Showing 1 - 10 of 72
Venezuela: Performative purging
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/12/2025
» 'If you're on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever, headed to the United States, you're an immediate threat to the United States," said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week. So it's perfectly reasonable for the US armed forces to kill everybody on that boat (including a "double tap" on any survivors in the water).
Let's just try leaning into your morbid curiosity
Oped, Coltan Scrivner, Published on 30/10/2025
» Film critics Gene Siskel and Johnny Oleksinski have called fans of slasher films like Friday the 13th and Saw "very sick people" and "depraved lunatics who should not be allowed near animals or most other living things". Public outcry around the video game Mortal Kombat in the early 1990s was so extreme that it led to a special US Senate hearing on the topic. Similarly, the recent rise of true crime entertainment has some people wondering if we are becoming desensitised to the horror and seriousness of the events themselves.
Why is North Korea courting Russian tourists?
Oped, Saahil Menon, Published on 13/08/2025
» Hoping to replenish state coffers with much-needed foreign exchange reserves and offset the sharp post-Covid decline in Chinese tour groups, the Hermit Kingdom has set its sights on inquisitive holiday-makers from an ideologically aligned Russia.
Respectful intention?
Oped, Postbag, Published on 27/06/2025
» Re: "Clip scandal grows by day", (Editorial, June 23). The Thai government is hanging by a thread after a leaked call shredded the credibility of 38-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra. The respectful term "uncle" is not inappropriate for the elder Hun Sen, the 72-year-old, longest-serving former PM and father of the current leader of Cambodia.
What happens after Trump, Zelensky spat
Oped, John J. Metzler, Published on 06/03/2025
» In a made-for-TV political smackdown in the White House between two uneasy allies, a flood of recriminations followed the incendiary face-off between President Donald Trump's team and the visiting Ukrainian delegation. The fear that the pending Ukrainian peace plan had already gone off the rails haunted world capitals.
Agent of insurrection Trump's 'Cultural Revolution'
Oped, Orville Schell, Published on 21/02/2025
» When US President Donald Trump's factotum, JD Vance, held forth on Europe's "threat from within" at the recent Munich Security Conference, his audience was left struggling to make sense of America's confounding new approach to foreign policy. Chinese President Xi Jinping, for his part, has been relatively silent since Mr Trump's return to the White House -- but that doesn't mean he is any less vexed by what it portends. Nor could he have been reassured by Mr Trump's brazen response to a question last October about what he would do if Mr Xi blockaded Taiwan: "Xi knows I'm f***ing crazy!"
Ukraine's fate is now hanging in the balance
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 20/02/2025
» Three years into Russia's war against Ukraine, there seems to be a chance for peace. But this political intermezzo may be as fleeting as the approaching spring weather to soon sweep the steppes, yet at the same time, it remains a worthwhile window of opportunity for all parties to reach a ceasefire and then begin the long and perilous quest for peace.
Could Trump's tariffs help democratise China?
Oped, Yi Fuxian, Published on 18/01/2025
» Assessments of US President-elect Donald Trump's plans to impose high tariffs on Chinese imports tend to focus on their likely economic consequences. But the tariffs' impact on China's politics might prove to be far more profound.
Turning a little debate into a major crisis
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/12/2024
» One of the daily miracles of the media world is that there is always exactly enough news to fill the slot.
Wrap up iCon scandal
Oped, Editorial, Published on 22/10/2024
» The astonishing speed with which the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) police arrested 18 key players at iCon Group, an online direct marketing company, including its CEO, and locked them up in remand prisons pending further investigation is commendable.