Boris Johnson, who is poised to win the Conservative leadership, may be the last prime minister of a genuinely united kingdom, writes columnist Gwynne Dyer.

There is movement towards peace in Afghanistan—or at least towards an end to the American military ordeal there, which has lasted for almost 18 years. The only losers in the settlement will be the Afghans, who have to live under Taliban rule again. But that was always going to happen in the end.

Two showbiz figures, complete novices in politics, trying to run a country of 44 million people (which, by the way, is in a proxy war with Russia). What could possibly go wrong? 

Borders will start slamming shut in the countries, mostly in the temperate zone of the planet, where the climate is still tolerable and there is still enough food to eat.

So why did Donald Trump trash the Iran nuclear deal? He aprobably believed that putting 'maximum pressure' on Iran would make it crumble. Another triumph for the great statesman.

In mid-June, Saudi journalist Khaled al-Matrafi claimed that Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, was target for the Saudi-led, U.S.-backed coalition that has been bombing Yemen for the past four years.

The Conservative Party has become unhinged—even though a perfectly sensible exit deal from the EU already exists. Theresa May signed it last November.

Abiy Ahmed is Ethiopia’s best chance of breaking the cycle of tyrannies that has blighted its modern history.

It’s impossible to say how many people have died because of this year’s late monsoon, because India generally only counts people who make it to hospital before they die (and not always even then).

We should hope Mike Pompeo and John Bolton are right and that Iran is behind the attacks, because that would be a stupid but quite genuine attempt to stave off a full-scale war. If it’s a Saudi and UAE false-flag operation, with or without the tacit collaboration of Bolton and Pompeo, then the region really is headed for war.

Whoever won the first election after long-ruling dictator Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011 was winning a poisoned chalice, for the Egyptian economy was already on the rocks when the protests began.

In the United States being white will usually make the police take a charitable view, but in the United Kingdom the best strategy is to say that you are planning to go into politics.

They may be special forces troops and secret police, left over from the old dictatorship and long rewarded for abusing and murdering the old regime’s enemies, who will gladly serve a new dictatorship.

The Sudanese Professionals Association is calling for a campaign of 'sweeping civil disobedience to topple the treacherous and killer military council,' but unless it can take back control of the streets, it’s all over.

So Communist dictatorship survived in China while it peacefully expired in Russia. It still looks solid today: the current leader, Xi Jinping, has just effectively declared himself president-for-life.

Think how many people would rejoice in his victory: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Muhammad bin Salman, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Emmanuel Macron. If all those wise men like it, who are we to say otherwise?

Populist demagogues in other EU countries have watched the tragicomic mega-shambles of Britain’s attempted Brexit and decided that the wiser course is to stay in the EU and try to dominate it from within.

I’d really like to believe acting U.S. Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan. But actually, nobody’s in charge.

Iran’s army is about the same size as that of the United States, but it could quickly expand to 10 times that size with volunteers, as it did during the U.S.-backed Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980-88.

If the United States does attack, nobody will help Iran, even though every other signatory to the no-nukes treaty that Trump trashed knows (and says) that Iran has complied with its terms.

The great-power mania infects everybody.

For the second time in a month, a member country of the European Union has not voted a populist into power. Could it be that the populist wave has broken?

The officers, and especially the generals, are not ready to change sides, partly because they are dedicated Chavistas, but also because few of the generals have managed to hide their loot somewhere safe abroad.

The ‘dissidents’ who formed the Real IRA in 2012 are nationalists who never accepted the truce. They have been waiting for an opportunity to reopen the revolutionary liberation war that they imagine was betrayed by the Good Friday Agreement, and Brexit is giving it to them.