Showing 71 - 80 of 156
Is the Wuhan 'devil virus' a 'black swan'?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/02/2020
» China officially went back to work on Monday, after an extended two-week Lunar New Year holiday, while the authorities struggled to get the spread of the new coronavirus under control. But a lot of Chinese are not going back to work yet, and the spread of the "devil virus" (as President Xi Jinping called it) is manifestly not under control.
Vladimir Putin the immortal hero?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/01/2020
» Five years ago somebody posted photographs on the internet showing a man who looked a lot like Vladimir Putin in photographs from 1920 and 1941. In both shots he was in military uniform, defending the interests of the Russian people then as he still does today.
Time for the rich to erase proof of climate neglect?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/01/2020
» Donald Trump's speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday contained no surprises: half an hour of chest-thumping self-praise, although without the usual xenophobia and dog-whistle racism. It was, after all, an audience of the ultra-rich and powerful in which most of the movers and shakers were not American.
Coronavirus response reveals China's fatal weakness
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/01/2020
» In an emergency, the good thing about a dictatorship is that it can respond very fast. The bad thing is that it won't respond at all until the dictator-in-chief says that it should. All the little dictators who flourish in this sort of system won't risk their positions by passing bad news up the line until the risk of being blamed for delay outweighs the risk of being blamed for the emergency in the first place.
The peace deal that forgets the Palestinians
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/01/2020
» The peculiar thing about the "peace deal" between Israelis and Palestinians that was announced in Washington on Tuesday was obvious at a single glance.
Climates of fear lead to 'shoot-downs'
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/01/2020
» One of the main causes of death for airline passengers in recent decades is being shot down by somebody's military. Not the very biggest, of course: accidents account for nine-tenths of all deaths in civilian airline crashes, and terrorist attacks and hijackings cause most of the rest. But a solid 2.5% of the deaths are due to trigger-happy people in military uniforms.
Dismantling Malta's mafia state
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/12/2019
» It's two years since Daphne Caruana Galizia, the best investigative journalist in Malta, was killed by a car bomb. She had been using the huge leaks of financial data in the "Panama Papers" to track down suspicious dealings by members of the Maltese government, and she was getting too close for comfort.
Defeat snatched from jaws of victory in HK
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/11/2019
» The "silent majority" in Hong Kong, who regime supporters hoped would show that they are fed up with the pro-democracy protests that have shaken the city in the past five months, turns out to be not only silent but non-existent.
The game of Beijing versus Taipei
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/12/2019
» One of the lesser unsolved mysteries of our time is why countries whose names end in 'u' prefer the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People's Republic of China (Beijing). Of the 15 countries that still recognise Taiwan as the real and legitimate China, three have 'u' at the end of their names: Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu.
When English turkeys vote for Christmas
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/12/2019
» Down on the turkey farm, the Scottish and Irish birds noticed that the smiling man in the festive costume was holding a hatchet behind his back, and hid. The Welsh turkeys looked confused and huddled together squawking. But the English turkeys marched bravely up to the chopping block, confident that this would be a Christmas to remember.