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.

Nigeria’s state security agency on Tuesday freed a prominent journalist and opposition activist who had been held since August despite court orders demanding his release.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters yesterday marched in southern Iraq to mourn a dead activist after a night during which the headquarters of two pro-Iran militias were set on fire, an AFP correspondent reported.

A speech-impaired girl was raped by a neighbour in Brahmanbaria Sadar upazila last year.

Sheikh Mujib taken to Rawalpindi as Bhutto is trying to construct a confederation between Bangladesh and Pakistan, reports Hindustan Standard from its London bureau. Bhutto also invites US and Chinese representatives for the meeting. 22 other countries are ready to recognise Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign state.

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen yesterday said those who had entered Bangladesh from India in recent weeks would be sent back if they were not Bangladeshis.

Benin sentenced an investigative journalist to 18 months in prison on Tuesday for comments he posted on social media, his lawyer told AFP.

The number of people killed in a fatal bus crash in Indonesia has risen to 28 including eight children, police said yesterday as a rescue team continued to search a river.

Boko Haram jihadists have killed seven people on Christmas Eve in a raid on a Christian village near the town of Chibok in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, local militia and residents told AFP yesterday.

Former Bolivia president Evo Morales told AFP on Tuesday that he was forced from office by a United States-backed coup d’etat aimed at gaining access to the South American country’s vast lithium resources.

The Israeli army said Tuesday that a strike in Gaza that killed nine members of the same family had been due to a faulty assessment of the risk to civilians.

Jihadists in Burkina Faso killed 35 civilians, almost all of them women, when they simultaneously attacked a town in the north and its military base in one of the deadliest assaults in nearly five years of jihadist violence in the West African country.

Bangladesh Sadharan Chhatra Adhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad leaders yesterday said the Dhaka University proctor was responsible for the disappearance of CCTV footage from Ducsu building.

Those growing up watching Bangladesh Television between the 70s and 90s will fondly remember one programme for daring to be different.

An elderly couple was hacked to death by their addict son for refusing to pay him money to buy drugs in Chaugachha upazila of Jashore yesterday, said locals.

It was by way of a tragedy that an impoverished village came to the attention of the upazila administration and the life of the villagers took a turn for the better.

Thailand has charged two soldiers with murder in the shooting of three Muslim men foraging on a mountain in the south, police said yesterday, a rare push for justice that one rights group called “unprecedented.”

The Jatiya Party may introduce a special post for Raushan Ershad, its senior co-chairperson and opposition leader, at the upcoming