At least 25 dead as new blasts hit British buildings in Istanbul

USA TODAY ^ | 11/20/03 | AP

[kattracks]

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP)

[AppyPappy]

Turkey is eyeballing Syria in all this.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Explosions hit the Turkish headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank and the British consulate on Thursday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 390...

A man calling the semiofficial Anatolia news agency claimed that al-Qaeda and the militant Islamic Great Eastern Raiders' Front, or IBDA-C, jointly claimed responsibility for attacks.

Turkish authorities said the same groups were behind Saturday's nearly simultaneous synagogue bombings in Istanbul

~~~~~~~~~
A few serious lowlifes once again killing the innocent and being lifted up by the press.

[maica]

From their website:-
Headquartered in London, and with over 9,500 offices in 79 countries and territories, the HSBC Group is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations.

****

HSBC may be headquartered in London but they are a Chinese owned bank. I have been waiting with queasy fear to see where the Chinese became involved in the war on terrorism.

[bernie_g]

For what it's worth, the UK news sources are currently reporting this tragedy as a direct attack on UK interests, presumably timed to coincide with Mr Bush's visit here.

The targets being the British Consulate and a more-or-less British bank (The old Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank merged with the UK bank Midland a few years back to form HSBC.)

[Guillermo]

Let me be the first to say, this is all Bush's fault.

[prairiebreeze]

Criminey RC. 390 wounded?!

Britain ought to be solidly behind us now...,.

Prairie

[bernie_g]

Well, I'd think it was the fault of those who planted the bombs myself. Others will doubtless differ on this matter.

[scotsman1]

Actually,the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank was founded by a Scotsman,Thomas Sutherland,so it is not a Chinese-founded bank and I doubt that the people's republic actually has any legal control.

[scotsman1]

please see my reply to bernie g as regards the history of the hong kong bank.

[boxerblues]

Let me be the first to say, this is all Bush's fault.

The talking head on CNN has been saying this all morning long argggh

[scotsman1]

oops my reply should have been to maica,not bernie g.............

[maica]

We have come a long way from the Scotsman's founding of the Hong Kong Bank. I am talking global reality in 2003. The attached article is an old one from a quick google search. It seems that HSBC (where I banked when I lived in Canada) absorbed Midland Bank.

http://www.iht.com/IHT/PS/99/ps032099a.html

Government Stakes Muddle Picture for Asian Perennials

---

By Philip Segal    International Herald Tribune

---

...there are a handful of stocks that are large and widely held by any standard, the biggest of which is HSBC Holdings PLC with a market capitalization of 667.3 billion Hong Kong dollars ($86.11 billion) and 175,000 shareholders at the end of last year. Now trading at three times book value, it makes up a staggering 28 percent of the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Perhaps recognizing that the bank is getting too big for the Hong Kong market, HSBC said in February that even though its stock is already traded in London, it would be seeking a listing in New York as well. The stock is widely held, though the largest shareholder as of August was the government of Hong Kong, which bought 8.8 percent of shares in an unprecedented $15 billion operation to support the region's equity market.

......

HSBC controls Midland Bank in Great Britain, Marine Midland Bank in the United States and other banks in Latin America, Canada and the Middle East. If a pending deal closes in the next several months, the bank could acquire all the shares of Seoulbank of South Korea, a first for a foreign financial institution in that country.

.....


While HSBC is as much a core holding for British bank-stock portfolios as for Hong Kong investors, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. ''is the core holding,'' of any purely Hong Kong portfolio, said Otto Chan, head of sales at Salomon Smith Barney. Hutchison, with a market capitalization equal to $31.64 billion, represents the ports, telecommunications, energy and retailing empire of the tycoon Li Ka-shing. In the past year, it has outperformed the Hang Seng Index by 14.8 percent.

[El Conservador]

Headline reads: The Turkish September 11

[Semper Paratus]

Time to seal the Syrian borders in preparation for fumigation.

[Ashamed Canadian]

Time to seal the Syrian borders in preparation for fumigation

Time to level Damascus.

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[blackie]

A few serious lowlifes once again killing the innocent and being lifted up by the press ~ Bump!

[CWOJackson]

Oh, yes. Insulting the Turks is a good way to keep them uninvolved...

[PoisedWoman]

The nearby U.S. consulate was moved months ago to a new, more secure location in another district.

What did Bush know and when did he know it?