Not long ago, the acquisition of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse by UBS would have been unthinkable. Now, it is happening at speed to prevent the unbearable.
The financial panic that began with the failure of two American banks has, like 15 years before, spread to Europe. While the action taken by Swiss authorities to put this deal together demonstrates that governments and central banks have learned some of the lessons of the global financial crisis, it also underlines the scale of the threat.
It is bad news too for London’s financial centre and its workforce. The two banks employ roughly 11,000 people in the capital, with a deal of this nature highly likely to lead to redundancies, particularly in Credit Suisse’s troubled investment bank arm, which is partly responsible for the current crisis.
But the bigger risk is systemic. Markets, which took a battering last week, are braced for further volatility. Central banks around the world are working in a co-ordinated manner to boost liquidity. The hope is that this will be sufficient to limit further contagion.
Putin’s only friend
hours after being hit with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and a visit to Mariupol in Ukraine to see the city his armed forces have razed to the ground, Vladimir Putin is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Russia, diplomatically isolated and economically diminished by its illegal invasion, is more reliant than ever on China. But the bilateral relationship extends further than this war. Both men are authoritarian, revisionist leaders intent on overtaking the US-led West.
More urgently, Putin will be seeking military aid from Xi. China has thus far demurred, eager to avoid activating secondary sanctions on its companies. But that should not understate the closeness, at least in rhetorical terms, of the self-styled ‘best friends’. Not least because Putin has few of those.
Xi views Russia as a pitstop for discounted natural resources and an avenue to bolster Chinese influence. This is not a friendship of equals. Nonetheless, the West must maintain a united front to counter this alliance of autocrats seeking to unpick the international order.
Call of the rewild
Bats in Barnes, bees in Bexley and the first beavers in Ealing for 400 years — it’s all part of a programme funded by City Hall to introduce more wildlife to London’s woodland and rivers as the capital embraces rewilding.
Britain faces not only global climate change but also ecological crisis. Rewilding is an exciting opportunity to bring Londoners closer to nature while boosting our waterways and green spaces.
Beavers may also provide some welcome competition for the urban foxes rifling through our rubbish bins.
