Asia - South China Morning Post

In a year already brimming with threats of war and unrest, 2026 has brought some health scares for Asia. In January, two cases of the deadly Nipah virus emerged among healthcare workers, both nurses, in West Bengal, India. One of the two nurses has since died.

The Nipah virus has one of the highest fatality rates of any known viral disease, typically ranging from 40 to 75 per cent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since 1998, when the first outbreak of the disease was recorded...

The warming El Nino weather phenomenon could form later this year, potentially pushing global temperatures to record heights.

There is a 50-60 per cent chance of El Nino developing during the July-September period and beyond, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The World Meteorological Organization will issue an update on El Nino on Tuesday.

Here’s what you need to know about El Nino and its cooler sister, La Nina.

Why the name?

El Nino and La Nina are two...

Asian countries are heavily reliant on imported oil and gas and could suffer serious economic fallout after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, Morgan Stanley said.

The manufacturing-intensive, export-reliant region was “more sensitive” to oil price volatility than Europe or the US, the New York-based investment bank said in a research note on Sunday.

Asia’s oil and gas trade deficit stood at 2.1 per cent of gross domestic product, it calculated. Every sustained US$10...

President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s decision to promote coastguard officer Jay Tarriela – despite Beijing’s calls for him to be sanctioned – is being read by analysts as a calibrated signal of how the Philippines intends to manage its maritime dispute with China.

Rather than a routine personnel move, they say, the elevation of one of the government’s most outspoken maritime voices suggests Marcos is doubling down on a strategy that pairs public exposure of Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea...

Millions of migrant workers, who support some of the Middle East’s most crucial sectors, are in the line of fire as Iran retaliates against the US-Israeli strikes that killed the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader.

Southeast and South Asian nations supply a large share of the labour in the Gulf, including medical practitioners, construction workers and household help that make up a migrant workforce the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates at over 24 million.

The Philippines,...

Singapore’s long-standing effort to stay equidistant between the United States and China is entering a more volatile phase, with recent comments by officials reflecting their awareness of the mounting strain, analysts have said.

Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Friday told parliament that Singapore would not act as a proxy for any major power, stressing that the city state must be prepared to “courteously stand up and say no”.

Observers say his remarks come at a time when geopolitical...

India and Canada on Monday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi.

The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations.

“Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and...

Airspace closures across the Middle East have left tens of thousands of travellers stranded and forced airlines to divert routes, threatening to derail the fragile recovery in Asia’s tourism and aviation sectors, as the conflict involving the US and Israel against Iran continues to escalate.

Major transit hubs, including Dubai and Doha, remain shut or are operating at reduced capacity for a third straight day, upending Europe–Asia connections that depend heavily on Gulf airspace.

Airlines are...

The fragile ceasefire between the Taliban and Pakistan has broken, and there is now open war in South Asia.

This week has seen a dangerous escalation between the former allies, starting when Pakistan carried out a series of air strikes on what it says were terror “camps and hideouts” in Afghanistan’s border provinces. Pakistan claims it killed 80 militants, whereas the Taliban says villages were hit and 17 civilians were killed.

The two have since engaged in a deadly tit-for-tat of ground and...

For years, India has prided itself on a foreign policy doctrine of “dehyphenation”: maintaining productive, parallel relations with conflicting countries such as Israel, Iran and the Arab Gulf states without letting any one bilateral tie poison the others.

That doctrine is now being tested to the limit.

The killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by US-Israeli strikes within days of Narendra Modi returning from a high-profile visit to Tel Aviv provided instant ammunition for the...