Showing 131 - 137 of 137
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.
Five years on from Arab Spring, democracy can still work
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/01/2016
» Five years ago this month, the "Arab Spring" got under way with the non-violent overthrow of Tunisia's long-ruling dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. He dared not order the army to open fire on the demonstrators (because it might not obey), and eventually he flew off off to Saudi Arabia to seek asylum.
Terror is our biggest fear, but not our biggest threat
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/12/2015
» On Sunday President Barack Obama spoke about a mass shooting in the United States for the 17th time in the past seven years. (There have actually been 335 mass shootings in the US already this year, but he only does the big ones.) But this time Mr Obama spoke from the Oval Office.
Why Turkey shot down the Russian plane in a heartbeat
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/11/2015
» The key fact is that the Russian plane, by Turkey's own admission, was in Turkish airspace for precisely seventeen seconds. That's a little less time than it takes to read this paragraph aloud. The Turks shot it down anyway -- and their allies publicly backed them, as loyal allies must.
Retaliation would fulfil the terrorists' strategy
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/11/2015
» As always when there is a major terrorist attack on the West, the right question to ask after the slaughter in Paris is: what were the strategic aims behind it? This requires getting your head around the concept that terrorists have rational strategies, but once you have done that the motives behind the attacks are easy to figure out. It also becomes clear that the motives have changed.
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.
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.