Asia - South China Morning Post

Asia is entering a dangerous summer for food production as scientists warn of a “super El Nino” suppressing rainfall while the war on Iran drives up energy and fertiliser costs for farmers.

India’s Meteorological Department has forecast a below-average monsoon, after two successive years of above-normal rains, while in Australia – a major wheat producer and exporter – a shortage of farm inputs and persistent dryness has reportedly pushed planting acreage to a seven-year low.

Farmers across South...

Flights between China and Japan faced even more cancellations in March – with further cuts expected during the coming Labour Day holiday – as political tensions between the Asian neighbours continue to simmer.

A total of 2,691 China-Japan flights were scrapped last month, according to figures from the data platform DAST cited by Chinese media outlet Yicai. That brought the cancellation rate to nearly 50 per cent, 1.1 percentage points higher than February.

Only 2,711 flights between the two...

In the spring of 2026, amid a fragile ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump continues to insist that the United States is untouched by disruptions in the Persian Gulf. “We don’t use it”, he has claimed, echoing years of “energy dominance” rhetoric.

The numbers tell a different story. The United States remains a net importer of crude oil. Its refineries are engineered for the medium sour barrels that flow through the Hormuz Strait. And the global price shock triggered by the...

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake that hit Japan on Monday has renewed worries on Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali, which sits on the same Pacific Ring of Fire.

Hours after the quake, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a special advisory warning of a slightly elevated risk of a temblor with a magnitude of 8 or stronger in the coming days. It said there was a 1 per cent chance of a megaquake, compared with 0.1 per cent at other times.

Monday’s temblor came just days after the Bali Meteorology,...

The geopolitical fallout from the Strait of Hormuz chokehold in the Middle East is just a “dry run”, with the Pacific being where the real action will occur if superpowers were to clash, Singapore’s top diplomat has warned.

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan also revealed on Wednesday that Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia shared an interest in keeping the Strait of Malacca open, even under the spectre of tolls being imposed on the strategic Southeast Asian waterway.

His stance however...

Schools in India’s capital must ring regular bells to remind schoolchildren to drink water as the megacity gears up to face heatwave conditions, a new city order has said.

Summer heat in the world’s most populous nation can be brutal – putting millions of people at risk, with nearly 11,000 people dying due to heatstroke between 2012 and 2021, according to government data.

A heatwave in May 2024 in New Delhi saw temperatures match the capital’s previous record high: 49.2 degrees Celsius (120...

Myanmar’s military-backed rulers have shaved time off Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison sentence and freed thousands of detainees, but analysts say the apparent goodwill gestures tell a story of a regime growing bolder, not more merciful.

The government last week announced an amnesty for 4,335 prisoners, its third in six months, and reduced by a sixth the 27-year sentence of the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, who has not been seen in public since her criminal trials ended in December...

A notorious North Korean hacking group is likely behind the theft of nearly US$300 million in cryptocurrency over the weekend, an affected party has said, in the biggest known crypto heist this year.

It is the latest such incident linked to North Korea, whose sophisticated cybercrime programme uses stolen cryptocurrency to help fund its nuclear weapons development, according to a United Nations panel.

Digital currency news site CoinDesk said the heist on the vault of online investment tool...

A Singaporean man who was seen in a viral video assaulting a Filipino woman at Lucky Plaza shopping centre was charged on Wednesday over the incident and a previous alleged attack on the same woman.

Andrew Suresh Markandan, 47, was handed two charges of voluntarily causing hurt to Alibutdan Vilma Litgio and two charges of mischief by damaging her property.

He is accused of first assaulting the victim at about 7.25pm on March 30 last year at Hotel 81 Bugis. He allegedly slapped her and punched...

Far-flung Pacific nations ⁠are reeling from the impact of a global ⁠fuel crisis as authorities scramble to manage energy supplies while families must grapple ⁠with fuel curbs and higher costs for food and access to healthcare.

Global oil supplies are running down as the US-Israeli war with Iran disrupts traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which typically carries about 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows.

Aid agencies have warned that the crisis has driven up prices...