The government confirmed 133 deaths caused by dengue in 2019, the highest-ever figure for a single year since the first epidemic in the country in 2000. The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research confirmed the death figure after analysing 211 cases out of the 264 suspected deaths due to the mosquito-borne tropical disease. In 2000 dengue claimed the lives of at least 93 people, when doctors in the country did not know how to treat this disease.

In 2001 the number of deaths caused by dengue dropped to 44 but rose to 58 in 2002. Since then the number of deaths from dengue did not exceed 26 in a year until 2018. The dengue outbreak in the outgoing year was unprecedented with over 100,000 patients getting hospitalised since January. This year the menace spread outside the capital, for the first time, in the fourth week of July.

Police pressed charges against 14 members of a new faction of banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (New JMB) over the 2017 bombing at a hotel in Dhaka's Panthapath area. Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit Inspector Raju Ahmed, also investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet before the court. The case has already been sent to the Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal for hearing.

On August 15, 2017, a member of New JMB, Saiful Islam, 21, blew himself up at Hotel Olio International in Panthapath, just 300m away from the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in Dhanmandi Rd 32 (old). The incident occurred just three hours after President Md Abdul Hamid, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and other high-ups of the government paid their respects to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the museum on the occasion of National Mourning Day.

The country's export earnings declined for the fourth consecutive month in November, compared with the corresponding month of the previous fiscal. The fall has been mostly driven by negative growth in the dominant apparel sector. According to the Export Promotion Bureau, Bangladesh earned $3.05 billion in November, down by 10.7 percent from the $3.42 billion earned in the same month last year.

In October, the exports earnings saw a 17.2 percent decline from the corresponding month of 2018-19 to $3.07 billion. It was $2.92 billion in September, down by 7.3 percent compared to the same month last year while in August, the country earned $2.84 billion from exporting goods, down by 11.5 percent compared to the same month last year. Overall, Bangladesh earned $15.8 billion during the July-November period of the current fiscal, which is 7.6 percent lower than the $17.1 billion earned a year ago.

Around 28,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers in Malaysia are facing uncertainty over returning home within a December 31 amnesty deadline due to the high price of air tickets and a shortage of flights, according to the Expatriates' Welfare Ministry. The Malaysian government offered the amnesty under its "back for good (B4G)" programme to repatriate illegal foreigners from August 1.

The government this week decided to give a subsidy of Tk 10,000 per ticket of Biman Bangladesh Airlines on Kuala Lumpur-Dhaka flight to bring back migrant workers registered under the B4G programme. Some 33,000 undocumented Bangladeshi migrant workers have returned under the B4G programme from Malaysia already. In a bid to tackle the crisis, Biman will operate 16 additional flights only for migrant workers on the Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur-Dhaka route from December 12 to December 31.