Algeria’s army has retrieved a “slice of the ransom” cash paid out to free hostages held by “terrorist groups” in the troubled Sahel region, the defence ministry has said.

Lutfar Sheikh, the former president of Chaluabari union Jubo League in Sariakandi upazila and also known to be a notorious robber, was arrested on Monday in Bogura.

Thirty people died of Covid-19 in the country in the 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday, while India’s health ministry reported the first eight cases of the mutated coronavirus strain in eight United Kingdom returnees.

Moscow yesterday expanded a list of German officials who are banned from entering Russia in response to EU sanctions that the bloc imposed over Russian cyber attacks on the German parliament.

The World Health Organization warned that pandemics far more deadly than Covid-19 may lie ahead, as South Africa banned alcohol sales and made masks mandatory in public from yesterday after a surge in coronavirus cases.

Fifty journalists and media workers were killed in connection with their work in 2020, the majority in countries that are not at war, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said yesterday.

An Indian “smuggler” was shot dead by the members of Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) in Mymenshingh’s Halaughat upazila early yesterday, said BGB.

The ruling Awami League-nominated candidates achieved victory in 18 municipalities out of 24 while their arch-rival BNP-nominated candidates won in two municipalities and independent candidates in three.

India yesterday decided to lift a ban on onion exports from January 1, as prices have fallen sharply in the last few weeks on expectations of a big crop.

Anyone who erects a permanent or makeshift structure or sets up a market on the highways without prior approval may face a maximum of two years in prison or a fine between Tk 50,000 and Tk 5 lakh, or both.

The elder brother of former Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and one of his nephews yesterday gave their depositions before a Dhaka court in a money laundering case.

Archaeologists in Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, have made the extraordinary find of a frescoed hot food and drinks shop that served up the ancient equivalent of street food to Roman passersby.

Prime Minister Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman today says the country is fast recovering from devastation and destruction wrought by the occupation of forces during the Liberation War and is making steady economic progress.

The Department of Archaeology continues to struggle to save one of the country’s and region’s most significant archaeological sites, Mahasthangarh in Bogura, due to the delay in acquiring 393 acres of land in the fort city.

Sudan is to send troop reinforcements to the south of its Darfur region after 15 people were killed in tribal clashes, the official news agency SUNA said.

Thailand recorded 3,065 foreign tourists in November, official data showed yesterday, in its second month of receiving long-stay visitors after a ban was imposed in April to keep coronavirus infections under control.

The municipal polls yesterday were marked by scattered incidents, including technical faults in Electronic Voting Machines, irregularities and an alleged assault on a journalist.

All the UK returnees must stay in a 14-day institutional quarantine as the Cabinet yesterday made it mandatory in the wake of the spread of a new variant of Covid-19 in the United Kingdom.

A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years yesterday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak unfurled, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an “unknown viral pneumonia” surfaced in the central China city.

The Cabinet yesterday approved the draft of “Hajj and Umrah Management Law-2020” in principle to bring more discipline in this sector.