Politics
Dire straits: the farming crisis
In eastern India, the effects of the Iran war are showing up not in fuel queues or port delays but in the calculations farmers make before sowing. The kharif season begins with the southwest monsoon, which advances across India during June. That is when demand rises for urea, India’s most widely used nitrogen fertiliser. If supplies are tight at this time the consequences appear later in weaker harvests. Rahul Jaywant Bhise writes on how the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is turning an energy shock into a fertiliser and food-security crisis across Asia.
Sri Lanka’s recovery hit by Hormuz blockade
Sri Lanka finds itself once again listening anxiously to developments unfolding thousands of kilometres away in the Middle East. The Iran conflict, and wider instability involving Israel, the United States and the Gulf region, has cast a long economic shadow over the island, as Eranga Pereira reports from Colombo.
Is Japan aiming to be a regional power?
Japan was not at the table when Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to a ‘constructive relationship of strategic stability’ in Beijing. It did not need to be. At the time of the Beijing talks its navy was engaged in a seven-country naval exercise off the Philippines, writes Howard Zhang.
Trump, the nation builder
President Trump’s state visit to China in May attracted enormous attention across the country. Social media buzzed with commentary, speculation and mockery in equal measure. Lijia Zhang writes that beneath the jokes lies something more serious: Donald Trump has become a symbol of how profoundly Chinese perceptions of the United States have changed.
Life in limbo: Iran under a fragile ceasefire
The bombings may have stopped, but life in Iran feels anything but normal. Weeks after a fragile ceasefire ended the 40-day war between Iran, the United States and Israel, the nation remains trapped in a state of fear, exhaustion and uncertainty, as Fariba Sahraei reports.
Clan warfare in the Philippines takes on an international dimension
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Dutch city of The Hague has announced it will go ahead with the prosecution of Rodrigo Duterte, a former president of the Philippines, on three counts of crimes against humanity relating to the war on drugs, Duterte’s signature policy as president. Jonathan Miller, who has been following the saga, reports.
Gen Z takes power in Nepal
Nepal celebrated its new year last month (April) by welcoming a youth-led government from the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which won a near supermajority in March’s election. Kunda Dixit reports on a mood of cautious optimism among Nepalis that the new government will bring a fresh start for the country.
How scam centres control Myanmar
A major problem facing Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing, now rebranded as the country’s civilian-style president, is to take control of the myriad ‘scam centres’ - illegal operations that run online fraud schemes such as phishing, fake investments and scam romances. Despite efforts by the country’s army, Myanmar’s scam economy has not been dismantled but is instead dispersing, adapting, and embedding itself more deeply across conflict-hit borderlands, as Nyein Chan Aye reports.
Kazakhs vote for change in stage-managed referendum
On 15 March Kazakhs voted by a substantial majority for constitutional changes which some see as an exit strategy for President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who is seeking political closure on the instability that embroiled the country in 2022. Chris Rickleton reports.
The war nobody is winning
The Iran war may be drawing to a close but with no clear conclusion, let alone any clear winner. The initial focus by the US and Israel on the country’s political leadership and its nuclear fuel has shifted towards control of the Strait of Hormuz. Beyond the combatants themselves, non-oil producing nations in Asia who get most of their fuel from the Gulf have been the main losers, as Nicholas Nugent reports.
China is not winning the Iran war
As Hormuz tensions rise, China’s words – and silences – tell a clearer story than the headlines. China is not winning the Iran war, but it is not losing it either, as Howard Zhang reports.
Has democracy returned to Bangladesh?
With February’s election giving the Bangladesh Nationalist Party a two-thirds majority in parliament and bringing to an end 18 months of a non-elected interim government, Professor Dr Mohammad Tarikul Islam questions whether democracy has been restored.
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