South Korea's trade watchdog on Thursday recommended the government accept a proposal from Chinese steel companies to raise export prices of their hot-rolled carbon and alloy steel plates over the next five years as part of anti-dumping remedies.

The Korea Trade Commission (KTC) said it has decided to make such a recommendation to the Ministry of Economy and Finance for nine Chinese steel exporters, including Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. and Jiangsu Shagang Steel Co, reports news agency.

The companies have proposed a price undertaking after the KTC reached a preliminary decision in February to impose anti-dumping duties, having determined that the exporters inflicted damage on the Korean steel industry by selling their products here at excessively low prices.

Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was absent from his insurrection trial for the sixth consecutive time on Thursday, leading the court to proceed without him.

Yoon has refused to appear for his trial at the Seoul Central District Court since his second arrest on July 10, citing health issues.

The bench opened Thursday's hearing by noting the defendant was absent again and that the detention centre where Yoon is jailed had sent a note explaining the difficulty of bringing him by force.

At least 25 passengers lost their lives and 27 others sustained injuries when a bus overturned in the west of the Afghan capital Kabul, on Wednesday morning, an official from the Ministry of Interior Affairs reported.

The incident occurred in the Arghandi area, along the highway linking southern Kandahar to Kabul, and was caused by reckless driving, Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the ministry, told news agency.

Police and emergency services quickly responded, transporting the injured to nearby health centres for treatment, Qani added.

This accident follows a devastating week for road safety in Afghanistan, with around 100 fatalities reported. The deadliest incident took place early this week in western Herat province, when a passenger bus caught fire after colliding with a truck, leaving 79 dead, including women and children.

As Indian exporters brace for the impact after additional 25 per cent US tariffs on key goods came into effect on Wednesday, reports said that Trump tariffs are likely to affect the US GDP by 40-50 bps by by triggering inflationary pressures.

The US inflation is expected to stay above the 2 per cent target through 2026, driven by supply-side effects of tariffs and exchange rate movement, according to a report by SBI Research.

"The US is beginning to show signs of renewed inflationary pressure, driven by the pass-through effects of recent tariffs and a weaker dollar - particularly in import-sensitive sectors such as electronics, autos, and consumer durables," the report mentioned.

The US decision to impose steep tariffs on Indian goods is set to weigh on the American economy by stoking inflationary pressures and slowing growth, the SBI said in its report.

As many as 406 people have been killed and 245 injured in rainfall and flash floods across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) since June 26, as the torrential rainfall continues to wreak havoc in Pakistan, local media reported on Tuesday.

According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), the death toll included 167 women and 108 children.

The PDMA stated in a factsheet that 245 people have sustained injuries in various incidents across the province, including 121 men, 92 women, and 32 children.

It further reported that the Buner district has been the worst affected by the flooding, with the death toll rising to 237, while 128 people were injured in the disaster-affected district.

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou announced on Monday that he has requested a Confidence Vote in the National Assembly for September 8 over his 44-billion-euro (51 billion US dollars) budget cut plan.

Speaking at a press conference, Bayrou warned that France was on the verge of over-indebtedness, News Agency reported.

"An immediate danger weighs upon us, which we must face, not tomorrow, but today, without delay of any kind; otherwise the future will be closed to us," he said.

According to Bayrou, who heads a minority government, by seeking the Assembly's confidence, deputies would grasp "the seriousness of the situation."

A whopping 2.1 billion people or one in every four people globally lack access to safely managed drinking water, according to a joint report by UN agencies WHO and the UNICEF on Tuesday.

This includes 106 million people who drink directly from untreated surface sources, stated the report, released as part of the World Water Week 2025.

Despite progress over the last decade, billions of people around the world still lack access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services, putting them at risk of disease and deeper social exclusion.

The report noted that 3.4 billion people worldwide lack safely managed sanitation, including 354 million who practice open defecation. Another 1.7 billion people lack basic hygiene services at home, including 611 million without access to any facilities.

Two police officers have been killed and a third has been injured in a shooting in southeast Australia, local media reported on Tuesday.

The three officers were at the rural property in the town of Porepunkah, 210 km northeast of Melbourne in the Alpine region of the state of Victoria, on Tuesday morning to execute a warrant related to historical sexual abuse allegations when they were ambushed and shot by a gunman, News Agency reported.

Two police officers, who Victoria Police initially said were unaccounted for following the attack, were killed and the third was airlifted to hospital with serious lower body injuries, according to News.

As of 4:30 pm local time on Tuesday a widespread police search for the gunman was ongoing. Nine Entertainment newspapers reported that he was on the run with several family members, including children.

Afghan police set on fire 29.8 tonnes of illegal drugs seized during a series of operations in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, according to a statement issued by the office of the Deputy Minister of Interior for Counter-Narcotics.

The confiscated substances included 1,442 kg of methamphetamine (ICE), 588 kg of heroin, 15,714 kg of hashish, 460 kg of opium poppy, and other narcotics, along with materials used in drug production, said the statement issued late Monday, News Agency reported.

The contraband was uncovered during counter-narcotics operations in Jalalabad city and various districts of the province, it said.

Without furnishing details on whether the narcotics had been discovered, the statement noted that 2,586 individuals were arrested for smuggling, purchasing, and selling the illicit drugs, and their dossiers were referred to the judiciary for further investigation.