by Roland JACKSON The UK arm of failed US lender Silicon Valley Bank has been bought by HSBC for a nominal £1 ($1.2) in a rescue deal, the government and HSBC announced Monday. The sale, overseen by the Bank of England and the Treasury, comes after SVB collapsed Friday sparking panic in Britain over its key customers in the technology and life science sectors. “Silicon Valley Bank (UK) Ltd has today been sold to HSBC,” […]
Tag: US
Mum and Malaysia celebrate Yeoh’s Oscar win
by Patrick LEE Agence France-Presse KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — “Malaysia boleh!” cried Michelle Yeoh’s mother in a video chat with her daughter minutes after her historic Oscars win was announced — citing a popular slogan that loosely translates into “Malaysia can do it!” “I’m very happy… I’m proud of my daughter. She is very hardworking,” Janet Yeoh told reporters after her daughter became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best […]
Latest California storm leaves at least two dead, breaks levee
by Glenn CHAPMAN Another powerful storm pummeled California overnight into Saturday, forcing thousands to evacuate and resulting in at least two deaths, while causing a levee to give way in coastal Monterey County. “We were hoping to avoid and prevent this situation, but the worst case scenario has arrived with the Pajaro River overtopping and levee breaching at about midnight,” Luis Alejo, a Monterey County supervisor, said Saturday on Twitter. Residents told AFP they […]
SVB’s demise a sign of worry, but limited contagion risk: analysts
New York, United States | AFP | by Juliette MICHEL The surprisingly rapid implosion of Silicon Valley Bank has markets jittery over a potential sign of widespread turmoil, but analysts see only a limited risk of financial contagion. SVB’s woes are the result of “idiosyncratic stresses and not one that we see as systemic that would affect the banking industry,” said CFRA Research’s Ken Leon, saying stricter US regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crisis […]
US closes Silicon Valley Bank in biggest collapse since 2008
US regulators pulled the plug on Silicon Valley Bank on Friday in a spectacular move that sent global banking shares sputtering, as markets fretted over possible contagion from America’s biggest banking failure since the 2008 financial crisis. US authorities swooped in and seized the assets of SVB, a key lender to US startups since the 1980s, after a run on deposits made it no longer tenable for the medium-sized bank to stay afloat on its own. […]
Global bank shares sink over US fears
Paris, France | AFP | by Laurent THOMET The world’s biggest banks took a stock market beating on Friday as trouble at a US regional lender sparked concerns over the wider sector. The four biggest US banks lost a whopping $52 billion in market value on Thursday after shares in SVB Financial, a major lender to the tech industry, sank by 60 percent. SVB Financial spooked the markets after announcing a stock offering and offloading […]
Texas executes man convicted of drug-related quadruple murder
HOUSTON, United States (AFP) — An American man convicted of a quadruple murder linked to drug trafficking more than 30 years ago was executed in Texas on Thursday. Arthur Brown Jr, 52, received a lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in the city of Huntsville, in the eastern part of the vast southern US state, the state prisons board said. This made Brown the fifth death row inmate to be executed in the conservative […]
California readies for yet another big storm
by Huw GRIFFITH Agence France-Presse LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Another big storm was headed for California on Thursday, the latest in a winter parade that has already brought near-record snowfall and heavy rains. Over the coming days, two atmospheric rivers — moisture-laden weather systems chugging in from the Pacific — were expected to dump heavy snow on already-buried mountain ranges, and bring torrential rain to lower elevations. Some areas could see as much […]
Americans buying more vinyl than CDs for first time in decades
Vinyl records continued to translate their retro appeal into a steady resurgence, outselling compact discs last year in terms of units in the United States for the first time since 1987. Revenues from the sale of physical records jumped four percent in 2022 to $1.7 billion, according to the latest report from the Recording Industry Association of America released Thursday. Consumers snagged 41 million vinyl units last year compared to 33 million CDs, an eye-popping […]
US House Speaker McCarthy turns down Pres. Zelensky’s invite to visit Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited top US lawmaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, to visit Ukraine as doubts over support for Kyiv’s war efforts simmer in Congress, particularly among conservatives. Zelensky proposed the visit in an interview with CNN, which will be broadcast later Wednesday. “Mr McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then […]
A year after the Ukraine invasion, oil market much changed
by Thomas URBAIN Agence France-Presse HOUSTON, United States (AFP) — A year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the oil market has become more fragmented and uncertain, a dynamic expected to boost crude prices over the long term. Condemnation of Russia by Western governments has essentially severed Europe from Russian supplies, leaving it more reliant on the Middle East and the United States. That shift means cheaper Russian energy imports for China and India, while countries […]
US worries China will use supply chains as weapon
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States increasingly worries that China will use its power in global supply chains as an additional weapon to advance its political and military might, a report released Wednesday showed. The “Annual Threat Assessment” issued by the Director of National Intelligence said China is already using its supply chain dominance to force foreign companies and countries to transfer technologies and intellectual property to it. But the US intelligence community […]





