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Bangladesh

This Month

Airtrunk founder Robin Khuda and his wife have sold the penthouse in their Ondas building in Manly for $18m.

‘Once in a lifetime’: Khuda ends stellar 2024 with $18m penthouse sale

AirTrunk’s Robin Khuda’s passion for luxury property development is proving a lucrative side hustle, with his Manly penthouse selling for a suburb high.

  • Bonnie Campbell

September

The five most powerful Australian tech leaders in 2024

The biggest deal of the year, the end of an era at Atlassian and the rising influence of super funds helped to shape the list of technology’s most powerful in 2024.

  • Updated
  • Paul Smith
Data centre king Robin Khuda.

Just how naughty was AirTrunk’s Robin Khuda?

Let’s meditate on the businessman of the year’s fantastic origin story: his use of super to pay employees.

  • Mark Di Stefano
AirTrunk founder Robin Khuda founded AirTrunk less than a decade ago.

AirTrunk’s $23.5b AI pay day

Blackstone emerged as the winning bidder in the year’s biggest merger and acquisition deal, netting its founder Robin Khuda a $1 billion-plus payday.

  • Paul Smith and Anthony Macdonald
Robin Khuda arrived in Australia as an 18-year-old from Bangladesh, and is now at the centre of the year’s biggest deal.

Robin Khuda is the ringleader of this year’s biggest M&A deal

The founder of AirTrunk has cashed in on the inexorable rise in demand for processing power and built a vast fortune on the rise of cloud computing.

  • Paul Smith and Tess Bennett
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August

Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus .

Bangladesh protesters back Nobel laureate for government role

Protesters have called for Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to be named chief adviser of a new interim government after PM Sheikh Hasina fled the country.

  • John Reed, Benjamin Parkin and Lucy Fisher
In Dhaka, a man films a burning shopping centre on his phone as he runs past. Protesters are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government.

Bangladesh protesters to march on government after deadly clashes

At least 91 people were killed and hundreds injured on Sunday in a wave of violence in the country of 170 million, as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets.

  • Ruma Paul

July

China’s low-tech manufacturers hanging on by their fingernails

China is shifting more to high-tech and EV manufacturing as its clothing, toy and furniture factories struggle against anaemic orders, trade restrictions and competition.

  • William Langley

June

Why Hong Kong ‘is still good’ for commercial lawyers

Australian lawyers are missing out on opportunities in Asian markets, says a newly promoted partner at King & Wood Mallesons.

  • Maxim Shanahan

August 2023

India’s ban on some rice exports could add to global supply fears.

India key in recipe to avoid global food crisis

Rice and wheat shortages now threaten a world food emergency to rival the last one in 2007–08

  • Peter Timmer
Visas to study at Australian universities are easier to get than some other visas.

The data that signals ‘students’ are coming for work, not uni

Universities are bleeding money as thousands of international students enrol in dodgy colleges as a means of accessing paid work.

  • Julie Hare

April 2023

A woman holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun in Bangkok, Thailand. Authorities warned residents across Thailand to avoid outdoor activities due to extreme heat over the weekend.

Southern Asia swelters as Bangkok hits 54 degrees

Recent extreme heat in Thailand smashed electricity consumption records there as Bangladesh and India also suffer.

  • Reuters

October 2022

An LNG tanker in Eemshaven, Netherlands. Europe is relying on LNG shipments to ease its gas crisis this winter.

Europe faces ‘unprecedented risk’ of gas shortage, IEA says

The IEA says in its quarterly gas report that EU countries will need to reduce use by 13 per cent over the winter in case of a complete Russian cut-off amid the war in Ukraine.

  • David McHugh

August 2022

China’s vast export machine is slowing.

Is China finally hitting the economic wall?

Globalisation is heading into a perfect storm – and for China in particular it could not be coming at a worse time.

  • Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman

January 2022

Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to another four years in prison.

Aung San Suu Kyi sentenced to another four years in prison

Monday’s guilty verdict on three counts comes on top of her December 5 conviction on charges of inciting public unrest and a separate count of breaching COVID-19 protocols.

  • Richard C. Paddock
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December 2021

The world has so far weathered the pandemic much better than it appears.

Human progress unexpectedly stumbles on during pandemic

Even during a health emergency, the capitalist system delivered enough growth to lift people out of poverty.

  • Robin Harding
Masks on for South African students. The country’s vaccination rate

What South Africa and omicron tell us about inequality

There is still much to learn about omicron, but one thing is clear. Stark inequality, both within nations and between them, is good for pathogens.

  • David Pilling

October 2021

Nations like Bangladesh have to fix more than one problem at a time.

In the developing world, the chat about climate change is different

No one can do much about climate change if they are trapped in poverty already. Australia can help to fix both challenges.

  • Tanveer Ahmed

September 2021

Xi Jinping addresses the United Nations via video link.

Xi pledges to stop building coal-fired plants outside China

China is by far the biggest producer of coal domestically and the largest financier of coal-fired power plants abroad.

  • Somini Sengupta and Rick Gladstone

July 2021

The damaged remaining structure at the Champlain Towers South condo building collapses in a controlled demolition.

What remained of the Surfside condo is levelled with explosives

Demolition was initially thought to be weeks away – until the increasingly urgent forecasts that said Tropical Storm Elsa could lash the area with strong winds and heavy rain.

  • Updated
  • Reis Thebault and Brittany Shammas

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/bangladesh-6m1