The UN’s top rights official yesterday urged Australia to reform its criminal and refugee detention systems, just days after the country’s prime minister took a veiled swipe at the international body.

A Thai pro-democracy activist has been charged over an “inappropriate” social media post, police said yesterday, as authorities use a tough cyberlaw against perceived critics of the powerful monarchy.

India has decided to set up a special economic zone (SEZ) in Tripura’s border town of Sabroom, targeting investors from Bangladesh, said Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. Sabroom, a small town in Tripura, is 70km away from the Chattogram Sea port in Bangladesh.

A North Korean boat yesterday collided with a Japanese fisheries agency patrol vessel in the Sea of Japan, sending around 20 North Koreans overboard, Japan’s coastguard said.

Thousands of Indonesians are still in shelters nearly two weeks after a deadly earthquake sparked a stream of fake news and hoaxes warning that an even bigger disaster was looming, the government said yesterday.

Opposition leaders and environment activists yesterday condemned German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government for watering down a new climate protection law, as “Extinction Rebellion” protestors blocked traffic in Berlin.

At least 10 people were killed and 27 wounded yesterday when a bomb hit a bus carrying army recruits in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, an official told AFP.

Three researchers from the US and Britain yesterday shared the Nobel Medicine Prize for research into how human cells sense and adapt to changing oxygen levels, opening up new strategies to fight common diseases such as cancer and anaemia.

Israeli archaeologists on Sunday unveiled the remains of a 5,000-year-old city they said was among the biggest from its era in the region, including fortifications, a ritual temple and a cemetery.

US forces in Syria yesterday started pulling back from Turkish border areas, opening the way for Ankara’s threatened military invasion and heightening fears of a jihadist resurgence.

A worker died early yesterday after an iron sheet fell on him while working at the HM Shipbreaking yard in the district’s Sitakunda upazila. The dead was identified as Robiul Islam, 21, from Islampur upazila of Jamalpur district.

A 22-day long ban imposed on hilsa fishing across the country to stop fishermen from catching mother hilsas will begin tomorrow and continue till October 30.

He passed his SSC exams from Railway High School in the capital in 1988 and went to his village home at Sonapur in Feni for a few days. But he came back to Dhaka soon afterwards, because his elder brother beat him up for playing cards with his friends.

The people of Bangladesh have learnt to move forward upholding its non-communal spirit, and it is a big achievement for the country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said yesterday.

The number of this year’s recorded dengue patients hit 90,278 yesterday, with 52,636 hospital admissions in August alone. According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), 348 new patients were hospitalised across the country -- 90 in Dhaka and 258 outside of the city -- in 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday. Of the patients, 1,327 are still receiving treatment at hospitals.

Heavy rain that has drenched eastern Bolivia’s Chiquitania tropical savanna has put out fires that have ravaged millions of hectares in recent months, authorities said Sunday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina returned home last night after wrapping up her four-day official visit to India that saw the signing of seven bilateral documents between the two countries.

Police yesterday arrested an activist of Bangladesh Chhatra League for allegedly raping an eighth-grader girl in Jashore’s Benapole on Saturday.

Sexual minority rights, abortion, immigration and guns -- the Supreme Court convenes today to address an incendiary list of cases as the American political scene reaches fever pitch over efforts to impeach President Donald Trump.

A second whistleblower has come forward about President Donald Trump’s attempts to get the Ukrainian president to investigate a political rival, lawyers for the official said yesterday.