The Philippines banned two US senators and threatened to introduce visa restrictions for Americans entering the country, the president’s spokesman said Friday, if Washington pushes ahead with sanctions against Filipino officials involved in jailing a leading opposition leader.

They all were dacoits by profession.

A jihadist attack that left 42 dead in the north of Burkina Faso, the worst assault in the country for five years, plunged the nation into mourning over Christmas and sparked messages of solidarity from the United Nations and Pope Francis.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday requested a meeting with Bolivia’s charge d’affaires to protest the “harassment and intimidation” of its diplomatic personnel in the Bolivian city La Paz.

Montenegro’s opposition leaders were arrested Friday after a dramatic night in parliament when their deputies violently protested the passing of a controversial law on religious freedom.

Two French and Australian academics held in Iran over espionage charges have gone on an indefinite hunger strike as of Christmas Eve, France’s Sciences Po University confirmed.

China yesterday denied that detained Uighur academic Tashpolat Tiyip was secretly tried and sentenced to death, after UN experts demanded answers from Beijing.

Seventy-one migrants were intercepted on several boats in the English Channel overnight, with some needing hospitalisation for hyperthermia, French and British authorities said yesterday.

Jihadists aligned to the Islamic State group have released a video claiming to show the execution of 11 Christians in restive northeast Nigeria.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Wednesday that one of his allies had been forcibly conscripted and sent to serve at a remote Arctic base, in a move his supporters said amounted to kidnapping.

Italian Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti said yesterday that he had resigned, dealing a sharp blow to the country’s embattled four-month-old coalition government.

A 63-year-old man in Germany had a very Merry Christmas indeed after an honest finder returned the backpack he had forgotten under a tree -- filled with presents and 16,000 euros ($17,700) in cash.

A typhoon that swept across remote villages and popular tourist areas of the central Philippines on Christmas day claimed at least 16 lives, authorities said yesterday.

Indians took to the streets again yesterday in yet more protests against a citizenship law, a day after pro-government Hindu hardliners staged a show of force complete with horses, drums and batons.

A 15-year-old mentally challenged girl was allegedly raped by her neighbour at her home in Jashore’s Keshabpur upazila on Wednesday night.

At least seven people died after a boat carrying migrants capsized in Turkey’s Lake Van yesterday and one of the dead is believed to be a Bangladeshi.

RK Karanjia, an investigative journalist and the founder of Indian weekly tabloid Blitz, writes an article on the Liberation War in Bangladesh. In his article he says that Pakistan army should not be treated as war prisoners but as war criminals.

While the government plans to restore Shuvadya Canal in Keraniganj with a Tk 1,200 crore project, one of its own departments appeared to be a major obstacle.

As winter tightens its grip on the country, gulls swarm near the bank of the Karnaphuli river from the Bay looking for food.

Russian police yesterday conducted fresh searches at Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, with his team calling the raid a new bid to disrupt their work.