The International Organization for Migration (IOM) clarified that it had donated the tools recovered from the warehouse of an NGO in Ukhiya, Cox's Bazar. "The tools are part of household kits given to vulnerable members of the host community for agricultural and livelihood activities," Tarek Mahmud, national communication officer of IOM, said in a press release issued by the organization.

Earlier on September 5, some 5000 tools recovered from the storage depot of SHED, a local NGO, at Malbhitapara in Ukhiya upazila were described as 'weapons' being made for the Rohingyas. The news went viral on social media and contributed to the increasingly xenophobic air being adapted towards the Rohingya refugee population. In fact, the items were farming tools being stored at the SHED office for distribution to the Bangladeshi host community, IOM said. The authorities have returned the tools to the NGO after checking all the documents.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will provide Bangladesh with loans of upto $1 billion for various development projects. Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam disclosed as much about the AIIB's financial assistance, referring to the sideline meeting between Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal and AIIB President JinLiqun at the fourth annual meeting of the board of governors of the AIIB, seen as Beijing's answer to the 'Washington Consensus' (World Bank and IMF).

Following the meeting, it was reported that the AIIB will extend all-out financing support to Bangladesh in the coming days and has even agreed to let the country select its own projects as per its development demands, after which Kamal informed Jin that Bangladesh will need financing support in energy, connectivity and social development, especially education, to sustain its current growth momentum into the next decade.

At least 246 people were killed and 97 others were injured in separate incidents of lightning strikes across the country in the seven months spanning February-August, according to a survey conducted by the Thunderstorm Awareness Forum. The victims comprise 30 females, six children, eight youths and 202 males. Most of the victims were killed while harvesting paddy, fishing and grazing cattle in field while some others died while sleeping in cottages and tin-sheet houses and under trees.

The highest number killed was 66 in June, closely followed by May (60), and then July (47). Satkhira was the district that reported the most victims, 22. The increasing number of deaths and injuries from lightning strikes in recent years caused the government to declare lightning strikes as a natural disaster in 2016.

Masud Bin Momen, the current Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, is set to become the country's next Foreign Secretary. He previously served as Bangladesh Ambassador to Japan and Italy. He will replace the longest-serving Foreign Secretary of the country, M Shahidul Haque, who goes on retirement in December, according to sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka.

The current Ambassador to Japan Rabab Fatima will take Masud bin Momen's place as the next Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Fatima, a career diplomat belonging to the 1986 batch of BCS (FA), returned to the Foreign Ministry after 10 years to take up the post in Tokyo as she served on lien with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) from 2006-15.