It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair — A Tale of Two Cities 1859

Viewpoint by Joseph Camilleri

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

MELBOURNE, Australia (IDN) — These opening lines of Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution, offer us a remarkable insight into humanity’s current predicament.…

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf

BONN (IDN) — At present, historical analogies are very often used to explain reasons for or against the causes of the war in Ukraine or to describe the horrors of this war with historical arguments. Some of these comparisons are downright perfidious, like equating Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.…

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

Viewpoint by Ramesh Thakur

CANBERRA, Australia (IDN) — Resorting to what President Barack Obama called the Washington Playbook of militarised response to a foreign policy crisis, Arta Moeini writes, the ruling elites in the West collude with the mainstream media in a Manichean framing that ‘redirects a natural reaction of sympathy felt by all into a moral outrage that insists on certain retaliation’.…

Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene

The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.

ABUJA (IDN) — There’s a severe, earth-baking drought in the Horn of Africa. About 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti are in the grip of acute hunger. The rains have failed in three consecutive years, prompting the driest conditions experienced in the region in 41 years.…

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) — In the early 1980s when I was studying mass communications in Australia, our journalism lecturer told us that as journalists we will have to hold governments to account, and to do that sometimes we may need to depend on leaks from government officials. “You should not hesitate to use that information while ensuring that you do not disclose the source,” he instructed us, adding, “if anyone asks you (for the source) tell them it fell off the back of a truck”.…

Viewpoint by Iria Puyosa

This article was issued by Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

MICHIGAN, United States (IDN) — In their advance towards Kabul, the Taliban were anticipating their military victory through WhatsApp’s voice notes, tweets, and Facebook posts. The Taliban insurgency crafted transmedia storytelling on how Afghan army soldiers were surrendering without much fighting.…