Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into alleged kidnapping and abuse of office after far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini prevented a charity ship carrying rescued migrants from docking.

Thousands of travelers at US airports faced delays on Friday because of an nationwide outage of US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) processing systems that lasted several hours.

President Donald Trump’s reported wish to buy Greenland may have been rejected by Denmark, but it underscores the rapidly rising value of the massive, ice-covered island due to global warming and to China’s drive for an Arctic presence.

A rights activist in Kazakhstan who faced seven years imprisonment over his outspoken opposition to neighbouring China was unexpectedly freed Friday as public and international pressure over his case mounted.

Millions of years after the ancestors of humans evolved to lose their tails, a research team at Japan’s Keio University have built a robotic one they say could help unsteady elderly people keep their balance.

Two Bangladeshis who went to India for treatment were killed in a road accident in Kolkata early yesterday.

Tanners will start buying rawhide from merchants today amid a slump in prices and dumping of 35 percent rawhide after the Eid-ul-Azha. “We have already conveyed the message to our members that we will start buying salt-applied rawhide from tomorrow [today].

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the debt of Bangabandhu’s blood would have to be repaid by materialising his dream of building a poverty and hunger-free “Golden Bangladesh”. “We’ll build that Golden Bangladesh and this is our pledge,” she said.

President Donald Trump is asking advisers if it is possible for the US to buy Greenland, according to a report.

Malaysia’s former prime minister, Najib Razak, on Monday faces the biggest of five trials linked to a multi-billion-dollar scam at state fund 1MDB, although lawyers are seeking a delay to allow time for the completion of a previous trial.

Public examinations will now take less time than before as the government looks to increase academic hours.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has called for urgent investment in education of the Rohingya children who live at different refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Noted novelist Rizia Rahman died at a hospital in the city yesterday. She was 79. Rizia breathed her last at Apollo Hospitals in the morning, said an of-ficial release.

A police constable has been sued on charge of raping his girlfriend in Gaibandha. The victim’s mother filed the case against Constable of Rangpur range Abu Bakkar Siddiqui and his aide Aminul Islam, with Gaibandha Sadar Police Station Thursday.

Condition of the sixth grader gangraped in Bhola on August 11 has slightly improved as the bleeding stopped yesterday. But she is still in pain and is given pain killers, said Bilkis Begum, coordina-tor of One Stop Crisis Centre at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Firefighters in Greece yesterday made progress against a four-day wildfire on the island of Evia that has burned through a pine forest and threatened villages, officials said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Thursday that he is open to future negotiations under US mediation to resolve his country’s border disputes with Israel.

Nigerian Shia leader Ibrahim Zakzaky -- whose poor health in detention fuelled a wave of violent protests in Abuja -- has left the Indian hospital where he arrived for treatment this week, the clinic said yesterday, while his office said he was heading home.

A group of UN human rights experts yesterday called for the immediate release of three Iranian women given long jail terms for protesting laws compelling women to wear veils.

Sudan’s military rulers and protest leaders are scheduled to sign a landmark deal reached after a bloody uprising which is meant to pave the way for civilian rule.