03/07/2025

THURSDAY | JULY 3, 2025

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Thai veteran politician to be acting PM for one day

the grandeur and splendor of the tourist city, where more than 400 ... artistically designed buildings lined the white sandy beach in ideal harmony”, it added. According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, a group of Russian tourists is set to visit the zone in North Korea for the first time on July 7. South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which manages relations with the North, said the site’s operations are “expected to gradually expand”, including to Russian tourists. Kim said last week the construction of the site would go down as “one of the greatest successes this year” and that the North would build more large-scale tourist zones “in the shortest time possible”. But given the limited capacity of available flights, international tourism to the new beach resort is “likely to remain small in scale”, according to the Unification Ministry. “It is estimated that tourists will travel via Pyongyang, and that the number of visitors may be limited to around 170 people a day,” the ministry said. – AFP AUSTRALIA CANCELS VISA OF KANYE WEST SYDNEY: Australia has cancelled US rapper Kanye West’s visa over his song glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the government said yesterday. The 48-year-old musician, who has legally changed his name to Ye, released Heil Hitler on May 8, the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. West, whose wife Bianca Censori is Australian, has been coming to Australia for some time because he has family in the country, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.The rapper’s cancelled visa was not intended for holding concerts. – AFP FIJI AIMING FOR ‘OCEAN OF PEACE’ SYDNEY: Fiji said yesterday that China should not be allowed to gain a permanent military foothold in the strategically contested South Pacific region. Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka hit back at suggestions that China could turn its growing sway into a permanent security presence. He said the South Pacific should be an “ocean of peace”, free from the ambitions of jostling superpowers. Aid and development should not be offered with strings attached, he said. “We do not want superpower rivalries or big power rivalries to be played out in the Pacific.” – AFP INDIA FACTORY FIRE DEATH TOLL AT 40 HYDERABAD: A fire at a chemical factory in southern India on Monday led to the death of 40 people and left over 33 injured. , Sigachi Industries said operations at the plant will remain suspended for 90 days. The government of Telangana state, where the facility is located, has formed a five member committee to investigate the incident, the cause of which has yet to be disclosed. “The accident was not caused by a reactor explosion,” it said. – Reuters

BR I E F S

“opponent”, according to a leaked recording causing widespread backlash. A conservative party abandoned her ruling coalition, sparking the Cabinet reshuffle, while her approval rating plunged and thousands mustered to protest over the weekend. Conservative lawmakers accused Paetongtarn of kowtowing to Cambodia and undermining the military, entering a case with the Constitutional Court alleging the suspended prime minister breached the constitution’s ministerial ethics code. – AFP

office represents a dramatic waning of the Shinawatras’ influence. Tuesday also saw the second day of Thaksin’s criminal trial for royal defamation, in which he faces a possible 15-year sentence if convicted. Paetongtarn has been hobbled over a longstanding territorial dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, which boiled over into cross-border clashes in May, killing one Cambodian soldier. When she made a diplomatic call to Cambodian ex-leader Hun Sen she called him “uncle” and referred to a Thai military commander as her

today, Suriya is set to be superseded by incoming Interior Minister Phumtham Wechayachai. The ruling Pheu Thai party said late on Tuesday that Phumtham will take over after the Cabinet reshuffle because he will receive a deputy prime minister title that is higher in the order of succession than Suriya. Paetongtarn, who became prime minister only last August, assigned herself the culture minister position in the new Cabinet before she was suspended, meaning she is set to keep a perch in the upper echelons of power. But analysts say her pause from

HONG prominent Communist Party publication called for a crackdown on forms of competition that fuel price wars and squeeze profits in various industries, criticising big firms and local governments for unfair practices. In the most strongly-worded Communist Party warning yet on the risks of industrial overcapacity, the Qiushi article on Tuesday said the phenomenon brings “enormous waste of social resources”, and unsustainable debt that could endanger long-term growth. The article, written under a pseudonym, focused on “involutionary competition” in which it said firms and local governments invest vast amounts of capital to chase market share in an environment of limited demand, while failing to achieve revenue growth. It singled out industries such as photovoltaics, lithium batteries, electric vehicles and e-commerce platforms. To cut costs, some companies KONG: A BANGKOK: Thailand’s acting prime minister helmed the country for only one full day yesterday, standing in for suspended premier Paetongtarn Shinawatra before being replaced in a Cabinet reshuffle. Transport Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit began his engagements by attending a ceremony in Bangkok celebrating the longevity of the prime minister’s office. The event marks the 93rd anniversary of an institution Suriya has been asked to oversee as Thailand reels from the suspension of Paetongtarn, heiress of the country’s dominant political dynasty. The Constitutional Court said on Tuesday there was “sufficient cause to suspect” she breached ministerial ethics during a diplomatic spat with Cambodia, suspending her pending an investigation that could last months. The 38-year-old Paetongtarn is the daughter of political heavyweight Thaksin Shinawatra, whose family and party have been jousting with Thailand’s establishment since the early 2000s. Power immediately passed to 70-year-old Suriya, a veteran operator with a reputation in Thai media as a political weathervane for always aligning himself with the government of the day. But his time as acting premier is set to be cut short by a Cabinet reshuffle already scheduled before Tuesday’s court bombshell. When it takes effect in an oath swearing ceremony scheduled for o Thaksin criminal trial enters second day

Suriya (right) at a ceremony to mark the 93rd anniversary of the Prime Minister’s Office at the Government House in Bangkok yesterday. – AFPPIC

Crack down on price wars, urges journal

North Korea opens beach resort SEOUL: North Korea opened a massive resort area on its east coast, state media said yesterday, with the tourism pet project of leader Kim Jong Un reportedly set to welcome Russian guests this month.

governments, focused on short-term growth, attract investment by “artificially creating policy havens” with preferential taxes, fees, subsidies and land use, as well as protectionist measures. Many economists have warned Beijing for years that high levels of state-guided investment and subdued domestic demand – caused in part by a feeble social safety net and deep rural-urban inequalities – leave China overly dependent on exports for growth, and pose debt and deflation risks similar to what Japan experienced in the 1990s. Qiushi did not mention deflation, but warned that China might suffer from “development model path dependence” and needed supply side reforms that reduce excess industrial capacity and a strategy to expand domestic demand. It said that this would take time. “Rectifying ‘involutionary’ competition is a complex systematic engineering project that cannot be accomplished overnight or with a single decisive move.” – Reuters

compromise on product quality, Qiushi said, disincentivising innovation and investment in research and development and harming consumer interests as “bad money drives out good money”. Other firms are using resources to expand capacity, while delaying payments to suppliers and contractors, squeezing the entire industrial chain. E-commerce platforms compete on prices by using their advantageous position to transfer pressure on the merchants using them to get through to customers, Qiushi said. The magazine also offered some rare criticism of local officials, accusing them of both “absence and overreach”. Officials should step in more as regulations have not kept up with the development of new industries and business models, it said. Bankruptcy mechanisms are also “imperfect”, preventing curbs to excessive supply. On the other hand, some local

Dubbed “North Korea’s Waikiki” by South Korean media, the Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Area can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, according to Pyongyang, which previously described it as “a world class cultural resort”. Kim showed a keen interest in developing Korea’s tourism industry during his early years in power, analysts have said, and the coastal resort area was a particular focus. The tourist zone opened to domestic visitors on Tuesday, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency reported, publishing images of tourists in colourful swimsuits enjoying the beach. North Koreans of all ages from across the country flocked to the site this week “filled with joy at experiencing a new level of civilisation”, KCNA reported. The visitors were “astonished by