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By Kathleen Aquino

The 3rd ILGA-Asia Conference held in Chiang Mai, Thailand last 24 to 27 January 2008, was an opportunity to unite LGBT activists from the different parts of the region. It provided a venue for LGBT activists to discuss pressing issues within their respective countries and to share strategies towards the attainment of gender equality and sexual diversity in Asia.

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(First part of a three-part series)

It has been more than a week since cyclone Nargis pounded the Irrawaddy Delta, leaving hundreds and thousands dead and missing and millions starving. Aid have began to trickle in yet there are remote areas still unreached by the limited relief operations. As the notorious junta refuses to truly cooperate with donors and to facilitate an assessment of the extent of Nargis' impact, speculation over statistics persists.

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Over what is now being perceived as a food crisis sweeping the globe, panic and anger over food have fueled many street demonstrations and even riots across different countries like Mexico, Haiti, Bangladesh, Philippines, Mozambique, and Morocco.

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Last 10 April 2008, Nepal held elections for its Constituent Assembly. Isis International interviewed Bandana Rana for her perspective on the election. Ms. Rana is former president and founder of Sancharika Samuha, a women's independent media organisation and currently the president of Saathi, an NGO working on violence against women, based in Kathmandu, Nepal.

 

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On the evening news, a Davaoeña woman was reported to have branded her young son’s leg with a piece of scorching firewood that she used for cooking.  The young boy, looking about 6 years old, had spilled the little that remained of their rice – National Food Authority (NFA) rice that his mother queued up for hours.  Frantic about the wasted grains, she picked up the still smoldering firewood and set it to her son’s ankle.  Extreme and isolated might be this example, it is nonetheless indicative of the sense of food insecurity that is being felt, not just in the Philippines but in the rest of the Asian region .

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Women human rights activists were arrested in Fiji after staging a protest vigil in front of the Chinese embassy last 9 April 2008 in the capital, Suva. The women were protesting  the Chinese government's harsh treatment of Tibetans, who held protest marches as well as violent riots in March 2008 in Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Sympathy for Tibetans and their cause to regain independence from China has been gathering worldwide support and gaining media attention for a decades-old struggle by exiled Tibetans.