Gwynne Dyer - The Japan Times

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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.

For Gwynne Dyer's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 29, 2000

U.S. blocks the road to a greener planet

LONDON -- The Canadians and the Australians were just as bad, really, and the Saudi Arabians were outrageous: They want the world to compensate them for every barrel of oil they don't sell if it cuts back on burning fossil fuels to slow global warming. But the Americans were the real reason that the 175-country talks on climate change broke up in chaos at The Hague on Saturday.

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 25, 2000

In Peru, the strong man takes his leave

LONDON -- Alejandro Toledo, the man who would have won the Peruvian election last spring if President Alberto Fujimori had not cheated at every stage of the process, got it exactly right: "Alberto Fujimori's government will be illegitimate, a source of permanent instability, and I don't think it can last more than six to 12 months."

COMMENTARY / World

Nov 9, 2000

Amid uncertainties, the universe beckons

LONDON -- "You would hope that from this point on," said Jim Van Laak, manager of the space station Alpha, on Friday, "we will never have a period when humans are not living in space."

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 30, 2000

West Papua: Indonesia's next East Timor?

LONDON -- The biggest single taxpayer in Indonesia is the U.S. firm Freeport McMoran. The money comes mostly from its Grasberg mine in the mountains of West Papua, which sits on the largest gold deposit in the world. That is why Jakarta, which used every dirty trick in the book to hang onto East Timor in 1999, will fight even harder to hang on to West Papua, the western part of the great island of New Guinea.

COMMENTARY / World

Oct 18, 2000

Sri Lanka and the Bandaranaike legacy

Almost drowned out by the blare of daily horrors in the Middle East, the world's first elected woman prime minister, Sirima Bandaranaike, died last week in Sri Lanka aged 84. Fittingly, she died on the way home from casting her vote in an election called by her daughter, the country's current president. It was also fitting that the main issue of the election was how to stop the civil war "Mrs. B" had done so much to start.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 30, 2000

A final act for Milosevic?

LONDON -- "We are talking about political fraud and blatant stealing of votes," said Yugoslav opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica Sept. 26, after it was announced that he had not defeated Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday. "The victory is obvious and will be defended by all nonviolent means."

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 25, 2000

Next up in the drug war: 'Plan Colombia'

LONDON -- It is customary, when Washington says "jump," for British governments to ask "how high?" When they don't jump at all, their failure to comply should be treated with the same alarm as when one of those old pit canaries, kept in coal mines to detect the buildup of carbon monoxide, topples quietly off its perch.

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 18, 2000

Who wants an all-white world, anyway?

LONDON -- "Whites will be a minority in Britain by the end of the century. . . . It would be the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine and disease. Whites will be a minority in London by 2010."

COMMENTARY / World

Sep 4, 2000

Bloody birth of multicultural Europe

LONDON -- "What are you doing here in Germany," asked the three drunken youths when they ran into Alberto Adriano in Dessau one Saturday night in June. "I live here," Adriano might have replied, but he didn't get the chance. The three were still rhythmically kicking and stamping on his head with their steel-capped boots and chanting, "Get out of our country, you nigger pig," when the police pulled up and arrested them.

COMMENTARY / World

Aug 10, 2000

It's summertime, and the news is slim

LONDON -- Those of us whose job is to feed the world a steady diet of "news" (99 percent of which is actually recycled "olds") are always grateful when a loon like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef opens his mouth and lets fly. Especially in August.

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 22, 2000

No point mourning the loss of languages

Early in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life," there's a skit sending up the Catholic Church's ban on contraception in which hordes of ragged but pious urchins sing several choruses of "Every Sperm Is Sacred." The industry of worrying about dead, dying and declining languages is a bit like that.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 18, 2000

Fuse burning on the Mideast powder keg

LONDON -- Ignore all the empty chatter about the future of a "Middle East peace process" that died months ago, and waste no time in futile speculation about the character of Syria's new president, mild-mannered ophthalmologist Dr. Bashar Assad. The regime that was run for the past 30 years by Bashar's late father Hafez Assad, ex-fighter pilot, occasional mass murderer and latter-day statesman, is a system that gives Bashar almost no room for maneuver.

COMMENTARY / World

Jun 1, 2000

Democracy vs. ethnicity in Fiji

LONDON -- There are rare occasions when a military takeover may be the least bad solution to a country's problems. Monday's military coup in Fiji may be one of them.

COMMENTARY / World

May 27, 2000

Wars drag on in an interconnected world

LONDON -- Two wars should be ending this month, for the Tamil separatists have all but won in Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia has already won in the Horn of Africa. Neither result is wonderful, but -- at least in the past -- outcomes as decisive as these used to end the fighting and let ordinary people get on with their lives. Not any more.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 22, 2000

China faces democracy bug

LONDON -- Taiwan's transition to democracy is complete. On Saturday, after half a century of rule by the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), the offshore island's 15 million voters elected a president from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, Chen Shui-bian. "I feel very, very badly about this," said the defeated KMT candidate, Lien Chan. "I hope he will govern carefully."

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

Vol. 34: Tokyo, a vanguard city for sustainability

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