A projectile was fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, prompting a retaliation, the Israel Defense Forces said early yesterday.

Bangladesh Bank is set to give Sri Lanka another year to repay the $200 million loan as it looks to lend a helping hand to the island nation, which is going through its worst debt and economic crises.

Organised crimes and money laundering are a serious threat to the rule of law and sustainable development of the country, said a Dhaka court in the verdict in a money laundering case.

Immigration of Bangladeshi hajj pilgrims flying from Dhaka will be completed at the Dhaka airport from this year, ending the need for waiting in long queues at Saudi Arabian airport.

The demand for allowing a third carrier for operating hajj flights is getting louder as the existing system of ferrying the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia has been costing the hajis more and is creating a duopoly.

Information Minister Hasan Mahmud yesterday said he will sit with journalist union leaders and owners of media houses because there is room for revising the Mass Media Employees (Services Conditions) Bill 2022.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday rejected Transparency International Bangladesh’s recent report on the Covid crisis, terming it “completely baseless”.

Fears of a hard Covid lockdown sparked panic buying in Beijing yesterday, as long queues for compulsory mass testing formed in a large central district of the Chinese capital.

A man was sentenced to eight years imprisonment and fined Tk 3 lakhs for hacking into another’s Facebook account and spreading anti-religious messages on the social media platform.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a foreign vessel smuggling fuel in the Gulf and arrested its crew members, state media said yesterday, in the third such incident reported this month.

North Korea’s state media yesterday boasted that its armed forces had “gained invincible power” under leader Kim Jong Un as it prepares for a major army holiday that analysts say could be marked with a military parade or major weapons test.

Israeli forces yesterday said they had arrested 12 people across the occupied West Bank over the weekend in connection with a spate of deadly attacks inside the Jewish state.

A Rangpur court yesterday accepted a case against the judge of a magistrate court after his wife filed a complaint of torture over dowry.

Russia’s defence ministry said yesterday its high-precision missiles struck nine Ukrainian military targets overnight, including four arms depots in the Kharkiv region where artillery weapons were stored.

A teen killed a six-year-old girl after raping her in Naogaon’s Manda upazila on Saturday, said police.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday asked the authorities concerned to beef up monitoring of travellers to India as Covid-19 infections are increasing in the neighbouring country.

The Supreme Court chamber judge yesterday refused to stay a High Court verdict granting copyright of 260 books of the popular spy thriller “Masud Rana Series” and 50 books of “Kuasha Series” to ghost writer Sheikh Abdul Hakim.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is likely to visit Dhaka this week, most probably on April 28, says a diplomatic source yesterday.

Sri Lanka’s financial crisis is a classic example of what populist policies, corruption and mismanagement can cause, economists and political analysts from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka told a webinar yesterday.

The International Monetary Fund said on Saturday it held “fruitful technical discussions” with Sri Lanka on its loan request, while the World Bank said it was preparing an emergency aid package for the crisis-stricken country.