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 Gwynne Dyer

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Gwynne Dyer
Gwynne Dyer has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years; his articles are published in 45 countries. His book, "Climate Wars," deals with the geopolitical implications of climate change and has been translated into Japanese, French, Russian, Chinese and a number of other languages.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 30, 2005
Gun control loses yet again
LONDON -- Last Sunday in Brazil, a country with the second-highest rate of gun deaths on the planet, almost two-thirds of Brazilians voted against a total ban on the sale of firearms. Explain that.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2005
Panic over bird flu isn't wholly misplaced
LONDON -- It would be funny if it were not so serious. As migratory birds carry the avian influenza virus west across Europe, Britain is following in the footsteps of Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Turkey and asking hunters to shoot down as many incoming ducks and geese as possible. They have been issued...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2005
Merkel too weak to derail Turkey's bid
LONDON -- The near-tie in the Sept. 18 German poll, in which Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder came from 13 percentage points behind conservative challenger Angela Merkel in late August to less than one point behind her by election day, has thrown German politics into turmoil.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2005
End of the 'calm' for Israel, Palestinians
LONDON -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called for a "period of calm" when he took over the late Yasser Arafat's job in January, and for a while some people allowed themselves to believe that peace was within reach. But that delusion depended on the belief that Arafat had been the main obstacle to...
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2003
Avoid hasty reaction to a probable bluff
LONDON -- "They don't negotiate like we do," explained Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and one of the North Korean regime's few channels of communication with the United States, after meeting with Pyongyang's representative in January. "They believe that...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2002
Rarefied democracy of the Arab world
LONDON -- Bahrain produces little news of interest to the rest of the world, but now something remarkable has happened there. On Feb. 14, Emir Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa declared that Bahrain will henceforth be a democracy where he will reign only as a constitutional monarch. If he keeps his promise,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2002
French imitations of a banana republic
LONDON -- Is corruption a Third World disorder? Not if the French are any guide.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2002
For FARC rebels, peace is bad for business
LONDON -- "In the next days, we'll know if Colombia is choosing peace or war," said United Nations envoy James LeMoyne as time ran out on last weekend's government ultimatum to the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, with whom President Andres Pastrana has been holding peace talks...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2002
Argentina: A nation too few believe in
LONDON -- Five presidents in 12 days; riots and looting that have left 32 dead; the biggest default on sovereign debt in history; and the prospect of a return to military government or a toned-down, spruced-up version of fascism lurking around the corner. What is wrong with Argentina?
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2001
A step back after the euro?
LONDON -- Shopkeepers in Germany say they have never seen so many crisp 1,000-mark (about $500) bills as in the past month -- the last before the new euro replaces the mark.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2001
The real aim behind the Sept. 11 attacks
LONDON -- Osama bin Laden is Timothy McVeigh with a beard, and no more representative of the Arab world than McVeigh was of America. It's important to hang onto that thought, because otherwise the storm of emotion that followed the broadcast of the tape in which the author of the atrocities of Sept....
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2001
Jerusalem attacks benefit extremists on both sides
LONDON -- Hamas has had a very good weekend. The suicide bomb attacks that killed at least 25 people in Jerusalem and Haifa last Saturday and Sunday have driven any last remaining thoughts of a compromise peace settlement with the Palestinians out of the minds of most Israelis. Since the Islamic extremists...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2001
A (temporary) love affair with death
LONDON -- "I love death more than you love life," said Osama bin Laden in a recent interview, clearly convinced that this gave him moral superiority over the whole of Western civilization. There are plenty of young men in the refugee camps that litter the Muslim world who would make the same assertion....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2001
Oil fears make attack on Iraq unlikely
LONDON -- "We hear that Iraq may be targeted," said Sheik Ahmed Zaki al-Yamani, oil minister of Saudi Arabia during the 1970s and '80s heyday of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and now chairman of the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies. "Now, if that is a fact, the attacks...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2001
Turning victory into permanent success
LONDON -- Four out of five: Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Kabul and Jalalabad. All but one of Afghanistan's major cities have been lost by the Taliban and captured by the Northern Alliance in less than a week, and the last, Kandahar, is likely to fall at any time. Neither Washington nor anyone else expected...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2001
Say it again, the Soviet system was a waste
LONDON -- It's 10 years this month since the failed Communist coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev marked the effective end of the old Soviet Union. The predictable rash of articles lamenting its loss has started showing up on editorial pages, written mostly by the usual suspects. How awful it is...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2001
Suicide bombers targeting peace process
LONDON -- Fifteen Israelis, half of them children, were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Sbarro's pizzeria in Jerusalem on Thursday. A comparable number were killed by a suicide bomber at a Tel Aviv disco in June. These outrages have a far greater impact on public opinion at home and abroad...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2001
Koizumi: a sheep in wolf's clothing
LONDON -- "I am resigned to not seeing a visible economic recovery for two or three years," said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last month. He had just won a resounding election victory despite his tough-love talk about the need for economic pain to pull the country out of its long slump....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2001
Evidence of microbes from outer space
LONDON -- The biggest news so far this year is not George W. Bush's plans for intergalactic defense, or even the Code Red virus that was supposed to eat our computers and then our brains. It is the discovery of bugs in the upper atmosphere.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2001
Legalization: The drug war's best weapon
LONDON -- In Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland it is practically impossible to get arrested for buying or using "soft drugs." In the Netherlands, users may buy up to five grams of cannabis or hashish for private use at 1,500 licensed "coffee shops," and they are opening two drive-through outlets...

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?