Xinhua Asia-Pacific news summary at 1600 GMT, Aug. 24

HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s Peak Tramways Company Limited announced on Wednesday that the sixth generation Peak Tram will be officially put into operation on Saturday.
The fifth generation Peak Tram officially ceased operation back in June 2021 for an upgrade project.
The sixth generation Peak Tram has a track length of 1,278 meters, and a capacity for 210 passengers, up from 120 in the previous generation. The tramcars are painted in green, a signature color of the Peak Tram. (Hong Kong-Peak Tram-Opening)
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BANGKOK — Thailand’s Constitutional Court announced on Wednesday to temporarily suspend the premiership of Prime Minister (PM) Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Judges agree by five votes to four to suspend Prayut from office, effective on Aug. 24, 2022, pending the court’s verdict, the court said in a statement on its website.
The court’s statement came following a petition filed by the opposition parties for a ruling on when Prayut’s eight-year tenure should conclude, which they believed should have ended and demanded Prayut to step down. (Thai Court-Premiership-Suspension)
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TOKYO — Japan is considering constructing next-generation nuclear reactors, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at an energy policy meeting on Wednesday.
Eleven years after the Fukushima disaster, the plan marked a major shift in the government’s nuclear energy policy, which is currently backing away from the building of new nuclear power plants. (Japan-Nuclear Reactors-Plan)
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MANILA — The COVID-19 pandemic has set back the fight against poverty in Asia and the Pacific by at least two years, and many in the region will likely find it harder than before to escape poverty, according to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report released on Wednesday.
The Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2022 said the region’s economic growth this year is expected to reduce extreme poverty, defined as living off less than 1.90 U.S. dollars a day, to a level that would have been achieved in 2020 had the pandemic not happened. (ADB-Pandemic-Poverty)
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JAKARTA — A 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia’s western province of Bengkulu on Tuesday evening, but there were no reports of damages or casualties, officials said.
The meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency did not issue a tsunami warning as the tremors did not have the potential to trigger giant waves in the waters off the province. (Indonesia-Quake)