UNGA Special Edition
Bangladesh's week at the 81st General Assembly: the maiden address, the five-point Rohingya plan, the legal officer joining the UNGA president's office, and day two's Wall Street close.
Photo supplied by the editorUNGA Special Edition
Day One: Climate First, Speech at Dusk
Tarique Rahman opened his maiden UNGA week with five climate demands at the Trusteeship Council, then delivered a 21-minute Bangla address at 6:18pm built on the 3-R doctrine. The transcript is checked; the five observables are answered.
Photo: Steve Sandford / Voice of America / Wikimedia Commons, public domainUNGA Special Edition
Five Points to End the Rohingya Camps
Tarique Rahman tabled a five-point Rohingya proposal at the September 23 side event: a repatriation roadmap, civilian protection, predictable aid, accountability, and action on cross-border crime.
Photo: Press Information Department, Government of Bangladesh / Wikimedia Commons, public domainUNGA Special Edition
Zaima Rahman Named Legal Officer at UNGA President's Office
The prime minister's daughter joins the office of 81st session president Khalilur Rahman as a legal officer. Six Bangladeshis now serve in the 40-person, 29-nationality office.
Photo: Press Information Department, Government of Bangladesh / Wikimedia Commons, public domainUNGA Special Edition
Day Two: Wall Street Breakfast, Flight Home at Eleven
Tarique Rahman's final UNGA day: a JPMorgan-hosted Wall Street breakfast that resolved as pitch-only, a Kuwait bilateral and an IPI lunch with readouts in, and the 11pm Emirates flight home. All five observables resolved; the series is closed with the 27 September Dhaka landing.
New this week
The newsroom's first long-form releases. Three investigations, three essays, and the latest forensic analysis.
Photo: Press Information Department, Bangladesh / Wikimedia Commons, public domainInvestigation · Power Networks
Undocumented Funds, Documented Friends
A 1999 Grameen loan, two Yunus meetings, UNGA handshakes with prime minister and foreign minister, and a $234 billion ask. Access is documented. Money is not.
Photo: Tareq Salahuddin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0Analysis · Trade
Bangladesh Garment Exports to EU Plunge 13.65% as China, Vietnam Gain Ground
Eurostat data for Jan-Jul 2026: Bangladesh garment exports to EU fell 13.65% to 10.37 billion euros, steepest decline among major suppliers, while China and Vietnam gained ground.
Photo: Aashaa / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · Public Finance
Tk 238 Billion in Two and a Half Months Puts $4.0b IMF Programme at Risk
Finance Division disbursed Tk 238 billion of Tk 480 billion full-year power and LNG allocation in two and a half months. IMF wants subsidy benefits restricted to poor; officials expect lender to demand blanket subsidy end and further price hikes before Bangkok meetings in second week of October.
Supplied graphic; believed issued by the Office of the First Lady (original posting unverified)Analysis · Geopolitics
Fifty-Seven Nations, One Shopping List
Melania Trump's children's coalition grew from 45 nations to 57, and Bangladesh sits among the original members. Read against the $21.5 billion US trade agreement, the 25 planned Boeing aircraft, and the LNG and wheat contracts, the member map is a receipt for a proximity strategy.
Photo: Jubair Bin Iqbal, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · South Asia
Leverage in Exile
Sheikh Hasina has lived in New Delhi for 780 days while Dhaka has asked for her back three times and Delhi has examined the requests without concluding anything. A tribunal sentenced her to death on live television, and nobody wants the stalemate to end, because everyone is using it.
Photo: Milad Mosapoor, public domainAnalysis · Foreign Exchange
Managed Rebound
The taka firmed into a strengthening dollar while the rupee and rupiah fell. Bangladesh Bank is buying dollars to cap the rally, the street prices the dollar 2.4% above the official rate, and the IMF says the bank holds a nearly flat, preferred level.
Graphic: Ben Noll / The Washington PostAnalysis · Climate
El Niño Ties the All-Time Daily Strength Record
The 2026 El Niño hit a 3.07°C daily anomaly, tied for the strongest ever measured. NOAA gives a greater than 90% chance of a very strong event through winter, and the impacts map shows where it lands.
Photo: CDC / Public Health Image Library, public domainInvestigation · Public Health
Hundred-Year Spore
Anthrax returned to Bangladesh in 2024 and 2025, striking three divisions. Every case was cutaneous, every cluster began with a slaughtered cow, and no death was ever lab-confirmed.
Photo: Khairul Anam Nafis Sarker, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · Agriculture
6.6-Million-Tonne Question
Bangladesh feeds 180 million people on 6.6 million tonnes of chemical fertiliser a year, 80 percent of it imported. The trials say it can farm with a third less. Sri Lanka says not overnight.
Photo: Md Shaifuzzaman Ayon, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · Aviation
Ledger in the Sky
Biman flies 19 aircraft and may soon have 35 more on order. A committee reversed a viability finding in three days, the Airbus price is undisclosed, and the French ambassador insists the choice was technical, not political.
Photo: Balaram Mahalder, CC BY-SA 3.0Analysis · Telecom
Great Tower Robbery
16,000 metres of cable, 2,000 batteries, 500 remote radio units stolen in 20 months. The serialized equipment theft says organized crime, and the threat is inside the fence.
Photo: Mojnsen, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · Foreign Affairs
Meeting That Wasn't
Rahman flew to UNGA chasing a Trump meeting. Dhaka ruled it out the day after he arrived. What remains: 25 Boeing jets and a 25.62% garment tariff.
Photo: Abu Nayeem, CC BY 3.0Correction · Public finance
$20.7 Billion That Wasn't
A viral figure put H1 2026 FDI at $20.7B, up 17%, confirmed by Bangladesh Bank. The central bank's data says roughly one-twentieth of that.
Photo: Aashaa, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · Energy
Five-Month Freeze
BPC lost Tk22,875 crore holding fuel prices flat while import costs doubled. The Tk20 hike fixes a quarter of the bleed.
Photo: Nakilat / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Analysis · Energy
LNG Subsidy Hits Tk10,300 Crore in Three Months
Petrobangla disbursed 70.5 percent of last fiscal year's full LNG subsidy bill in three months. Spot cargoes replaced Qatari supply under force majeure, and every cubic metre sells at Tk23.90 against Tk46.40 import cost.
Investigation · No-Bid Bangladesh
Banks Fall First: Bangladesh's Power-Sector-to-Banking-Sector Transmission Chain, FY27-FY30
Capacity payments transmit fiscal stress into a banking system already at 32.26% NPL.
Investigation · No-Bid Bangladesh
Who Runs the Gateway: Chattogram Port's Foreign-Operator Concessions
Four terminals, no open tender, and the government's own math saying self-operation wins 3.8 to 1.
Photo: Din21 / Deutsche Energy Terminal, CC BY-SA 4.0Investigation · No-Bid Bangladesh
Spread Is the Scandal: Bangladesh's LNG Procurement, 2017-2026
No pricing scandal. A process scandal: bilateral deals under a law that suspended procurement rules.
Essay · From the Substack
Ashulia File
A company and a state locked in a fight that stopped following its own rules.
Essay · From the Substack
Currency of a Siege
How a blockade turned methamphetamine into money on the Naf river.
Photo: Sayed Asif Mahmud, CC BY-SA 4.0Essay · From the Substack
28 Taka
A viral statistic, a fight about denominators, and the prevention fund nobody discussed.
Delta Watch
The daily intelligence cell, filed day by day: the briefings, and the Friday deep pass. The record of how the story moved.
Earlier research
The backlog that came before the newsroom's article pages. The current series lives on the Investigations page.
Photo: Nahid Hossain, CC BY-SA 4.0Current series
No-Bid Bangladesh: three investigations, one mechanism
The banks, the port, the LNG deals. Read the full series on the Investigations page.
Figures
The numbers this newsroom stands behind. Tracked weekly, revised only when the source moves.
The data desk
Charts, not decoration.
Four views of the same ledger, drawn in the newsroom's own hand. Figures marked tracked come from the weekly figure watch; charts marked sample use illustrative data while the dataset is being built. Hover or tap any mark for the number behind it.
FY27 power money, by line item
trackedFour line items, one fiscal year · Tk crore
Figure watch · Tk crore · New Age, 06 Jun 2026; The Business Standard, Jun to Sep 2026
The capacity bill: funded vs unfunded
trackedWhat the budget covers of the capacity bill
Figure watch · Tk 52,608 cr capacity payments against Tk 37,000 cr subsidy allocation
The second-revision syndrome, plotted
sampleApproved vs revised cost per DPP · ECNEC 6 Apr 2026
ECNEC 6 Apr 2026 approvals · BSS wire, bdnews24, TBS · Tk crore
BERC's FY27 subsidy arithmetic, as a flow
trackedHow the subsidy requirement breaks down · Tk crore
Figure watch · Tk 56,000 cr required → ~Tk 15,000 cr tariff relief (about Tk 14,200 cr per TBS) → Tk 41,000 cr net → Tk 37,000 cr budgeted
Research & dossiers
Working papers, datasets, and method notes. The audit trail behind the journalism.
