Showing 1 - 10 of 18
Cornered Orban at risk of losing next election
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/03/2026
» Viktor Orban has not aged well. When I met him in Budapest two months before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, he was a typical hyper-ambitious student leader. Anybody who has been to university knows the type: fluent, ruthless, perpetually on the look-out for the main chance, and oddly old still to be a student. (He was 26.)
Carney's speech signals end of Western illusions
Oped, Antara Haldar, Published on 27/02/2026
» When the late playwright Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll first opened 20 years ago, it was deeply personal for me as a student at Cambridge studying film in Prague. A meditation on the clash between communism and capitalism in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), it dwelt on the confrontation between high theory and lived reality in a way that moved me profoundly. Two decades later, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's recent speech in Davos felt like the sequel.
Lets hope Trump takes sensible Greenland path
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2025
» The Strait of Malacca is strategically important. It's the shortest shipping route between the Far East and the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. It handles a quarter of all internationally traded goods, and if anybody tried to block it there would be a war.
Did the West cause the war in Ukraine?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/06/2024
» There is one thing almost all populist nationalists agree on: the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the continuing carnage there was the fault of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). If Nato had not expanded to Russia's borders, it would all still be peace and love in Europe.
So what exactly is Macron's strategy, then?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/06/2024
» Even before the final results were in from all of the 27 European Union countries that voted in the EU elections last weekend, President Emmanuel Macron had called national elections in France for the end of this month. What does he know that other European leaders don't?
A small Slovak assassination bid; few hurt
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/05/2024
» Madeleine Albright, the former US Secretary of State, once called Slovakia "the black hole at the heart of Europe", which seems a harsh judgement on five million Slovaks. The assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico was alarming, but we can narrow the problem down to a more specific group of people.
Thaksin's agenda
Postbag, Published on 19/05/2024
» Re: "Better solution", (PostBag, May 16) & "Fixing Thailand's cannabis regulations", (BP, May 8).
The myth of global grain shortages
Oped, Jayati Ghosh, Published on 17/08/2023
» In recent years, soaring food prices and the growing frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events have prompted warnings of a looming grain shortage, potentially spelling disaster for the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations. Although climate change poses the greatest medium to long-term threat to global food security, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is frequently cited as the immediate cause of the current hunger crisis. But this is a red herring.
Understanding 'self-determination'
Oped, Kriangsak Kittichaisaree, Published on 22/06/2023
» At the seminar entitled "Self-determination and Patani Peace" at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani on June 7, mock referendum ballots were distributed to the attendants to explore the possibility for a referendum for a "Patani State", or the secession of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and four districts of Songkhla -- the population of which are predominantly Muslims -- from the rest of Thailand.
What the Global South thinks of the Ukraine war
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 28/04/2023
» There is a deep and growing rift between "the West" and "the Rest" about the need to resist and defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is because it is really a war in defence of sovereignty, which ought to be something every sovereign country can buy into -- but Western governments publicly insist that it is a war in defence of democracy.