At least 90 people were killed and dozens were wounded when a bomb-laden vehicle exploded at a bustling checkpoint in the Somali capital Mogadishu yesterday, an international organisation working in the country said, in one of the most deadly recent attacks.

Jatiya Party Chief Patron Raushan Ershad skipped the party’s ninth council yesterday apparently for being unhappy with her new post, said party insiders.

A seven-year-old girl has been strangled to death allegedly by a neighboring couple in Savar as she refused to give them a pair of gold earrings.

Another case has been filed, and this time under the Digital Security Act, against Ducsu Vice President Nurul Haque Nur, who came under a fierce attack by Muktijoddha Moncho activists on December 22.

Widowed 50-year-old tea worker Lakhpothy Bhor of Tilokpur tea garden in Kulaura upazila could not afford medical treatment on her meagre earnings. Her first child died after birth, more than 20 years ago. Her husband became sick and died not long after.

A seven-member committee formed at Dhaka Press Club during a meeting of intellectuals to investigate Al-Badr’s genocide of intellectuals. Zahir Raihan will chair the committee.

Customs yesterday recovered at least 64kg gold from the cargo section of the capital’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

A court in Vietnam sentenced a former communications minister to life in prison Saturday for receiving millions of dollars in bribes, as the hardline administration presses its anti-graft drive against once-powerful figures in the communist state.

Spain yesterday pledged to send investigators to La Paz after its embassy staff were accused of trying to sneak into the Mexican diplomatic mission with several masked individuals, an action denounced by Bolivia as a “violation” of its sovereignty.

The boss of a hardline French trade union on Friday vowed to press on with a strike that has crippled transport in Paris for the past three weeks and is now the longest-lasting such action since the 1980s.

At least two people were killed yesterday as a truck carrying livestock skidded off the road and plunged into a pond beside Dhaka-Aricha highway in Jorpul area of Savar, on the outskirts of the capital.

NGO Affairs Bureau has directed all the registered NGOs that have the words “indigenous/adivasi” in their titles to rename themselves by dropping the words.

Twelve people died when a plane carrying 100 passengers and crew crashed shortly after takeoff in Kazakhstan yesterday and collided with a house, but many onboard survived without serious injury.

Members of Border Guard Bangladesh seized smuggled Indian clothes, worth over Tk 4 crore, from Amrakhali in Benapole on Thursday night.

Fourteen South Asian citizens said India’s Citizenship Amendment Act had the potential to deepen geopolitical divides among the countries of the region.

Thousands protested in rival demonstrations in India yesterday as tensions rise over a citizenship law seen as anti-Muslim, with authorities deploying huge numbers of riot police in the country.

In a major change to its charter, main opposition in parliament the Jatiya Party yesterday created a ceremonial post called “chief patron” and picked Raushan Ershad for it.

Awami League decide to commemorate January 9 as “Sheikh Mujib Day” demanding the immediate release of Bangabandhu, a report from ENA says.

Ash-blackened bare feet and thin, shivering people shuffled about on the premises of Ananda Niketon Model School as a fire blazed through Bauniabandh slum early yesterday. The residents fled with just the clothes on their backs.

The Philippines banned two US senators and threatened to introduce visa restrictions for Americans entering the country, the president’s spokesman said Friday, if Washington pushes ahead with sanctions against Filipino officials involved in jailing a leading opposition leader.