Category: All News

A massive 20,000-gallon tank was found to be leaking ammonia at a facility in Auburndale, Florida early on Wednesday morning, a city spokesperson told a local Fox affiliate, noting that all employees were evacuated from the plant. Residents living in a two-block area near the plant were also asked to take shelter following the discovery, though the order was lifted…

Regulators, policymakers and bankers are looking at the role that digital messaging and social media may have played in the collapse, and whether banks are entering an age when the psychological behavior behind a bank run — mass fear from depositors of losing their savings — may be amplified and go viral quicker than bank officers and regulators can successfully respond.

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it expects to invest 300 trillion won ($230 billion) over the next 20 years as part of an ambitious South Korean national project to build the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing base near the capital, Seoul.

The chip-making “mega cluster,” which will be established in Gyeonggi Province by 2042, will be anchored by five new semiconductor plants built by Samsung. It will aim to attract 150 other companies producing materials and components or designing high-tech chips, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The Japan Securities Dealers Association said Wednesday it has imposed a penalty of 300 million yen on SMBC Nikko Securities Inc for market manipulation, matching the highest fine previously issued by the organization.

According to the JSDA, SMBC Nikko illegally propped up the prices of 10 individual stock issues to stabilize them last year in “block offering” transactions.

The fine imposed on the brokerage by the JSDA is equal to that issued to Nomura Securities Inc. in connection with an insider trading scandal in 2012.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu told Austin that the incident was caused by the Americans violating the airspace restriction declared by Russia, with all the proper international notifications in place. Shoigu called US drone flights off the Russian coast “provocative in nature” and risked an escalation of tensions in the Black Sea. 

While Russia does not desire such a development, it will “continue to respond proportionately to all provocations,” Shoigu said. He added that the two nuclear powers “must act as responsibly as possible,” which includes keeping a military channel open to discuss any crisis.

Speaking at a Pentagon press briefing, Austin confirmed that he made the call, and said it was “important that great powers be models of transparency and communication.” However, he insisted the US would “continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.”

Shares of Swiss bank lose more than a quarter of their value in one day, dragging down European and US markets.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) will not affect China’s financial system but offers an important lesson for the country’s banking industry, the official Securities Times has said.

An SVB-style bank failure is unlikely to happen in China but the incident would have “important implications for the development of China’s small- and medium-sized lenders, and the stability of China’s financial system”, the media outlet said in an editorial on Wednesday.

SVB’s shutdown on Friday has roiled global markets, forced US President Joe Biden to rush out assurances that the financial system is safe and prompted emergency US measures giving banks access to more funding.

Responding after Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Ottawa is seeking “potential regime change in Russia” in comments to reporters last week, Moscow’s Ambassador to Canada Oleg Stepanov asked how Western nations would respond if the roles were reversed. “Quite perplexed to hear from Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly that her goal is ‘regime change’ in Russia. Is this how she instructs the Canadian Embassy in Moscow?” Stepanov said on Monday. “And by the way, what reaction would we expect if, for example, someone in Moscow had said that Russia’s goal is ‘regime change’ in Ottawa?”

Antonov met with Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried, who protested the “unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of the drone that resulted in its loss. “We consider this incident a provocation,” Antonov told reporters after the meeting. He said he told Donfried that US drones, planes and ships had no business being that close to Russian…

The country’s inflation has not surpassed 100 percent in over three decades, as value of Argentina’s currency plummets.

Portuguese tourist Fabio Figueirado wanted to admire beautiful buildings on a romantic getaway in Paris, but instead he and his girlfriend have found themselves navigating pavements piled high…

The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom are traveling “further down the wrong and dangerous path for their own geopolitical self-interest,” China’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, responding…

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Germany’s response to the explosion on North Sea pipelines showed that the country remained “occupied” and unable to act independently decades after its surrender at the end of World War II.

Putin, interviewed on Russian television, also said European leaders had been browbeaten into losing their sense of sovereignty and independence.

Western countries, including Germany, have reacted cautiously to investigations into the blasts which hit Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, saying they believe they were a deliberate act, but declining to say who they think was responsible.

Taiwan unveiled its first portable attack drone on Tuesday, an unmanned aerial vehicle similar to a U.S. model used in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, as China steps up…

Facebook parent Meta is slashing 10,000 jobs, about as many as the social media company announced late last year in its first round of cuts, as uncertainly about the global economy hits the technology sector particularly hard.

The company announced 11,000 job cuts in November, about 13% of its workforce at the time. In addition to the layoffs, Meta said Tuesday that it would not fill 5,000 open positions.

Meta and other tech companies have been hiring aggressively for at least two years and in recent months have begun to let some of those workers go. Hiring in the U.S. is still strong, but layoffs have hit hard in some sectors.

A record 514 children attending elementary, junior high and high schools in Japan died by suicide in 2022, topping the previous high of 499 seen in 2020, government…