaning of the massacre on Beijing's Tienanmen Square on 4 June 1989. But 30 years later, what is there left to say?
Trump, tariffs and starting a war?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/06/2019
» The best way to deal with Donald Trump, especially if you are a foreign government negotiating trade issues, is to give him a little win. It doesn't have to be big and important; he's mainly interested in declaring a triumph, and he'll supply the hot air to inflate your little concession into an allegedly major defeat free of charge. Just remember to look crest-fallen, and you're home and dry.
Who is really behind the Gulf tanker attacks?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/06/2019
» The evidence is far from conclusive, but on balance Iran probably is behind the attacks on four oil tankers in the Gulf last month and two more last Thursday. Those attacks carefully avoided human casualties, so if they were Iranian, what was the goal?
What if China won't back down to Trump?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/05/2019
» Donald Trump is playing hard-ball with China over trade, and the worry-warts are fretting that he's going to start a real trade war by accident. The bigger threat, however, is that he will push first China, and then the whole world, into a deep recession.
Golan Heights show conquest still an option
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/03/2019
» When President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday affirming Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, there was an outcry that went far beyond the Arab world. His action went against the international rule on the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force", we were told -- conquest, in less lawyerly language. Alas, that is just an ideal, not a hard-and-fast international law.
The silence over China's Muslims in Xinjiang
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/03/2019
» Muslim governments were not silent when Myanmar murdered thousands of Rohingya, its Muslim minority, and expelled 700,000 of them across the border into Bangladesh. They were unanimous in their anger when the Trump administration moved the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But they are almost silent on China's attempt to suppress Islam in its far western province, Xinjiang.
Softly, softly the right tactic for nuke deal
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/02/2019
» On a scale of one to 10, what are the chances that the meeting between Chairman Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump in Vietnam today and tomorrow (or any subsequent meeting) will end with a clear and irreversible commitment to the "denuclearisation" of North Korea? Zero.
Bangladesh returns to 1-party state
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/01/2019
» It always looks bad when the ruling party jails the opposition leader just a few months before the election. If only Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had decided to boycott this election like she did the last one, she'd probably still be a free woman. But she decided to run, and so was sentenced to jail time on various implausible corruption charges.
China and Taiwan following a well-rehearsed script
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/01/2019
» 'Independence for Taiwan would only bring profound disaster to Taiwan," said China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday, and he ought to know. He is the one who would make sure the disaster happened.