The Public Ledger of Corruption
When then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull called for heads to roll after the 2016 census was pulled offline – amid fears IBM’s data servers hosting the survey had been infiltrated – the American enterprise technology giant made an important decision. IBM ran most of the big mainframe systems that had powered core government functions for several…
Justice Akintayo Aluko of the Federal High Court, in Lagos has ordered 27 commercial banks in the country, to placed Post-No-Debit (PND) on the accounts of a tourism company, ‘La Campagne Tropicana Beach Resort’ over alleged N46, 798, 095.94 . The judge, made the order of Mareva injunction on May 17, 2023, while granting an…
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States announced at a U.N. conference on Wednesday nearly $524 million in additional humanitarian aid for the Horn of Africa that aims to put a spotlight on the extreme effects of climate change and the worst drought in the region in 40 years — and the need for more…
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CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s military chief has ordered the freezing of all bank accounts belonging to a rival paramilitary force. The two sides have battled for weeks across Sudan, pushing the troubled country to the brink of all-out war.
The decree, issued on Sunday by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, will target the official accounts of the Rapid Support Forces in Sudanese bank, as well as the accounts of all companies belonging to the group, the state news agency SUNA reported.
It remains unclear what immediate effect the freezing would have on the RSF and how Burhan’s orders are to be enforced.
The military chief also announced the replacement of the governor of Sudan’s Central Bank, a move likely tied to the freezing decree. Over the past decade, the RSF amassed great wealth through the gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves.
On April 26, after months awaiting a response, Japan’s Foreign Ministry announced it had received confirmation from Myanmar’s military junta that it misused two Japan-funded civilian vessels to transport soldiers and weapons in Rakhine State in September 2022.
A Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Japan protested the misuse and the junta “expressed regret over the situation,” saying it will do its “utmost to prevent recurrence.”
Human Rights Watch first revealed the incident in October 2022 after analyzing letters from Myanmar officials that stated that two of three vessels delivered by Japan between 2017 and 2019 had been used to transport more than 100 soldiers and materiel to the town of Buthidaung in Rakhine State, where the military is fighting the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group. The Japanese government had been requesting information from the junta following that reporting.
For decades, the major banks – along with AMP – dominated the financial planning landscape, employing or authorising the vast majority of licensed advisers. The remaining 16,000 providers – most of them independent or privately owned – are insufficient in number to meet the advice needs of the millions of Baby Boomers set to retire in coming years.
And the mountains of red tape the remaining advisers must comply with – thanks largely, it must be said, to the misdeeds of the bank-owned advice providers – have made their services too expensive for most families to afford even if they wanted to.
Shares of major U.S. banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo and Bank of America dropped between 1% and 2% in early trade.
Shares of regional lenders First Republic Bank, PacWest Bancorp, Western Alliance Bancorp and Truist Financial Corp fell between 1% to 5%.
The S&P 500 banking index and the KBW regional banking index, hit their lowest since late 2020 in the previous session, fell 1.6% and 1.2%, respectively.
European banks also came under pressure after a report on a U.S. probe into Credit Suisse and UBS further soured the mood. Their U.S.-listed shares were down about 5.4% and 4.1%, respectively.
U.S. shares of Deutsche Bank fell nearly 10% after the bank’s credit default swaps rose to a four-year high.
U.S. two-year Treasury yields fell sharply to their lowest levels since September on Friday.
Credit Suisse Group AG and UBS Group AG are among the banks under scrutiny in a US Justice Department probe into whether financial professionals helped Russian oligarchs evade sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Swiss banks were included in a recent wave of subpoenas sent out by the US government, the people said. The information requests were sent before the crisis that engulfed Credit Suisse and resulted in UBS’s proposed takeover of its rival.
Subpoenas also went to employees of some major US banks, two people with knowledge of the inquiries, said.
The Justice Department inquiries are focused on identifying which bank employees dealt with sanctioned clients and how those clients were vetted over the past several years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced Russia’s readiness to switch to the yuan in foreign trade settlements with countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
He said this during the Russian-Chinese talks with the participation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, RBC reports.
Currently, the share of the yuan in Russia’s export calculations is about 16%.
“We are in favour of using the Chinese yuan in settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. I am sure that these forms of payments in yuan will be developed between Russian partners and their colleagues in third countries,” Putin said.
According to [Putin], national currencies are already actively used in Russian-Chinese trade.