The scale of profits at HSBC, the UK’s largest bank, was certain to attract unwanted attention.
Earnings of £17billion look to be off the scale at a time when High Street banks rightly are in the dock over poor returns for savers, branch closures and rotten customer service.
All of that is true, but HSBC is much more complex than Britain’s other banks, with the possible exception of Barclays.
Britain is only a fraction of what it does. Nevertheless, there
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are strange bedfellows — sometimes close strategic partners, but sometimes bitter regional adversaries.
For now, the Turkish leader is casting himself as a middleman, as he visited the Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus waterfront last week to personally welcome Ukrainian and Russian negotiators gathering for peace talks.
In assuming this role, Erdoğan is treading a delicate tightrope. The relationship between Turkey and
