Politics Economy

• Thailand has secured $4.1 billion in electric vehicle (EV) supply chain investments, signaling a strategic pivot in its national automotive sector. • The country is currently competing with Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore to lead Southeast Asia’s rapidly expanding backpacking tourism circuit. • Bangkok has emerged as a global luxury travel hub, outperforming the U.S., India, and Indonesia due to a rise in high-spending visitors and millionaires.

• King and Queen Suthida of Thailand are conducting a state visit to France, featuring a showcase of the country's royal jewels to strengthen diplomatic ties. • Thai authorities have placed 43 provinces under flood and landslide watch due to heavy monsoon rains, with warnings remaining in effect through early July. • Security concerns have risen following a bomb attack in the Tak Bai region that injured two Malaysian nationals.

Minister tells security conference many people could have been killed in Invasion Day incident; Treasury working ‘full tilt’ on budget measures. Follow updates liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRadicalisation now more likely to come ‘across a browser’ than a border, home affairs minister saysTony Burke says it would be “reckless” and “ignorance in the extreme” for Australia to pretend that immigration is the solution to preventing violent extremism on our shores.It would be ignorance in the extreme for us to pretend that that is the fix. It would be reckless in the extreme for us to pretend that immigration is the solution. It is something that is one of our tools, but the only way we deliver national security is to deal with facts and risks as they present themselves, not as you might want them to be.Where we once only had to look at radicalisation potentially being something that might come across our border, it now comes across a browser. Where radicalisation used to involve – that you might have to go to a training camp in Afghanistan – it now comes to you in an algorithm.The Australia Day arrest in Perth, for a number of reasons, it didn’t receive the publicity that it really should have. But can I just say – we got so lucky. We got so lucky.This was not a stunt. The person who threw the pipe bomb into the middle of a crowd of First Nations protesters believed that – if you look at what it was – this was something where there was a reasonable expectation it would have gone off, and the number of people who then would have been killed. The fact that that didn’t happen is not through any planning. We just got lucky. Continue reading...