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10/03/2024

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10/03/2024

Due to some technical issues we won't be able to continue using this page. We are requesting all you lovely people to like our new page Brief Beam.

Thank you

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Brief Beam is your go-to source for quick and concise news updates

09/03/2024

In a surprising turn of events, tech mogul Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing the AI startup of breaching contractual agreements established during Musk's involvement in its founding in 2015. Musk alleges that OpenAI has strayed from its original nonprofit mission, prioritizing profit over the advancement of humanity through artificial intelligence.

In an unconventional twist, Musk has proposed a unique resolution to the legal dispute. He announced on social media platform X that he would drop the lawsuit if OpenAI agrees to change its name to "'ClosedAI." The eccentric entrepreneur emphasized the need for OpenAI to align its name with what he perceives as its true business objectives.

More info in the comment.

09/03/2024

The Bangladesh securities and exchange regulator has shortened trading sessions at both the stock exchanges by 60 minutes for the month of Ramadan.

Market will open at 10:00am as usual but will close at 1:20pm during Ramadan instead of the regular closing time of 2:20pm, according to a Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) announcement on Thursday (7 March).

The 10-minute post-closing session will run from 1:20pm to 1:30pm, instead of 2:20pm to 2:30pm.

More info in comments.

09/03/2024

The Postogola Bridge on the Buriganga river is opened to traffic from 6:00am today after the completion of the repair works on the important bridge at the entry point of Dhaka.

"Repair works have been completed. We are now carrying out a load test which will be done within tonight. The bridge will be opened to traffic from 6:00am tomorrow (Saturday)," Sabuj Uddin Khan, additional chief engineer (Dhaka zone) of the Roads and Highways Department, told The Daily Star.

More details in comment.

08/03/2024

Some 20,000 tonnes of sugar were destroyed in the fire that ravaged a warehouse of S Alam Group's sugar refinery factory in Chattogram on 4 March, a senior official of the conglomerate said.

After the incident, the group claimed that the fire caused the loss of 100,000 tonnes of sugar.

M Akhtar Hossain, general manager (commercial) of S Alam Group, told TBS yesterday that 20,000 tonnes of sugar were damaged in the fire.

More info in comments.

08/03/2024

Sweden joined NATO in Washington on Thursday, two years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine forced it to rethink its national security policy and conclude that support for the alliance was the Scandinavian nation's best guarantee of safety.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson handed over the final documentation to the U.S. government on Thursday, the last step in a drawn-out process to secure the backing of all members to join the military alliance.

More info in comment.

08/03/2024

US rating agency Moody's Investors Service yesterday changed its outlook for Bangladesh's banking system to stable from negative, which will relieve the central bank boss of stress.

The changed outlook reflects "our expectation that profitability and liquidity stress has eased despite ongoing asset-quality difficulties", Moody's said in a report.

More info in the comment.

08/03/2024

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee on Thursday unanimously approved legislation giving China's ByteDance six months to divest from short video app TikTok or face a U.S. ban.

The law is not a ban on TikTok. Instead, it’s like a surgery designed to remove the problem (the Chinese ownership) and save the patient (the app). If ByteDance does not sell TikTok within 165 days, app stores like Apple and Google would not be allowed to offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to any ByteDance-controlled applications.

However, a spokesperson for TikTok said that this law is essentially a ban on TikTok and it would infringe on the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform.

More info in the comment.

07/03/2024

The Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Wednesday it would continue working towards achieving a ceasefire in Gaza with Israel despite the absence of Israeli negotiators from the latest round of talks in Cairo.

"We are showing the required flexibility in order to reach a comprehensive cessation of aggression against our people, but the occupation is still evading the entitlements of this agreement," Hamas said in a statement.

More info in the comment.

07/03/2024

China set a growth target of around five percent for 2024, an ambitious objective analysts said would be a challenge to meet given the severe headwinds battering the world's second-largest economy.

The growth objective, alongside the overall budget and key government policies for 2024, was announced at China's annual National People's Congress (NPC), which kicked off Tuesday morning.

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07/03/2024

Bangladesh Road Transport Owners Associations today rejected the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) report, which said bus operators pay a total of at least Tk 1,059 crore in illegal tolls and bribes annually.

The association issued a press statement protesting and claiming there is no similarity between the reality and the "untrue report". The report has tarnished the image of the bus owners and workers and created confusion among the people.

More info in the comment.

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07/03/2024

The Fire Service and Civil Defence marked the institution, established in 2001, "risky" in its latest inspection report released last year.

The fire service inspected 801 educational institutions in Dhaka for five years, from 2017 to 2022, and found 64 to be "highly risky".

More info in the comment.

06/03/2024

The government has approved the import of 39,000 tonnes of onion from India through Sonamasjid land port in Chapainawabganj to meet the local demand ahead of the month of Ramadan.

Somir Ghosh, deputy director of Sonamasjid Land Port Plant Quarantine Center, confirmed the information yesterday. He said 31 importers from the land port got approval, and the importing will begin before Ramadan.

On December 8 last year, India restricted the export of the onion to Bangladesh and other countries until March 31 to check soaring prices in the local market.

More info in the comment.

06/03/2024

Two Palestinian toddlers with sunken eyes and emaciated faces, one in a yellow cardigan and the other in a stripy top, were lying side by side on a bed in a Gaza clinic, their thin, bony legs protruding from diapers that looked too big for them.

This was the scene on Monday at Al-Awda health centre in Rafah, southern Gaza, where nurse Diaa Al-Shaer said children suffering from malnutrition and from a range of diseases were arriving in unprecedented numbers.

More info in comment.

06/03/2024

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu yesterday declared that Indian military personnel will not be present in the island nation after May 10.

"There will be no Indian troops in the country come May 10. Not in uniform and not in civilian clothing. The Indian military will not be residing in this country in any form of clothing. I state this with confidence," he said, on a day when his country signed an agreement with China to receive free military aid, reports NDTV.

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05/03/2024

Mr. Musk never leaves a chance to deliver a comic statement!

05/03/2024

Facebook and Instagram experienced severe issues around the world on Tuesday, with the services refusing login attempts and feeds stalling.

Unusually, the issues coincided with login problems on Google’s platform, suggesting a common cause between the outages at two tech conglomerates that largely control their own infrastructure.

Meta’s business status page reported a number of disruptions, including “major disruptions” for the group’s admin centre, as well as for Facebook login, the service that allows users to log in to third-party services using their Facebook details. That, in turn, has led to some reporting outages at a variety of other sites.

More info in the comment.