By Sheryl Lal and Akansha Narayan*

NADI, Fiji (IDN) — Though Fiji Islands was unaffected by the first wave of COVID-19, its tourism sector, the lifeblood of the economy, has been devastated by border closure across the world due to the pandemic in the past two years. Thus, when the Fijian Tourism Expo (FTE) returned after a break of two years, Fiji Tourism’s CEO Brent Hill was in an upbeat mood, especially because they have been able to attract over 500 participants to the Expo in these competitive times for the travel industry. But, having experienced the vulnerabilities, sustainability was very much in focus during presentations at the event here.…

By Ravindra Singh Prasad

SUVA (IDN) — Every year on May 14 Fiji’s Indian community mark the day when the first shipment of their ancestors came here as indentured labourers to work in British sugarcane plantations established in their Pacific Ocean colony.

Girmitiya is how they came to be known over time—the name derived from the term Girmit, a corruption of the English word, agreement.…

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.…

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) — While images of the war devastation in Ukraine have saturated the news bulletins around the world, a much more severe human disaster is unravelling in many other parts of the world that could throw over one-fifth of humanity back into poverty.…