Organisers cancelled the main weekly protests along the Gaza-Israel border yesterday, for only the second time in more than a year.

A top French court yesterday rejected an appeal by former president Nicolas Sarkozy to avoid facing charges of illicit financing for his failed 2012 re-election bid, with a trial of the ex-head of state now appearing inevitable.

Russia on Thursday presented a draft resolution to the Security Council accusing the UN’s chemical weapons watchdog, the OPCW, of politicization just before a new probe begins of chemical attacks in Syria.

North Korea is experiencing its worst drought in over a century, official media reported yesterday, days after the World Food Programme expressed “very serious concerns” about the situation in the country.

Criminals stabbed five people, who earlier handed over some drug peddlers to police in Chandpur’s Kachua upazila, on Thursday night.

Police yesterday arrested a youth on charge of raping a 14-year-old physically challenged girl in Netrakona’s Kalmakanda upazila.

A five-month-old infant was killed in a road accident on Moghbazar-Mouchak flyover in the city’s Satrasta area early yesterday.

Police made new arrests following clashes and poured thousands of security forces into the eastern city of Kolkata yesterday as tensions mounted ahead of the final round of voting in India’s marathon election.

President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed overhauling the US immigration system to favour young, educated, English-speaking applicants instead of people with family ties to Americans, a plan he will push in his 2020 re-election campaign but has little to no chance of being approved in Congress.

Mamun had been in a long queue since early morning to get an advance bus ticket for Rajshahi for June 3 to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with his dear ones. When he finally reached the Hanif Paribahan counter in Gabtoli around 8:30am, he came to know that tickets for the date were already sold out.

Although paddy farmers are poised to get a bigger harvest this year, low prices have sapped their joy in the 10 south-western districts of the country. The amount of paddy the government plans to buy directly from farmers would not help them much as well, they said while talking to The Daily Star yesterday.

Six policemen of Bogura Highway Police were closed yesterday for allegedly destroying more than 35,000 eggs of a pickup after a vendor denied meeting their demand of Tk 20,000 bribe.

A member of the Bangladesh Army was killed and 11 other soldiers were wounded when a bomb exploded at a firing range in Bandarban during a training exercise yesterday.

Josu Ternera, one of the most influential leaders of former Basque separatist group ETA, was arrested in France yesterday after more than 16 years on the run, Spain’s interior ministry said.

Election officials in Afghanistan should do more to ensure delayed presidential polls can take place in September, the US embassy in Kabul said yesterday.

Three militants inspired by the Islamic State group have been arrested in Malaysia, accused of planning attacks on non-Muslim places of worship in the country and neighbouring Indonesia, police said yesterday.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned disgraced British media mogul Conrad Black, who served more than three years in prison in the US for fraud and obstruction of justice.

Indian police yesterday said they are probing a suspected fresh case of a Muslim man being killed by so-called Hindu cow vigilantes.

An alleged drug peddler “died by suicide” in police custody in Patuakhali, while two others were killed in “gunfights” with police and BGB in Cumilla and Cox’s Bazar from Wednesday night until yesterday evening. In Patuakhali, the hanging body of a suspected drug peddler was recovered from Mohipur Police Station

The Tunisian coastguard has recovered two more bodies from the Mediterranean where an overcrowded boat capsized on May 9. “Two more bodies were recovered yesterday. The victims are Bangladeshis, but their identities are not known yet. We are trying to identify them,” said ASM Ashraful Islam