Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was jailed yesterday for 14 months along with four other veteran democracy activists for their roles in protests that helped trigger a sweeping crackdown on dissent by China.

Nine years have passed since former BNP lawmaker M Ilias Ali and his driver Ansar disappeared from the capital, but their families are still waiting anxiously for their return home.

Expatriate workers only having clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training will get priority in getting special flights to return to their workplaces in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Singapore.

The independence of Bangladesh was formally proclaimed today at Baidyanathtala, Meherpur.

Police arrested Vice-president of Hefajat-e-Islam’s Dhaka city unit Maulana Jubair Ahmed from his house in the capital yesterday.

Pakistan restored Facebook, Twitter and several other social media apps yesterday after blocking them for about five hours on security grounds amid a crackdown against a violent Islamist group, officials said.

The UN said Thursday it will maintain its political and humanitarian mission to Afghanistan despite the departure of US and Nato troops later this year.

The Kremlin yesterday called on French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to encourage Ukraine to observe ceasefire agreements in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists.

A medical product supply company in the capital has been importing expired testing kits and supplying those to government and private hospitals tempering the expiry dates.

A Bogura court yesterday sent three men to jail in connection with the rape of a woman in the district’s Sherpur upazila.

Farmers in many areas have started harvesting Boro paddy.

India and Thailand reported record daily coronavirus cases yesterday, as a new wave of infections, combined with a shortage of hospital beds and vaccines, threatens to slow Asia’s recovery from the pandemic.

Although the top leaders of Hefajat-e-Islam repeatedly denied the organisation’s involvement in recent countrywide vandalism and violence, photographs and footages testify the opposite.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, who tested positive for Covid-19 on April 10, was taken to the capital’s Evercare Hospital last night for a CT scan.

When last year the country faced for the first time a Pahela Baishakh indoors, or the first day of Ramadan without family and celebration, the new reality was adopted with much gusto.

Prof Shamsuzzaman Khan, president of Bangla Academy, passed away Wednesday afternoon with Covid-19 infection.

The swearing-in of the cabinet members of the Bangladesh government-in-exile scheduled to take place on April 15, 1971 was postponed owing to the eruption of fighting in Kushtia.

A man was killed and five people were injured in a clash between supporters of two union parishad chairman candidates in Madaripur’s Shibchar upazila.

The job portal -- “Chakrir Khoj” -- launched by the Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia is aimed at facilitating Malaysian government’s ongoing legalisation process and ensuring welfare of the migrants.

Former vice president of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union Nurul Haque Nur has called the Awami League supporters as “fake Muslims”.