The fires which swept across 400,000 hectares of bush in the south-eastern Australian state of Victoria in February left 173 people dead and ruined more than two thousand homes. But while they razed businesses, schools and kindergartens to the ground, wildlife and their habitats were also destroyed.

As an activist in China, Yuan Feng actively advocates women’s rights. Yuan is now the director of Combating Domestic Violence against Women and a leading figure of Gender and Development (GAD) group in China. She visited South Korea to join a newly established feminist network, Network for GloCal Activism and School of Feminism. Excerpts from the interview.

Feminist activists have adopted ‘glocal’, a relatively new geolexical construct, to bridge activism from across Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.

Grassroots activist Anuradha Talwar was in the eye of a storm that swept Communist-ruled West Bengal state between 2006-08, over the acquisition of agricultural land for industries.

African trade ministers who met in Addis Ababa at the African Union (AU) in March urged world leaders to 'place African economic development at the centre of international efforts to build strategies towards the recovery of the global economy’’ ahead of the G20 summit in London.

When the Thai government imposed an emergency law cracking down on rampaging red-shirted protesters on the streets of Bangkok, the military, in combat gear, was not its only weapon. The state’s censors were given liberty to silence critical media.

Earlier in the decade, biofuels were hailed as the energy panacea, the silver bullet to solve oil shortages and abide by environmental concerns. The European Union recently took the lead in imposing the use of these liquid or gaseous fuels made from plants.

President Barack Obama had promised that his administration would be different. His, he said, would be a listening, caring one, even though like previous United States leaders, he came to the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago bearing gifts - no doubt hoping for support for his new initiatives.

When heads of districts describe efforts to fight sexual violence as a waste of resources, it raises questions about the leadership’s commitment to deal with the matter.