A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip held yesterday as Egyptian mediators pressed on with talks with the two sides on securing longer-term calm, officials said.

The positivity rate of coronavirus tests continued to rise yesterday.

China’s Mars rover drove from its landing platform and began exploring the surface yesterday, state-run Xinhua news agency said, making the country only the second nation to land and operate a rover on the Red Planet.

On May 23, 1971, American President Nixon had a discussion with his Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger as to the situation in Pakistan.

Police on Thursday night arrested an Imam of a local mosque in Narail’s Kalia upazila on charge of raping a minor girl.

Official tolls showing the number of deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic are likely to be a “significant undercount,” the World Health Organization said yesterday, saying 6-8 million people may have died so far.

The World Bank has approved $600 million for two projects in Bangladesh to help over 1.75 million poor and vulnerable people.

Myanmar’s junta-appointed election commission will dissolve Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD) because of what it said was fraud in a November election, news outlet Myanmar Now said yesterday, citing a commissioner.

Another 36 Bangladeshi migrants were rescued off the Tunisian coast on Thursday, after a boat carrying them capsized in the Mediterranean, reaching the tally of rescued Bangladeshis from the incident to 68.

The US consul general in Karachi sent a telegram to the US State Department providing details of his meeting with Pakistan President Yahya Khan on May 22, 1971. As to the political situation in Pakistan, Yahya Khan affirmed his belief that the future of the wings were intertwined with the whole.

A police probe found that instigation by outsiders, irregular payment of salaries and sanitation problems fuelled labour unrest in the SS Power I Plant in Chattogram’s Banshkhali upazila, leading to a clash on April 17 that left seven workers dead in police firing.

Amid a huge surge in Covid-19 cases in the region, a 10-day complete lockdown has been imposed in Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf upazila while a week-long similar restrictions have been announced in five Rohingya camps in the district’s Ukhiya and Teknaf upazilas.

Today is the 15th death anniversary of Golam Rasul Mallick, a freedom fighter and founding editor of Eastern News Agency (ENA), said a press release.

The Anti-Corruption Commission has formed a three-member committee for an enquiry into the illegal wealth of Hefajat-e-Islam leaders.

China said yesterday a US warship had illegally entered its territorial waters in the South China Sea, the latest salvo in the two nations’ dispute over Beijing’s territorial claims in the busy waterway.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday appreciated the willingness of the new generation to know the history of the country.

Police stepped up a manhunt Wednesday for a Belgian soldier with suspected extreme-right views and access to rocket launchers who went missing after threatening public figures -- including a renowned coronavirus expert.

An agreement is “shaping up” to bring the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran, negotiators said Wednesday, citing headway in efforts to break the impasse.

The trial of a German soldier who allegedly plotted to attack prominent politicians while posing as a Syrian refugee began yesterday in a bizarre case fuelling concerns over right-wing extremism.

Two men were killed and at least 10 more injured in a clash between two groups of the ruling Awami League in Barishal’s Mehendiganj upazila.