Category: Corruption

“What we’re facing right now is really serious,” Pomboy, founder of economic research firm MacroMavens, said on Friday in a Fox News interview. “We are on the brink of a 2008-style financial crisis.”

Pomboy made her assessment in the wake of Friday’s shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) by federal regulators – the second-largest failure in US banking history. SVB’s collapse came on the heels of this week’s closure of cryptocurrency lender Silvergate Bank, as well as the bankruptcies last fall of crypto firms FTX, BlockFi, and Three Arrows Capital.

President Joe Biden’s administration has responded by trying to allay concerns over a broader crisis. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen issued a statement on Friday declaring that the US banking system “remains resilient, and regulators have effective tools to address this type of event.”

The ban will be imposed next week and reevaluated after six months, De Croo said in a statement. Government employees will be allowed to use the app on their personal devices, but not on any devices “whose purchase, subscription or use are partly or fully paid for by the federal government.” Citing reports by the Belgian State Security Service and Centre for Cybersecurity, De Croo claimed that TikTok collects large amounts of user data, manipulates the information users are exposed to, and cooperates with Chinese spy agencies. “We must not be naive,” De Croo said. “TikTok is a Chinese company that today is obliged to cooperate with the Chinese intelligence services.”

European and Asian stock markets plummeted on Friday, following a rout in US equities amid liquidity concerns in the banking sector. The meltdown was triggered by US bank SVB Financial, known as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which plunged 60% on Thursday after revealing that it needed to raise more than $2 billion in capital to offset losses from bond sales.  The announcement rocked financial stocks, with Euro Stoxx Banks index on Friday on pace for its worst day since June, led by a decline of more than 8% for Deutsche Bank. Societe Generale, HSBC, ING Group and Commerzbank all tumbled more than 5%. Asian stocks suffered their worst day in five months, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index plummeting 3% on losses in heavyweight technology stocks. The Shanghai Composite dropped 1.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.67%. Investors started offloading US bank stocks on Thursday after SVB, a major lender to the tech industry, announced aggressive measures to support its balance sheet. The bank had reportedly been forced to sell all of its available-for-sale bonds at a $1.8 billion loss as its startup clients withdrew deposits.

The verdict follows Ng’s initial conviction back in April last year, when he was found guilty of helping Tim Leissner, his former boss at Goldman Sachs, drain money from the fund. Goldman Sachs helped 1MDB, a fund set up in 2009 to finance development projects in Malaysia, raise $6.5 billion through bond sales back in 2012 and 2013. According to US prosecutors, some $4.5 billion of these funds were diverted by Ng and his co-conspirators in the process. They were then used for bribes to government officials, purchases of high-end real estate and other luxury items. According to the Department of Justice, some of the money even went to finance the 2013 Leonardo DiCaprio film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, which is itself a story of defrauding and money laundering. According to US District Judge Margo Brodie, Ng and his co-defendants “effectively stole money” that was supposed to go toward infrastructure and economic development projects in Malaysia. “There is a critical need to deter crimes of pure greed like this one,” Brodie said, commenting on the sentence. Ng pleaded not guilty and said that the $35 million he was accused of getting in payments from the embezzlement scheme were in fact a return on his wife’s investment. The former banker plans to file an appeal.

As they work to unleash greater violence on the Palestinians, its rulers are turning Israel into a fascist garrison. Israeli headlines read like guidelines for future autocracy, with the justice minister working to strip power away from the judiciary, the communications minister threatening to defund Israel’s public broadcaster to funnel money to a channel favourable to the government, and the minister of heritage accusing organisations representing Reform Jews of endangering Jewish identity.

Fearing a tailspin into turmoil, President Isaac Herzog stepped in, with tacit support from President Joe Biden, to facilitate a compromise between the government and the protesters. But what seems like a well-intentioned effort to build consensus, is, in fact, an ill-advised attempt at appeasing fascists and pandering to evil.

Any compromise offered by Herzog would be skewed towards the ruling majority, which holds the power to interpret its articles at will. A compromise will also whitewash and empower the ruling fascists, presenting them as responsible and pragmatic actors, as they pursue their extremist agenda, and as the street opposition loses momentum and disintegrates, slowly but surely.

According to the report, Fridman and Aven currently own 45% of the bank via a Luxembourg-based holding company that controls the lender’s Cyprus-based parent company ABH Financial Limited. Their shares will reportedly be sold to Alfa-Bank’s third co-owner, Andrei Kosogov, for 178 billion rubles ($2.3 billion). Kosogov, who already owns a 41% stake in the bank, confirmed to FT that the deal has been agreed, but made no further comments as to the details. Alfa-Bank’s press service also confirmed on Friday that such a deal is being prepared but noted that it is too early to speak about the particulars. The sale is expected to be finalized later this spring, once it is approved by the Russian central bank and tax authorities. Unlike Kosogov, who is not subject to the Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia, both Fridman and Aven have been targeted by Western authorities for their alleged ties to the Russian government. Both billionaires have challenged the EU sanctions against them in court, and now “want to do everything they can to get out of their Russian assets so that sanctions will be removed,” one of the sources told the news outlet.

The United States has imposed sanctions on 39 entities, including many based in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, that Washington said facilitate Iran’s access to the global financial system, describing them as a “shadow banking” network that moves billions of dollars.

The US Treasury Department said in a statement on Thursday that those included in the sanctions had granted companies previously slapped with Iran-related sanctions – such as Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co (PGPICC) and Triliance Petrochemical Co Ltd – access to the international financial system and helped them hide their trade with foreign customers.

Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has been charged with abuse of power and money laundering in connection with the awarding of government contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Muhyiddin, who led the country from March 2020 through the worst of the pandemic, pleaded not guilty to the charges at a Kuala Lumpur court on Friday morning. He has previously called the investigation politically motivated.

The veteran politician faces as many as 15 years in jail if found guilty of money laundering, and up to 20 years for abuse of power. He could also be fined.

Muhyiddin was granted bail of 2 million Malaysian ringgit ($442,674) by the judge and asked to surrender his passport.

A judge in Peru has lengthened the duration of former President Pedro Castillo‘s pre-trial detention from 18 months to 36, as the disgraced head of state faces charges stemming from his attempt to dissolve Congress and rule by decree in December. On Thursday, Judge Juan Carlos Checkley handed down the decision in the wake of an additional investigation announced in February. Prosecutors at the time formalised plans to probe Castillo’s short tenure in office, on charges of influence peddling, organised crime and acting as an accomplice to collusion.

ASIC has announced six of Australia’s largest banking and financial services institutions have paid or offered to pay a total of $4.7 billion in compensation to customers who suffered loss or detriment because of fees for no service misconduct or non-compliant advice. AMP, ANZ, CBA, Macquarie, NAB and Westpac all undertook the review and remediation programs to compensate affected customer as a result of two major ASIC reviews. ASIC commenced the reviews to look into the extent of failure by the institutions to deliver ongoing advice services to financial advice customers who were paying fees to receive those services and how effectively the institutions supervised their financial advisers to identify and deal with “non-compliant advice”.

Police in Canada said on Thursday they are investigating allegations that two Montreal-area centers are being used as Chinese state-backed “police stations” to intimidate or harass Canadians of Chinese origin. The investigation adds to mounting allegations of Chinese interference in Canada’s internal affairs, including accusations by Ottawa that Beijing tried to influence the last two Canadian elections. China has denied those accusations. “We are carrying out police actions aimed at detecting and disrupting these foreign state-backed criminal activities, which may threaten the safety of persons living in Canada,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Quebec said in a statement. Countries including the United States and the Netherlands have carried out similar probes following a report in September by Safeguard Defenders, a Europe-based human rights organization, detailing the presence of dozens of Chinese police “service stations” in major cities globally. In November, the RCMP in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, also launched an investigation into similar reports of Chinese “police service stations” in the Toronto area. The Ontario RCMP did not respond to a request for information on that probe.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is spearheading a new drive this week to see Finland and Sweden become members of the world’s biggest military organization by the time U.S. President Joe Biden and his counterparts meet for their next summit in July.

Fearing that they might be targeted next after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the Nordic neighbors abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella.

All 30 allies signed Finland’s and Sweden’s accession protocols. Almost all have since ratified those texts, but Turkey and, more recently, Hungary have sought guarantees and assurances from the two. NATO must agree unanimously for them to join.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly asking for US help to develop its civilian nuclear programme, raising fears that the kingdom may seek to develop a nuclear weapon and accelerate an arms race with Iran.

Saudi officials want US support to enrich uranium and develop their own fuel production system, while Washington is in return seeking a normalisation with another Middle East ally, Israel, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal.

The oil-dependent kingdom is looking to add nuclear power to its energy mix while, at the same time, being deeply wary of nuclear proliferation attempts by Tehran.

The Foreign Secretary is to order a crackdown on SNP ministers exceeding their powers by using meetings with overseas governments to promote Scottish independence and attack Brexit.

The Telegraph understands that James Cleverly is to write to Britain’s embassies to remind them that a UK diplomat should be present during meetings between SNP ministers and foreign governments.

Whitehall insiders highlighted concerns that the Scottish Government is using Foreign and Commonwealth Office resources and relationships to set up the meetings, only to use them to talk down Britain.

Matt Taibbi presented the US Congress with evidence of corporate, NGO and government collusion: Social media platforms colluded with non-governmental organizations and the US government to suppress information they did not like. During the hearing, multiple Democrats tried to pressure Taibbi into revealing his sources, insinuating Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, was behind the disclosures.

(Bloomberg) — US President Joe Biden dropped into a meeting at the last minute in the White House to see a man all of Washington wants an audience with: Sauli Niinisto, once upon a time known as the “Putin whisperer.” The impromptu get-together was thrown together as Biden joined Niinisto and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The pair of presidents have now met three times and spoken four since late 2021 — giving the Finnish head of state unprecedented access to the world’s most powerful leader.

At stake is the stalled expansion of NATO, with Turkey and Hungary holding up the biggest shift in the security landscape of western Europe in several decades.