In Bangladesh, 41.7 million people are living in extreme poverty, with 6.5% of them in critical conditions, according to a report recently released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). On Thursday, October 17, the report titled "Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2024: Poverty Amid Conflict" was published jointly by the UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University. The study covered 6.3 billion people across 112 countries, analyzing data spanning over a decade until 2022–23. It assessed access to essential services, such as adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking oil, and nutrition. School attendance rates for children were also included. According to the report, 1.1 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty, with nearly half residing in conflict-affected countries. Over 83% of those in extreme poverty live in Africa and South Asia. In South Asia alone, 272 million people live in families where at least one member is malnourished. In Bangladesh, the primary contributors to poverty are the quality of living standards (45.1%), followed by education (37.6%), and health (17.3%). The latest data from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in 2022 shows that 18.7% of the population lives below the poverty line, with 5.6% classified as extremely poor. Based on the most recent census, Bangladesh has a population of 169.8 million, meaning 31.8 million people are poor. Former Director-General of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), K.A.S. Murshid, noted that comparing the UNDP's measurements with BBS or other local surveys may not be appropriate. He explained that the survey offers insights into Bangladesh’s poverty in a global context, highlighting the deterioration in poverty levels due to dollar shortages and economic challenges. He emphasized that the findings could guide future planning to address these issues. The report identified India as having the highest number of people in extreme poverty, with 234 million of its 1.4 billion population affected. Pakistan follows with 93 million, Ethiopia with 86 million, Nigeria with 74 million, and the Democratic Republic of Congo with 66 million. Nearly half of the world's extreme poor live in these five countries. Children are disproportionately affected by poverty. Of the 1.1 billion people in extreme poverty, 584 million are under 18 years old, accounting for 27.9% of the global child population. In comparison, only 13.5% of the world’s adults live in extreme poverty. The report also revealed that 455 million people in extreme poverty reside in conflict-affected areas, where the child mortality rate is 8%. In peaceful regions, the child mortality rate drops to just 1.1%. Populations in war-torn countries suffer severe deprivation of nutrition, electricity, water, and sanitation services.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a parliamentary inquiry he wasn't looking "to provoke or create a fight with India," but said police and his government went public in a bid to halt ongoing violent acts. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke at more length at a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday about the diplomatic flare-up with India earlier in the week.  Canada's police and government on Monday went public with more details in the dispute over an alleged murder of a Sikh independence activist on Canadian soil last year, in which Ottawa says agents of the Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi played a role.  Ottawa said it asked six Indian diplomats to leave the country, although India later said it had recalled them out of fear for their safety, and India in turn gave Canadian diplomats days to leave. What the Canadian PM said Trudeau said Canada's national police force had publicized its allegations against Indian diplomats because it had uncovered a wider and ongoing pattern of violent acts in Canada that also include drive-by-shootings and extortion. "We had clear and certainly now ever clearer indications that India had violated Canada's sovereignty," Trudeau told an inquiry into alleged foreign interference. "We are not looking to provoke or create a fight with India," Trudeau said. "The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada. We need to respond in order to ensure Canadians' safety." The Canadian premier made the comments two days after Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats, linking them to the murder of Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said it had identified India's top diplomat in the country and five other diplomats as persons of interest, prompting the expulsions. Trudeau told the inquiry that he had been briefed on intelligence "that made it fairly clear, incredibly clear that India was involved in this killing, agents of the government of India were involved in in the killing of a Canadian on Canadian soil." Trudeau says public allegations made as a last resort  Trudeau also said that his government had initially tried to keep the investigations private and had repeatedly reached out to India over a long period.  His government could have gone public with the allegations as early as the 2023 G20 summit in India, Trudeau said, had Canada been seeking to embarrass or provoke India with this matter. That had been an opportunity to make a " big moment for India" into a "very uncomfortable summit" for the hosts, he said. "We chose to continue to work with India behind the scenes to try and get India to cooperate with us," he said, adding he raised the issue in direct talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  Thereafter, Trudeau said, the mood soured and only after repeated refusals to cooperate with the investigations did Canada start making some information public. India's government calls allegations 'preposterous' India on Monday dispute Canada's assertion that it had expelled the six diplomats, saying instead that it was withdrawing them from Canada because it was not confident that their safety could be guaranteed. It said the allegations it was connected to the killing were "preposterous" and a "strategy of smearing India for political gains." India also said it had asked six Canadian diplomats to leave by Saturday. Canada's Sikh community is the largest outside India and is concentrated in electorally important suburban areas. Previous round of diplomatic reprisals India responded angrily to Trudeau's initial public allegation last year that New Delhi was involved in the murder. Nijjar was shot dead by two masked assailants as he left a Sikh temple near his home in Surrey, in the western province of British Columbia. In response to the allegation, India temporarily suspended visa services for Canadians, both countries expelled several of the other's senior diplomats. Nijjar, who moved to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015, had campaigned for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, to be carved out of India. He was wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder. Four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged with Nijjar's murder and are awaiting trial. 'A democratic country going rogue' DW spoke to Canadian lawyer Jaskaran Sandhu, a board member of the World Sikh Organization, who claimed India has become "a rogue state engaged in state-sponsored terrorism" in various Western countries. He alleged that criminal activities in the West can be traced back to India's Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his allies. "India has unleashed organized criminals and gangs in Canada to undermine the Canadian community, [against] Canada and the Sikh-Canadian diaspora with the intent of killing Sikh activists." "There's the West, which includes countries like the UK and the US; and then there's countries like Russia, China and Iran, which have historically acted in this nature, engaging in transnational repression and foreign interference." "This is India, a supposed democratic country, engaging in extrajudicial and extraterritorial violence against Canada… this is a democratic country going rogue." US says India dismissed operative facing similar allegations in failed plot Meanwhile, the United States on Wednesday said New Delhi had informed it that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil has been dismissed from the Indian government's service. US prosecutors charged an Indian citizen last November over a scuppered attempt in New York to kill another advocate for a Sikh homeland. The indictment described an "Indian government employee," not publicly named, as having recruited the hired hitman and directing the assassination plot remotely.

The winner of the most anticipated Nobel Peace Prize will be revealed today. The announcement will take place on Friday, October 11, at 11 AM local time in Oslo, Norway, and at 3 PM Bangladesh time. The announcement can be watched live on the Nobel Prize website. All Nobel Prize announcements this year are being broadcast live on nobelprize.org and the Nobel Prize Committee's YouTube channel. Among the frontrunners for this year's Nobel Peace Prize are the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. In a year marked by global unrest, this year's Nobel Peace Prize is seen as a beacon of hope. Issues like the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, famine in Sudan, and the climate crisis have all shaped the discussions around this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. This makes it challenging for observers to predict the winner. The Norwegian Nobel Institute has registered a total of 286 nominees for this year’s peace prize, including 197 individuals and 89 organizations. The Norwegian Peace Council predicts that the UNRWA, which provides aid to millions of Palestinians, might win this year’s prize. The UNRWA operates in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring countries, helping Palestinian refugees. The council notes that winning the prize would be a significant recognition of UNRWA's work in the face of political and economic challenges. If this prediction comes true, the agency's head, Philippe Lazzarini, could be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize announcement follows the tradition of unveiling Nobel Prize winners in early October. The winners for Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Literature were announced earlier this week. The prize for Economics will be announced on October 14, concluding this year’s announcements. Since 1901, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded these prestigious prizes, established in honor of Swedish scientist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel. In 1969, the Economics category was added. Each year, on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, the prize winners receive their awards, which include a gold medal, a certificate, and 11 million Swedish Krona (about 128 million Bangladeshi Taka).

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their research into computational protein design and protein structure prediction.  "This research is a landmark moment, as it was considered impossible for years to predict the structures of proteins," said the Chair for the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Heiner Linke, who also explained how proteins serve as building blocks of all bodily functions. "I was sleeping when the phone rang. And my wife began screaming very loudly," Baker told reporters. "I stood on the shoulders of giants," he said, as he gave credit to his fellow researchers. "I love all the proteins, I cannot pick a favorite," he added. Proteins and their structures — simply explained Proteins are made-up of strings of amino acid molecules, which then form complex sequences. These sequences help read, copy and repair DNA. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule that contains the genetic code that is unique to every individual. "These proteins consist of hundreds of thousands of atoms that are responsible for every biochemical function in the body," Linke said. AI helped crack the code Avancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, for which the 2024 Physics Nobel Prizes were awarded, also helped Baker, Hassabis and Jumper with their research. Baker and his fellow laureates cracked the code of what protein structures may look like with the help of AI. "They used neural networks and deep learning to train a database that then showed how close two amino acid structures were to each other in space," said Johan Aqvist, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. From predicting protein structures to designing new ones David Baker created computational tools to predict protein structures, building on the 1972 Chemistry Nobel Prize discoveries. Those findings revealed the link between amino acid sequences and the way they fold into biologically active 3D protein structures. Efforts to identify protein structures began in 2003 when Baker and his team created a computer program called Rosetta. Combined with X-ray crystallography, a technique focused on uncovering atomic-level structures, Baker successfully predicted a protein structure that matched its actual form. Before Baker could design new proteins, their real structures had to be predicted with high accuracy, which remained low until 2018. This changed with AlphaFold, an AI tool developed by Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper from DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet. AlphaFold, a deep learning system, demonstrated that neural networks can model the complex process of protein folding. AlphaFold 2 further improved accuracy by enhancing its internal representation and incorporating key structural knowledge into the model. Thanks to the works of Hassabis and Jumper, protein structure predictions can now reach an accuracy of 90%, enabling Baker to design new protein structures. A nasal spray that prevents viruses His work, thanks to advancements in AI, is being used to engineer medications. Baker and his team have come up with a nasal spray which contains proteins designed specially to ward off most pandemic viruses, like the coronavirus. Predicting and designing protein structures can aid in identifying enzymes that contribute to antibiotic resistance, while also helping to develop new vaccines and treatments.

The government in Haiti has deployed teams of anti-gang police after gunmen carried out a mass shooting through a town near Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, killing at least 70 people and forcing over 6,000 to flee. "This odious crime against defenseless women, men and children is not only an attack against victims but against the entire Haitian nation," Prime Minister Garry Conille said on X, adding that security forces were reinforcing the area. What we know about the attack On Thursday, gang members brandishing automatic rifles opened fire in the town of Pont Sonde and later set houses and vehicles on fire, according to local authorities. "Members of the Gran Grif gang used automatic rifles to shoot at the population, killing at least 70 people, among them about 10 women and three infants," UN Human Rights Office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement Friday. The gang reportedly set fire to at least 45 houses and 34 vehicles, forcing many residents to flee. "The gang did not meet any resistance," Bertide Horace, a spokesperson from the Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission to Save the Artibonite Valley said, adding that police officers remained in their station fearing they would be outnumbered by the gang members. Several people were shot in the head as the attackers went door to door, Horace said. "They were left to shoot anybody, everybody was running everywhere. They were walking, shooting people, killing people, burning people, burning homes, burning cars." Rights groups have estimated the death toll to be higher. Haiti's PM says attack 'demands urgent, rigorous' response Luckson Elan, leader of the "Gran Grif" gang, took responsibility for the massacre, saying the massacre was a response to civilians remaining silent when police and vigilante groups killed his gang members. "This latest act of violence, targeting innocent civilians, is unacceptable and demands an urgent, rigorous and coordinated response from the state," Prime Minister Garry Conille said in a statement. The Haitian police would be "stepping up its efforts," the statement said, adding "agents from the Temporary Anti-Gang Unit (UTAG) have been deployed as reinforcements to back up teams already on the ground. The attack is an indication of a deteriorating conflict in Haiti where outbreaks of gang violence have claimed more than 3,500 lives since January alone.

One of the most powerful hurricanes in U.S. history, 'Helene,' has struck. The southwestern coastal states of Florida and Georgia have been severely impacted. At least 46 people have lost their lives, and over 4 million homes and businesses are without power, according to Reuters. The hurricane made landfall at 11:10 PM local time on Thursday, September 26, in Florida's Big Bend region. According to the Reuters report, this Category 4 hurricane has caused widespread chaos across coastal areas. Numerous boats have overturned in the Tampa, Naples, and St. Petersburg areas along Florida's coast. Many trees have fallen onto roads, vehicles are stranded in water, and some roads are completely submerged. The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s coast with wind speeds of 225 km/h. It weakened into a tropical storm as it moved toward neighboring Georgia early Friday. By the afternoon, it had further weakened into a tropical depression, with wind speeds dropping to 55 kilometers per hour. It slowly moved over Tennessee and Kentucky. The center also mentioned that Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic flooding in the southern Appalachian region due to heavy rainfall. Earlier, the U.S. National Hurricane Center had warned that the storm might make landfall in Florida around 11 PM on Friday. As of Friday, over 2 million homes and businesses were without power.

According to a report, the global index for free and fair elections suffered the biggest decline on record in 2023, while disputed elections are becoming a global phenomenon. A shrinking voter turnout globally and increasingly contested election results are posing a risk to the credibility of democracy, a new report revealed on Tuesday. The report published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said that global voter turnout between 2008 and 2023 plunged by 10 percentage points, going from 65.2 to 55.5. What does the report say? The annual report, which has been measuring democratic performance in 158 countries since 1975, revealed that 47% of nations witnessed a decline in crucial indicators over the past five years, making it the eighth consecutive year of global democratic decline. The international watchdog found that between mid-2020 and mid-2024, one in five elections were legally challenged. Voting and ballot counting emerged as the most-litigated aspects of the electoral process during the period, it added. For its Global State of Democracy indexes, IDEA categorizes performances using four main categories: representation, rights, rule of law and participation. The think tank said that the category related to free and fair elections and parliamentary oversight — which falls under representation — recorded its worst year in 2023. Trump assassination bid shows continued threats Democratic performance in the United States — which will see a presidential election this year — showed some recovery in the past two years, IDEA said. However, the watchdog added that the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July highlighted continued risks. Indicators like credible elections, civil liberties and political equality were down in the US since 2015, as per the report. "Less than half (47%) of the Americans said the 2020 election was 'free and fair' and the country remains deeply polarized," the report said. Elections remain a 'cornerstone' IDEA stressed that despite the many threats to elections and declines in many nations, elections retain their vow as a mechanism for ensuring popular control over decision makers and decision making. It added that elections as such "remain a cornerstone of democracy despite the current challenges." "Amid this broad context of decline, however, many elections have delivered on their inherent promise as a means of ensuring that the people have control over decision makers," the report said. In many highly observed elections since last year, incumbent parties have lost presidential elections and parliamentary majorities, the report said. "Recent elections in Guatemala, India, Poland, Senegal and many other countries have allowed the voters to have an effective voice," it added.