Kandahar, July 11 (IANS) Unidentified armed men killed three people in Kandahar province in south Afghanistan on Wednesday night, provincial police spokesman Mullah Asadullah Jamshid said Thursday.

The incident took place in Police District 7 of the provincial capital Kandahar city at 11:00 pm local time, leaving three members of a family including two women dead, Jamshid added, saying the perpetrators had escaped after the attack.

Without providing more details, the official asserted that efforts are underway to bring the culprits to justice, reports Xinhua news agency.

Afghan police have apprehended 23 people on the charge of involvement in criminal activities such as theft and murder in Helmand, Kunar, Samangan, Balkh, and Panjshir provinces recently, the Ministry of Interior Affairs said.

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Bangkok, July 11 (IANS) Thailand’s consumer confidence fell for the fourth consecutive month in June, hitting the lowest level in nine months, due to concerns over a slowing economy growth and political uncertainty, a survey showed on Thursday.

According to the survey of 2,243 respondents conducted by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, the consumer confidence index dropped to 58.9 last month from 60.5 in May as all components of the index decreased.

Consumers were worried about high living costs, mainly owing to rising fuel prices amid a sluggish economic recovery, said the President of the university Thanavath Phonvichai, reports Xinhua news agency.

Political uncertainty stemming from a court case that seeks to remove Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office might impact the implementation of the government’s stimulus measures, including its flagship cash handout scheme through a digital wallet, Thanavath told a news conference.

However, the acceleration of budget disbursements and public investments could restore economic growth and consumer confidence in the third quarter of this year, he noted.

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Jakarta, July 11 (IANS) An Indonesian court on Thursday sentenced the country’s former agriculture minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo to 10 years in jail for corruption.

Limpo, a politician of the Nasdem Party, was found guilty of accepting more than 44 billion Indonesian Rupiah (about 2.7 million US dollars) in bribes from 2020 to 2023 while in office, reports Xinhua news agency.

The 69-year-old shall also pay a fine of 300 million Indonesian rupiahs (about 18,500 US dollars) as a substitute of another four-month imprisonment should he fail to pay, the chairman of the panel of judges, Rianto Adam Pontoh said, reading out the verdict at the Jakarta Corruption Court.

The former minister committed corruption along with his two subordinates, the ministry’s former Secretary General Kasdi Subagyono and former Director of Agricultural Equipment and Machinery Muhammad Hatta.

The two ex-officials, who gathered money from different departments within the ministry, were each sentenced to four years on Thursday.

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Kabul, July 11 (IANS) Afghan police have dismantled a gang of kidnappers in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, state-run Bakhtar News Agency reported Thursday.

The kidnappers were attempting to abduct a resident of Lashkar Gah city, the capital of the province, when police stormed a location and rescued the kidnapped person, the source said.

In addition, over the past 24 hours police apprehended 23 people allegedly involved in criminal activities in the provinces of Helmand, Kunar, Samangan, Balkh, and Panjshir, the Ministry of Interior Affairs said in a statement.

Most of the detainees were involved in murder and theft cases, said the statement, reported Xinhua news agency.

Afghan caretaker government has vowed to crack down on criminal elements to ensure law and order in the war-ravaged Asian country.

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Warsaw, July 11 (IANS) A quake hitting a coal mine in southern Poland left at least 11 miners injured and dozens still underground waiting to be rescued, local authorities said on Thursday.

So far, around 30 people have managed to get to the surface. Twenty of them were taken to hospital in stable condition, according to Lukasz Pach, Director of the Provincial Emergency Medical Service in Katowice.

There are more than 10 rescue teams on site and the rescue is still going on, reports Xinhua news agency.

The Polish Mining Group, which owns the mine, said that there were 68 people in the affected area at the time of the quake.

The coal mine is one of the oldest in Silesia, southern Poland.

–IANS

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