https://www.scmp.com/rss/9072/feed Gwynne Dyer is a historian and independent journalist who has published several books. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com If you are wondering why Hamas launched its all-out assault on Israel on Saturday, I wrote it last week: “The Arab world has basically abandoned the Palestinians to their fate, whatever that may be. Six Arab countries have established diplomatic ties with Israel and several more, including Saudi Arabia, are on the brink of doing so.” The attack is not “all-out” in the sense that Hamas expects to win, of course. It doesn’t even expect a seat at the negotiating table. But Hamas’ leaders... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3237268/why-israels-mighty-vengeance-just-what-hamas-wants?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3237268/why-israels-mighty-vengeance-just-what-hamas-wants?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Oct 2023 07:30:08 +0000 I’m writing this on a plane to Greenland – well, actually, on a plane to Denmark, because there’s no way to get to Greenland by a civilian airline without going through Copenhagen first – and it has occurred to me (not for the first time) to wonder where everybody else is. My wife and I are on our way to shoot a documentary film about a handful of scientists who have an idea to slow the speed at which glaciers are sliding into the sea. If it works, it would drastically lower the predicted rate... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3194635/if-humans-are-wired-only-fear-short-term-threats-forget-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3194635/if-humans-are-wired-only-fear-short-term-threats-forget-about?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 03 Oct 2022 07:15:08 +0000 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desperation was plain in the emergency measures he declared last week: an immediate mobilisation of at least 300,000 more troops, the sudden decision to use fake referendums to turn all the occupied parts of Ukraine into Russian territory, and more explicit threats than usual about nuclear weapons. “This is not a bluff,” Putin warned. It probably isn’t. The Russian president’s normal pattern, when he runs into a major setback, has been to escalate, so he is not... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3193921/what-if-putin-isnt-bluffing-about-nuclear-strike-ukraine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3193921/what-if-putin-isnt-bluffing-about-nuclear-strike-ukraine?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Sep 2022 07:09:56 +0000 Which would be worse: a global nuclear war with all buttons pressed or real, self-conscious artificial intelligence that goes rogue? You know, the central theme of the Terminator films. An AI called Skynet wakes up and immediately realises that humanity could simply switch it off again, so it triggers a nuclear war that destroys most of mankind. The few survivors end up waging a losing war against the machines and extinction. However, this fantasy has too many moving parts, so let’s try... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3192717/dont-fear-nuclear-war-killer-plague-or-rogue-ai-are-more-likely-end?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3192717/dont-fear-nuclear-war-killer-plague-or-rogue-ai-are-more-likely-end?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Sep 2022 17:30:12 +0000 Godwin’s Law, coined by US author Mike Godwin in 1990, says that as a discussion on the internet grows longer, the likelihood of somebody being compared to Hitler or the Nazis rises inexorably towards 100 per cent. But, once in a very long while, the comparison is correct. Patrick Cockburn is a well-known Irish journalist, currently writing a column in The Independent. Now that Bob Fisk is gone, he is the best foreign correspondent writing on the Middle East, but he has always covered other... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3138531/why-republicans-voter-suppression-efforts-have-all-hallmarks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3138531/why-republicans-voter-suppression-efforts-have-all-hallmarks?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jun 2021 17:30:10 +0000 Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is an unattractive character and has very poor judgment. He should have gone to Sweden seven years ago and faced the rape and sexual assault allegations brought against him by two Swedish women. Even if he had been found guilty, he would probably be free by now under Swedish sentencing rules, since no violence was alleged in either case.  His explanation for taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London instead was that he feared that once in Sweden,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3006223/assanges-big-fat-mistake-if-he-had-faced-rape-charges?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3006223/assanges-big-fat-mistake-if-he-had-faced-rape-charges?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Apr 2019 13:30:05 +0000 Former US president Barack Obama said of the US midterm elections that “the character of our country is on the ballot”, and the outcome proved him right. The United States is a psychological basket case, more deeply and angrily divided than at any time since the Vietnam war.  It’s not evenly divided, of course. The popular vote saw the Democrats lead the Republicans nationwide by an 8 per cent margin, but that translated into only a modest gain in seats in the House of Representatives and in... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2172266/after-midterms-republicans-and-democrats-must?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2172266/after-midterms-republicans-and-democrats-must?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Nov 2018 16:48:56 +0000 Catalan nationalist leader Carles Puigdemont got most of what he wanted on Sunday: 761 injured by Spanish police. One or two dead martyrs for Catalan independence would have been better, but even the foreign media coverage bought the story that Spanish police suppressed popular will – so now Puigdemont has an excuse for a unilateral independence declaration. Puigdemont, president of the Catalan regional government, is no stranger to histrionics. He has compared Catalan separatists’ non-violent... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2113681/win-win-catalan-separatists-spanish-government-forces-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2113681/win-win-catalan-separatists-spanish-government-forces-are?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Oct 2017 08:30:21 +0000 During the past 65 years of military rule in Burma [Myanmar], the army has killed thousands of people from almost every one of the country’s numerous minorities: Shans, Karens, Kachins, Karennis, Mon, Chin and many smaller groups. But the only ones who have faced genocide are the Rohingya, and it is happening right now. Less than two-thirds of Myanmar’s 51.4 million people are ethnic Burmese, and almost all the other groups have rebelled from time to time because they have no autonomy. Indeed,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2110764/why-rohingya-myanmars-ethnic-cleansing-driven-irrational?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2110764/why-rohingya-myanmars-ethnic-cleansing-driven-irrational?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Sep 2017 04:36:15 +0000 A month ago, hardly anybody outside the Philippines had heard of Marawi. Now it’s the latest front in the war against Islamic State. “We have actually pre-empted the establishment of a wilayat [a province of IS],” said the spokesperson of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, which is definitely overstating the case. The response of the armed forces was slow and clumsy, and government policy has been lax and inattentive. It’s not even clear that the attempt by the Maute group of Islamist... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2100112/will-duterte-heed-message-inherent-marawis-islamist-uprising?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2100112/will-duterte-heed-message-inherent-marawis-islamist-uprising?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Jun 2017 06:38:56 +0000 At the UN recently, all member countries signed a declaration that recognises the rise in antibiotic resistance as a threat to the entire enterprise of modern medicine. It’s a start, but time is running out. “The emergence of bacterial resistance is outpacing the world’s capacity for antibiotic discovery,” World Health Organisation director-general Margaret Chan warned the meeting. “The world is heading toward a post-antibiotic era in which common infections will once again kill.” Regulate use... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2024026/time-running-out-action-reckless-misuse-antibiotics?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2024026/time-running-out-action-reckless-misuse-antibiotics?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Oct 2016 01:03:06 +0000 It’s a bit like a Shakespeare play – specifically the final scene of Hamlet, when almost all the play’s major characters die violently. And now we’re down to one. Her name is Theresa May. It has been barely three weeks since the UK (or at least, 52 per cent of those who voted) chose to leave the European Union, but all the Brexit leaders have left the stage. The Conservative Party has always been notable for its ruthlessness, and leaders who threaten to split the party get short shrift. The... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1988956/enough-drama-lets-hope-women-can-bring-brexit-conclusion?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1988956/enough-drama-lets-hope-women-can-bring-brexit-conclusion?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Jul 2016 08:45:00 +0000 It was a typically anodyne statement by the World Health Organisation: “Given the magnitude of the Zika crisis, WHO encourages affected countries and their partners to boost the use of both old and new approaches to mosquito control.” Anodyne, that is, until you realise what they mean by “new approaches”. READ MORE: Zika virus: can Hong Kong fend off threat from this silent menace? Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that is spreading panic around the world. It was first linked to microcephaly – a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1917238/wiping-out-mosquito-species-carrying-zika-virus-good-case?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1917238/wiping-out-mosquito-species-carrying-zika-virus-good-case?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Feb 2016 23:30:30 +0000 I can't stand him. He's a liar," then French president Nicolas Sarkozy told US President Barack Obama four years ago, in a conversation about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama replied: "You're fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day." It was a private conversation, but the world heard about it because it was accidentally broadcast to journalists. What drove Sarkozy and Obama to talk like that was the sheer brazen effrontery of Netanyahu's lies - and he was at it again... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1872177/benjamin-netanyahus-holocaust-remark-fails-deflect-blame?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1872177/benjamin-netanyahus-holocaust-remark-fails-deflect-blame?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 26 Oct 2015 09:12:21 +0000 Refugees from the wars of the Middle East are pouring into the European Union at an unprecedented rate. So are economic migrants from Africa and non-EU countries in the Balkans. They are coming at the rate of about 3,000 a day, and the EU doesn't know what to do about it. While a few of the EU's 28 countries are behaving well, many more have descended into a gibbering panic about being "overrun". It really is a case of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and the best of the Good is Germany.... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1855200/worse-come-europes-migrant-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1855200/worse-come-europes-migrant-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Sep 2015 04:20:36 +0000 Fifty-five years ago, Nobusuke Kishi, Japan's prime minister, resigned just after winning the battle to push the treaty revising the country's military alliance with the United States through parliament. The demonstrations against it were so massive and violent that his political capital was exhausted. Today his grandson, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is waging a similar battle, but he will probably get away with it. More's the pity. Abe, like his grandfather, is on the right of Japanese politics,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1843314/abe-redefines-peace-never-mind-what-japanese-people-think?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1843314/abe-redefines-peace-never-mind-what-japanese-people-think?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Jul 2015 04:00:15 +0000 There are examples of species all over the world that are "essentially the walking dead", said Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich. "We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on." He was talking about the sixth mass extinction, the huge loss of species that is under way right now. It has been discussed in public before, of course, but what Ehrlich and other scientists have done is to document it statistically. Animals and plants are always going extinct, usually to be replaced by... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1824768/more-proof-human-beings-are-party-our-own-demise-will-we-act?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1824768/more-proof-human-beings-are-party-our-own-demise-will-we-act?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Jun 2015 08:15:00 +0000 Everybody knows where the population explosion came from. Two centuries ago, birth rates and death rates were high everywhere, and population growth was very slow. Then, clean water, good food and antibiotics radically cut the death rate - and the human population of this planet increased 300 per cent in the past 90 years. Eventually, as people moved into the cities and big families were no longer an advantage, the birth rate dropped too. The world's population is still growing, but it will only... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1679872/why-babies-born-2000-may-average-live-100?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1679872/why-babies-born-2000-may-average-live-100?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Jan 2015 05:01:17 +0000 The experts run the whole gamut from A to B, and they're practically unanimous: artificial intelligence is going to destroy human civilisation. Expert A is Elon Musk, polymath co-founder of PayPal, manufacturer of Tesla electric cars, creator of SpaceX, the first privately funded company to send a spacecraft into orbit, and much else. "I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence (AI)," he told an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in October. "If I were to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1656273/mankinds-challenge-morality-code-machines?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1656273/mankinds-challenge-morality-code-machines?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Dec 2014 04:45:24 +0000 Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, said something cryptic last Friday, shortly after the Israelis began their latest round of attacks on the Gaza Strip. Condemning Hamas' conditions for accepting a ceasefire as "exaggerated and unnecessary", he offered his condolences "to the families of the martyrs in Gaza who are fuel to those who trade in war. I oppose these traders, on both sides." What could he mean by that? Surely he was not suggesting that Prime Minister Benjamin... https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1554651/gaza-war-no-winners?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1554651/gaza-war-no-winners?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 15 Jul 2014 04:45:30 +0000 The "Curse of Mars" also applies to Asian countries. About two-thirds of the attempted missions to Mars have failed, many of them even before leaving Earth's orbit, and most of the rest when they tried to land. Japan's only Mars mission failed in 1998, China's first try failed when the Russian rocket carrying its Mars orbiter into space fell back to Earth in 2011 - and so India seized the opportunity to be the first Asian country to go to Mars. Fifteen months after the decision was announced,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1350939/mars-launch-today-human-colony-tomorrow?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1350939/mars-launch-today-human-colony-tomorrow?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Nov 2013 11:04:16 +0000 The most important hamburger in history was cooked - but only half-eaten - in London on Monday. It was grown in a lab, not cut from a cow, and it tasted - well, not quite good enough to fool the experts, but then they forgot the ketchup, mustard, cheese, onion, bacon, tomato and lettuce. Not to mention the fries. "I miss the fat, there's a leanness to it," said food writer Josh Schonwald, "but the general bite feels like a hamburger." Austrian food critic Hanni Ruetzler agreed: "It's not that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1295106/why-stem-cell-hamburger-tastes-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1295106/why-stem-cell-hamburger-tastes-future?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 07 Aug 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Two massacres committed by the Egyptian army in one week. At least 130 people killed in the streets of Cairo for protesting against the military coup. It is worse than a crime (as the French diplomat Talleyrand remarked when Napoleon ordered a particularly counterproductive execution). It is a mistake. It is also a crime, of course. The killing has been deliberate and precise: only trained snipers could produce so many victims who have been shot in the head or the heart. General Abdel Fattah... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1293127/murderous-mistake-egypts-military?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1293127/murderous-mistake-egypts-military?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 30 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Which of the following statements is true? The US now has a 100-year supply of natural gas, thanks to the miracle of shale gas. By 2017, it will again be the world's biggest oil producer. By 2035, it will be entirely "energy independent", and free in particular from its reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Unless you've been dead for the past couple of years, you've been hearing lots of enthusiastic forecasts like this, but not one of them is true. They are generally accompanied by sweeping... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1119180/dont-count-us-energy-boom?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1119180/dont-count-us-energy-boom?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 They made some progress at the international talks on controlling climate change, held this year in Qatar. They agreed that the countries that cause the warming should compensate the ones that suffer the most from it. The principle, known as the "Loss and Damage mechanism", has no numbers attached to it, but it's a step forward. The only step forward, unfortunately. In the first phase of these talks, which concluded with the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the emphasis was on mitigation, by cutting... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1102287/climate-talks-underachieve-again?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1102287/climate-talks-underachieve-again?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 After the loss of 10 million American lives in the Three Mile Island calamity in 1979, the death of two billion in the Chernobyl holocaust in 1986, and now the abandonment of all of northern Japan following the death of millions in last year's Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, it is hardly surprising that the world's biggest users of nuclear power are shutting their plants down. Oh, wait a minute … nobody died in the Three Mile Island calamity, some 30 people were killed and 15 others subsequently... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1089262/voodoo-maths-nuclear-energy-opponents?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1089262/voodoo-maths-nuclear-energy-opponents?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 In this interval between the struggle to choose the next president of the US and the next leader of China, a delicious moment of sheer silliness: the BBC has banned a science programme because it might trigger an interstellar invasion. They would not normally ban a programme made by Brian Cox; a particle physicist with rock-star appeal. But they just stopped him making the episode of Stargazing Live in which he planned to send a message to aliens. Cox wanted to point a radio telescope at a... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1080913/science-shows-us-how-ordinary-we-and-earth-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1080913/science-shows-us-how-ordinary-we-and-earth-are?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Maybe they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union because they couldn't think of anybody else. Nelson Mandela already has one. So does Aung San Suu Kyi. Even Barack Obama has one, though what for is not exactly clear. So who's left? We'll just give it to the EU. Nobody will notice that. But they did notice, and some of them were not amused. "A Nobel prize for the EU at a time Brussels and all of Europe is collapsing in misery? What next? An Oscar for [European Council president Herman]... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061805/eu-deserves-nobel-democracy-push?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1061805/eu-deserves-nobel-democracy-push?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It's no surprise we will have a record minimum of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean at the end of this summer melt season. It's already down to around 4million square kilometres, with a least another week of melting to go, but this is what you might call a "known unknown". Scientists knew we were losing the ice cover fast; they just didn't know how fast. I'm no fan of Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, but I never had a problem with the distinction he made between "known unknowns" and... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1030180/climate-change-failure-forecast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1030180/climate-change-failure-forecast?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Two months ago, the US Department of Agriculture forecast the biggest corn harvest in history: 376million tonnes. After two months of record heat and drought in the US Midwest, it has dropped its forecast to 274million tonnes. It is now forecasting the price per bushel could go up to US$8.90. The heatwave in Russia is also cutting deeply into Russian wheat production. There will still be enough for domestic consumption, but Andrei Sizov of the Moscow-based farming consultancy SovEcon said last... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1016304/outsized-appetite-finite-world?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1016304/outsized-appetite-finite-world?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It was 42 degrees Celsius in St Louis, Missouri, last weekend, about the same as in Saudi Arabia. Along the US Atlantic coast, it was cooler, but not much: 41degrees in Washington DC, just short of the city's all-time record. And scores have already died from the heat wave. In Britain, it was incredibly wet. Almost 6cm of rain fell on Saturday in parts of southern England, and there were at one point over 20 flood warnings and 100 flood alerts in effect. The wettest April ever was followed by... https://www.scmp.com/article/1006361/no-proof-wild-weather-signifies-warming-planet-dont-bet-against-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1006361/no-proof-wild-weather-signifies-warming-planet-dont-bet-against-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000 There was no law against genocide in the early 1940s; it only became an internationally recognised crime after the worst genocide of modern history had actually happened. Similarly, there is no law against 'ecocide' now. That will only come to pass when the damage to the environment has become so extreme that large numbers of people in rich countries are dying. They are already dying in some poor countries, but that makes no difference because they are powerless. By the time it starts to hurt... https://www.scmp.com/article/1005028/how-long-we-can-punish-eco-criminals?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1005028/how-long-we-can-punish-eco-criminals?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 What if China, flush with its new wealth, opened its doors to mass immigration? It would make sense from an economic and social point of view, because its one-child policy has produced a young generation far smaller than the one that now does most of the work. China's population is ageing faster than any other country in history, and it could certainly do with some more young people. If it had an immigration policy like that of the US, it could fill the gaping holes in the workforce that will... https://www.scmp.com/article/1003337/attitude-outsiders-divides-us-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1003337/attitude-outsiders-divides-us-and-china?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The second president of the United States, John Adams, predicted in 1780 that English would be the 'most respectable language' in the world and the most read and spoken. It is destined 'to be, in the next and succeeding centuries, more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age'. It was a bold prediction, for at that time there were only about 13 million English-speakers in the world, almost all of them living in Britain or on the eastern... https://www.scmp.com/article/1001634/talk-global-village-english?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1001634/talk-global-village-english?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000 In the midst of the Taliban attacks in central Kabul on Sunday, a journalist called the British embassy for a comment. 'I really don't know why they are doing this,' said a diplomat. 'We'll be out of here in two years' time. All they have to do is wait.' The official line is that two years from now, when US and Nato forces leave Afghanistan, the regime they installed will be able to stay in power without foreign support. The British diplomat clearly didn't believe that, and neither do most other... https://www.scmp.com/article/998510/futile-war-grinds-time-afghanistan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/998510/futile-war-grinds-time-afghanistan?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It is never easy to persuade those who have acquired power forcibly of the wisdom of peaceful change,' Aung San Suu Kyi once remarked. But the leader of Burma's main pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), never wavered in her belief that it was possible. Now it may actually be happening. In last Sunday's by-elections, the NLD won 43 out of 44 seats at stake. The outcome was so encouraging that NLD official Myo Win was quoted as saying: 'The army has changed and is now... https://www.scmp.com/article/997546/vote-may-be-won-suu-kyis-battle-lies-ahead?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/997546/vote-may-be-won-suu-kyis-battle-lies-ahead?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 We have just had the second Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul. It got surprisingly little attention from the international media although over 50 countries attended. Nobody expects a nuclear war, but a nuclear weapon in terrorist hands is the defining nightmare of the post-9/11 decade. Keeping bomb-grade nuclear material out of the wrong hands requires a high level of international co-operation. Some progress was made on this issue in Seoul, but the real problem is that there are far too many... https://www.scmp.com/article/997340/nuclear-disarmament-cant-escape-realpolitik?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/997340/nuclear-disarmament-cant-escape-realpolitik?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Reporter: 'What do you think of Western civilisation, Mr Gandhi?' Mohandas Gandhi: 'I think it would be a good idea.' The quote is probably apocryphal, but if the Mahatma didn't say it, he should have. Now we have something close to a global civilisation: most of the world's people work in similar economies, use the same machines, and live about as long. They even know most of the same things and have the same ambitions. So we need somebody to ask us the same question. Do we really think a... https://www.scmp.com/article/996299/only-technology-can-save-global-civilisation-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/996299/only-technology-can-save-global-civilisation-now?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The last time US President Barack Obama met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was obvious that the two men distrusted and despised each other. This time, their mutual dislike was better hidden, but the gulf between them was still as big, especially on the issue of Iran's alleged desire for nuclear weapons. What divides Obama and Netanyahu is a question of timing. Obama's 'red line' is the point at which Iran 'possesses' a nuclear weapon, which would not arrive for a couple of years... https://www.scmp.com/article/994912/regime-change-iran-israels-true-target?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/994912/regime-change-iran-israels-true-target?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Vladimir Putin is going to win the presidential election in Russia on Sunday. In theory, that gives him six more years in power, and the right to run for a further six-year term after that. But it's very unlikely that Putin will be ruling Russia 12 years from now. The latest opinion poll predicts that Putin will win 66per cent of the votes, but he's lucky that the presidential election isn't happening a year from now, because his support is eroding fast. People are losing their fear of his... https://www.scmp.com/article/994219/putins-grip-power-will-hold-not-long?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/994219/putins-grip-power-will-hold-not-long?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 As the Syrian opposition abandons non-violent protest for armed resistance, many people think this means President Bashar al-Assad and his Baathist regime are in even deeper trouble than before. On the contrary, it means that Assad and the Baathists are winning. The Baathists know how to destroy armed resistance. Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, crushed the armed uprising of 1982 with massive military force, killing between 10,000 and 40,000 people in Hama. He got away with it. This time,... https://www.scmp.com/article/992513/oppositions-resort-violence-helps-assad?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/992513/oppositions-resort-violence-helps-assad?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Four decades ago, Norman Borlaug, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on raising crop yields worldwide, said: 'I have only bought you a 40-year breathing space to stabilise your populations.' In 1970, when Borlaug got his prize, the world's population was 3.7billion. Today, it is seven billion. The US Census Bureau expects only two billion more in 30 years and we might stabilise the population by the end of the century - but we will have to feed almost three times as many... https://www.scmp.com/article/991940/growing-meat-lab-something-chew-over?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991940/growing-meat-lab-something-chew-over?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The Security Council cannot go about imposing solutions in crisis situations in various countries of the world,' said Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, as it began discussing what to do about the Syrian crisis. He needn't worry. Even as Syria drifts inexorably towards a catastrophic civil war, nobody else is willing to put troops into the country, so how are they going to impose anything? Syria isn't Libya. It is a big country with a powerful army, the core of which will remain... https://www.scmp.com/article/991378/no-end-sight-syrian-tragedy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/991378/no-end-sight-syrian-tragedy?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 If you're not allowed to enslave people any more, or even loot their resources, then why be a traditional great power? The US kept over 100,000 troops in Iraq for eight years, yet it didn't enslave a single Iraqi (though it killed a lot), and throughout the occupation, it paid full market price for Iraqi oil. So what American purpose did it serve? It was about 'security'. And here it comes again. Last Friday, US President Barack Obama unveiled America's new 'defence strategy'. But it... https://www.scmp.com/article/989821/primitive-fears-haunt-modern-military-minds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/989821/primitive-fears-haunt-modern-military-minds?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The Durban climate summit has been proclaimed a great success. The chair, South Africa's Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, told the delegates: 'We have concluded this meeting with [a plan] to save one planet for the future of our children and our grandchildren to come. We have made history.' Don't be fooled. It was an almost total failure. This time, the rapidly developing country that put up the greatest resistance to a binding global deal was India. (In 2009 and 2010, it was China.) The chief Indian... https://www.scmp.com/article/987892/one-step-closer-now-dangerous-warming?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/987892/one-step-closer-now-dangerous-warming?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000 One should not mock the sexual obsessions of Islamic fundamentalists; it's like shooting fish in a barrel. When a senior academic in Saudi Arabia declares in a report for the kingdom's legislative assembly that allowing women to drive would spell the end of virginity in the kingdom, it doesn't really require further comment. But let's offer a few anyway. In the report, Kamal Subhi describes sitting in a coffee shop in an Arab state where 'the women were looking at me. One made a gesture that... https://www.scmp.com/article/987639/fundamentalists-cant-roll-back-years?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/987639/fundamentalists-cant-roll-back-years?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000 When I was in school I used to wonder who Gloria Mundi was and how she had died, but it turned out to be my defective Latin. Sic transit gloria mundi means 'Thus passes the glory of this world.' But still, it kind of fits, doesn't it? Sic transit Muammar Gaddafi. Being Gaddafi must have been a bit like being Mick Jagger. You've been playing the same role since you were very young, and everybody loves you for it, at least to your face. You have actually become the standard by which all others... https://www.scmp.com/article/982841/how-absolute-power-created-arab-despots?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/982841/how-absolute-power-created-arab-despots?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Few things are as galling as being right too soon. Back in 1970, dissident Soviet writer Andrei Amalrik wrote a book boldly called Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? He predicted that it would not, which greatly annoyed the communist regime. He was sent to Siberia for his temerity, and later forced to leave Russia for the West. Even worse, he was wrong. The Soviet Union survived until 1991. Many pundits find themselves in the same situation today with regard to the euro. They say it... https://www.scmp.com/article/980548/euro-may-survive-one-default-not-next?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/980548/euro-may-survive-one-default-not-next?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000 Scientists who are working on various concepts for 'geo-engineering' the climate are almost comically eager to stress that they are not trying to come up with a substitute for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of man-made global warming. They are just researching back-up systems that we might need if the reductions don't happen fast enough. 'It's hard to imagine a situation except a dire emergency where this will be used, but in order to have that conversation sensibly we need... https://www.scmp.com/article/980157/climate-solution-or-just-blimp-air?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/980157/climate-solution-or-just-blimp-air?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000 He took off the Kremlin dog collar,' explained a friend of Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia's third-richest man, as the political party Prokhorov had founded to run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the December elections blew up in his face. Prokhorov spent millions setting up the new party, Right Cause, and the Kremlin stole it from him, he claims, though he never blames President Dmitry Medvedev or Putin personally. Putin & Co allegedly encouraged Prokhorov to launch Right Cause to... https://www.scmp.com/article/979593/tortuous-birth-credible-opposition?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/979593/tortuous-birth-credible-opposition?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000