Ambassador Mohammad Abdul Muhith, permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, has been elected vice-chair of the United Nation's Peacebuilding Commission for 2023. Bangladesh led the commission for a year as chair after being elected in 2022, according to a statement published in media outlets. These reports further said the members of the United Nation Peacebuilding Commission elected the permanent representative of Croatia as the chair for 2023 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Bangladesh permanent representative Abdul Muhith thanked to all member countries for extending their support and cooperation in successfully leading the commission in 2022.
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Jute sacks and beds made of hays were virtually key means for them to survive harsh winters when the mercury would dip to 6-10 degrees Celsius with chilling winds often making it feel like 0-2 degrees. Their abodes were in most cases shanties having bamboo-made walls with pours often covered by thrown away polythene and rusty tins being their rooftops. They now own semi-pucca houses, which protect them from cruel winter spells – thanks to Honourable Prime Minister (HPM) Sheikh Hasina’s Ashrayan-2 Prakalpa. Some 90,866 poor families in the northern and western regions are now residents and owners of the comfortable houses with brick walls and tin shades under an intense government campaign for shelters for the poor.
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Bangladesh has received the first installment of $476 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) out of the $4.7 billion loan package. IMF approved Bangladesh's $4.7 billion loan proposal during a board meeting on Monday. The remaining amount will be in six equal installments of $704 million each. Bangladesh will get about $3.3 billion under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and about $1.4 billion under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), according to an IMF press release issued on 31 January. With the approval of a $1.4 billion loan under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), Bangladesh became the first country in Asia to receive a loan from the fund created for low and middle-income countries that are at risk due to climate change.
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Braving global headwinds, Bangladesh's export earnings and foreign remittances increased in the first month of 2023, a signal of a sound macro economic indicator for the country. The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) reported that Bangladesh's export earnings rose by 5.89% to reach $5.13 billion in January 2023, compared to $4.85 billion in the same period last year. Foreign remittances, a crucial source of foreign currency for the country, also showed a positive trend. The central bank reported that remittances rose to $1,958.8 million in January, up from $1,704.5 million in January 2022 and $1,699.6 million in December 2022.
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HPM Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the construction work of the country's first-ever underground metro rail, a month after opening the first section of the metro service – from Uttara's Diabari to Agargaon – on 28 December. The beginning of the work marks another milestone to Bangladesh's development journey with the opening of the construction of the country's first-ever underground metro rail line. "The most striking feature of the metro rail is that it will not pollute the environment and it will be soundproof as modern technology is being used for it while it will also be run by electricity," she said.
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Eleven kilometres (km) of Dhaka Elevated Expressway (DAE) is now visible. This portion of the expressway begins from the city's Airport to Tejgaon. With an aim to open expressway for vehicular movement, road carpeting is scheduled to start next week. In the meantime, work of installing road lights has been started in different places of this part. Project officials said that this section of DAE will be made ready for traffic within the next three months. The first part of the flyover from Kawla to Banani, adjacent to the airport in the busy city of Dhaka, is now almost ready. Road carpeting of about 7.5 kms of this section has been completed.
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Senator Roger Marshall has expressed his willingness to extend support to further advance Dhaka-Washington relationship. The US Senator made the remarks during a meeting with Bangladesh Ambassador to the United States Muhammad Imran at his office in Washington D.C. on Friday, according to media reports. Roger Marshall, the Republican Senator from Kansas, described Bangladesh as "an important partner" of the United States and hoped that the two countries would continue to work to forge bilateral cooperation in all possible areas. He also praised Bangladesh's contributions towards global peace through the UN Peacekeeping Missions, according to the Bangladesh Mission in Washington.
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On the occasion and in celebration of the 50 years of Korea-Bangladesh diplomatic ties in 2023, the Korean community in Bangladesh officially declared the week of February 25 to march 3 as a “Korea Week”. Speaking at a press conference organised announcement of the Korea Week, Lee Jang-keun, South Korean Ambassador to Bangladesh, said the year 2023 will be momentous in terms of Bangladesh-Korea bilateral relations and efforts are underway to further strengthen the ties through joint efforts. “We want to make it a milestone year,” he said and thanked the Korean Community in Bangladesh for celebrating 50 years of Bangladesh- Korea diplomatic relations.
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