Photo: Dr Susan Freeman with Lin Xueling.

Photo: Dr Susan Freeman and Lin Xueling with some of the students that attended the class.

International journalist talks to MBA students

Skyrocketing food prices have triggered riots in Asia and Africa and raised fears that millions of people will be thrown back into acute poverty; prompting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to warn that the current global food crisis is a fight the international community, "cannot afford to lose."

International journalist Lin Xueling, guest of Dr Susan Freeman from the Department of Management, addressed the global food crisis during an MBA Master Class for International Business students. Her talk was based on her eight-week investigative reporting series - "Starve the World" which focused on the global food crisis and its impact on Asia.

Lin is the presenter and producer of Channel NewsAsia's premier current affairs interview show "Conversation with…" and the broadcaster's retail investment show "Cents & Sensibilities".

She is a veteran international journalist with more than 15 years of news and business reporting experience, writing for global publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Before joining Channel NewsAsia in Singapore in 2006, she was with Dow Jones Newswires, as Bureau Chief in Denmark, Norway and most recently as Chief Scandinavian Correspondent in Sweden.

She tackled a series of tricky and polemical questions about the global food crisis – who's to blame and who's making the money. She also questioned current talks about food security as just another means of re-introducing protectionism and trade barriers.