More than 270 inmates -- including convicted murderers -- who bolted from a prison torched during violent riots in Indonesia’s Papua region have returned to finish their sentences, a corrections official said yesterday.

Two minor girls have allegedly been raped in Bogura and Patuakhali, while three have been arrested in connection with the incidents.

Onion prices have increased by Tk 10-20 per kilogram in both retail and wholesale markets across the country in the last one week because of a “supply shortfall”.

An Indian soldier was killed by Pakistani forces on the Kashmir border, the military said yesterday, as sporadic clashes between stone-throwing protesters and government forces in Srinagar left more than 100 injured.

Production at Karnaphuli Paper Mills has remained suspended since August 6, causing the country’s lone state-owned paper mill a loss of over Tk 5 crore.

Paris, the United Nations and EU called for the protection of the fire-plagued Amazon rainforest as Brazil’s right-wing president accused his French counterpart of having a “colonialist mentality” over the issue.

Israel has carried out at least one strike against a weapons depot in Iraq, The New York Times reported Thursday.

A member of the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) was killed in a gunfight with a patrol team of Bangladesh Army in Rangamati’s Baghaichhari upazila yesterday, ISPR said.

Australia’s prime minister yesterday urged nations in Asia to stand up for their “independence and sovereignty”, with tensions high in the disputed South China Sea where Beijing is under fire for increasingly bullish behaviour.

Members of Border Guard Bangladesh yesterday seized at least 48 kilogrammes of dried turtles in Dinajpur’s Phulbari upazila.

China said yesterday it will impose retaliatory tariffs against about $75 billion worth of US goods, putting as much as an extra 10% on top of existing rates in the dispute between the world’s top two economies.

They were on the front lines and in the negotiating rooms that brought down military rule but Sudan’s women have yet to take their rightful place in the new institutions.

Britain’s interior minister will hold talks with her French counterpart “in the coming days” after dozens of migrants were detained crossing the Channel in four separate incidents on Thursday.

A cheap, once-a-day pill combining aspirin with drugs that lower blood pressure and cholesterol cuts cardiovascular disease as a whole by a third, and heart attacks by more than half, researchers said yesterday.

Veterinarians have successfully harvested eggs from the last two surviving northern white rhinos, taking them one step closer to bringing the species back from the brink of extinction, scientists said in Kenya yesterday.

A former US marine who was arrested in Moscow on espionage charges said yesterday he has been injured by guards in the prison where he is being held awaiting trial.

More than three tigers were poached in Bangladesh every year over the last four years, according to a report published by TRAFFIC, a UK-based international non-profit working on trade in wildlife and plants.

The Human Rights Forum Bangladesh yesterday called upon the government to make a time-bound action plan for implementing the recent recommendations of the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) for Bangladesh.

Russia yesterday launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.

Janmashtami, also known simply as Janmashtami or Gokulashtami, the annual festival that celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna, will be celebrated across the country today.