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  The World Bank will provide support in reforming banking and other sectors in Bangladesh, Finance and Commerce Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed said on Thursday. He said this after a meeting with Martin Raiser, vice president for the South Asia Region of the World Bank, at his Secretariat office. Speaking to reporters the adviser said, "We discussed various projects with the World Bank's South Asia Vice President and his team, including budget support, assistance in the energy sector, fertilizer imports, food, and post-flood aid." Additionally, "we talked about support for the Rohingya refugees. The World Bank was very positive about all the proposals we presented, and they provided concrete responses. They assured us that they, along with other stakeholders, would coordinate, and there would be no hesitation in providing necessary funding or assistance." "The reforms we have undertaken in the banking sector will receive support from the World Bank", said th...

  Telegram has quietly revised its FAQ page, removing references to private chats being exempt from moderation, days after CEO Pavel Durov's arrest in France over alleged criminal activity on the platform. In his first statement since the arrest, Durov acknowledged the platform's growing issues with illegal content and promised stronger moderation efforts. "Telegram's rapid user growth to 950 million has led to vulnerabilities, making it easier for criminals to exploit the platform," he said. "We've already begun improving our processes, and more updates will follow soon." The company's FAQ previously stated that it would not handle moderation requests for private chats, emphasising that group and private conversations were only visible to participants. However, this language has now been replaced by instructions for reporting illegal content via a built-in feature in the app. Durov was arrested after French authorities accused Telegram of allowi...

  People walk along the Huguosi street, Xicheng district, in Beijing. Photo: AFP/FILE Chinese consumer inflation ticked up slightly in August to a six-month high, official data showed Monday, but the reading missed expectations and did little to soothe worries about sluggish spending in the world's number two economy. Leaders in Beijing have been seeking to boost domestic activity as property sector woes and trade frictions weigh on confidence. The consumer price index (CPI) -- a key measure of inflation -- rose 0.6 percent year-on-year in August, up slightly from 0.5 percent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. The figure was the highest since February but came in slightly lower than the 0.7 percent forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. "Despite a weather-related surge in vegetable prices, a fall in energy prices and core inflation meant CPI only rose a touch," said Gabriel Ng, Assistant Economist at Capital Economics, in a note Monday.  While m...

 Bill Gates has expressed optimism about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), climate change solutions, and the role of emerging technologies in a recent interview with The Verge. As he prepares for the release of his upcoming Netflix series, What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates, Gates highlighted the transformative potential of AI in health, education, and scientific discovery while addressing concerns about misinformation and climate impact. Gates, who has invested billions in technology aimed at tackling global issues, told The Verge that AI's immediate benefits, particularly in areas like education, outweigh concerns about its potential misuse. "For the next decade, we'll be experiencing increased productivity in a lot of areas, which is overwhelmingly very good news," he said, pointing to AI's application as a personal tutor, referencing Khan Academy's AI tool, Khanmigo, which uses ChatGPT. While acknowledging the potential for AI to be misu...