THE MODERN TIMES INTERVIEW: Elisabeth Hoff, WHO's representative in Libya today, wondered why Norway got involved and dropped 700 bombs on Libya in 2011: "It makes no sense at all." For 30 years, Hoff has tried to save lives in war zones such as Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. How can a human endure so much suffering?
Herat: What does Afghanistan's Herat look like one year after the Taliban took over? Herat is the example of what Afghanistan could look like – as the city has 780 places on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This report gives a look from both the 1970s and today.
SYRIA: Carsten Wieland uncovers a large number of mistakes in the Western donor countries' handling of the humanitarian crisis during the Syrian civil war. He also mentions how rebel forces have deliberately starved local people to attract aid: Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda.
AFGHANISTAN: Sangin – during twenty years of war, this area has been the bloodiest battlefield. It is reminiscent of Roman ruins. In 2001, one in three Afghans was starving – now one in two is starving.
MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS: From someone who should know the intricacies of foreign policy and geopolitics: Thorbjørn Jagland on military rearmament and enemy images – when it comes to the USA, Russia, China, Turkey and Libya.
ESSAY: In addition to the world's whistleblowers, a number of writers have suffered because of what they have revealed. Jan Tystad deals with some of them here.
PRIORITIES: Many who question the legitimacy of the US wars seem to be pressured by research and media institutions. An example here is the Institute for Peace Research (PRIO), which has had researchers who have historically been critical of any war of aggression – who have hardly belonged to the close friends of nuclear weapons.
THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Beauty, suffering, wealth, poverty, superficiality and raped children are different sides of the same coin, says photographer Marco Di Lauro, who spent a week with the Red Cross in Bergamo during the covid-19 outbreak.
United States / Militarization: Niels Harrit points out in this article that the participation of European countries in the attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was illegal – according to the UN Treaty. Were a number of countries tricked into the "war on terror"?
AFGHANISTAN: In the capital, Kabul, which only gets international attention when suicide bombers attack, director Aboozar Amini is a fly on the wall in the lives of ordinary people.
READING AND WRITING DIFFICULTIES: Pakistan needs to prioritize the citizens' lack of reading and writing skills and should launch a nationwide program that takes into account the country's multicultural and foreign language communities.
Migrant: The Fazili family are migrants. They record mobile phones of their dangerous journey from Afghanistan via the migrant route in the Balkans and to an uncertain future in Europe.
