Iran's bazaars are packed ahead of the Persian New Year next week, but there's little holiday cheer as customers survey the soaring prices of meat and holiday treats, wondering if they can afford either. Others are there to sell goods on the sidewalks to make ends meet.

Crippling Western sanctions, on top of decades of economic mismanagement, have plunged the country into a severe crisis. Iran's currency, the rial, recently dropped to a record low, essentially wiping out people's life savings and making even some basic goods unaffordable.

Central bank chief Riad Salameh, once lauded for reviving the economy, faces investigations into his personal wealth and is widely viewed as a key culprit in the country's dramatic economic crash.

Salameh, 72, one of the world's longest-serving central bank governors having held the post for three decades, was a previously untouchable figure in Lebanon.

The warning signs were all there. Silicon Valley Bank was expanding at a breakneck pace and pursuing wildly risky investments in the bond market. The vast majority of its deposits were uninsured by the federal government, leaving its customers exposed to a crisis.

None of this was a secret. Yet bank supervisors at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the state of California did nothing as the bank rolled over the cliff.

The European Union presented plans Thursday to fundamentally revamp its policies on dealing with critical raw materials, imposing limits on imports from countries like China while unleashing subsidies and other financial incentives to ramp up home production.

The plans by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, are essential in moving toward a climate neutral economy, while also increasing its strategic independence in a shifting world of geopolitical alliances.

The European Central Bank has carried through with a large interest rate increase Thursday, brushing aside predictions it might dial back as U.S. bank collapses and troubles at Credit Suisse fed fears about the impact of higher rates on the global banking system.

The ECB hiked rates by half a percentage point Thursday, underlining its determination to fight high inflation. In a post-meeting statement, the bank called the banking sector in the 20 countries using the euro currency "resilient," with strong finances.

Credit Suisse shares surged Thursday after the Swiss central bank agreed to loan the bank up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) to bolster confidence in the country's second-biggest lender and blunt concerns about the international financial system following the collapse of two U.S. banks.

Credit Suisse announced the agreement before the Swiss stock market opened, sending shares up as much as 33% before they settled at a 25% gain, to 2.13 francs, in midday trading. That was a massive turnaround from a day earlier, when news that the bank's biggest shareholder will not inject more money into Credit Suisse sent its shares tumbling 30%, dragging down other European banks.

Central bank chief Riad Salameh on Thursday attended a questioning session in the Justice Palace after failing Wednesday to show up before a European legal team visiting Beirut in a money-laundering probe linked to him.

Salameh later left the Justice Palace after a lengthy interrogation session that lasted several hours.

U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt is staging a moment of high political theater Wednesday, unveiling his budget to a crowd of baying lawmakers as consumers demand more help with the high cost of living and workers press for higher wages with strikes at schools, hospitals and the offices of civil servants.

Even as Hunt plays his historically scripted role — emerging from his official residence with the spending plan in a battered red dispatch box, then carrying it to the House of Commons where he was greeted by jeers and cheers — the truth is he will try to be as boring as possible.

The Federal Reserve is facing stinging criticism for missing what observers say were clear signs that Silicon Valley Bank was at high risk of collapsing into the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Critics point to many red flags surrounding the bank, including its rapid growth since the pandemic, its unusually high level of uninsured deposits and its many investments in long-term government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, which tumbled in value as interest rates rose.

After the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters started furiously working the phones to find out what was going on with the failed lender — and what would happen to its panicked depositors.

Waters, former chair of the House Financial Services Committee, had her doubts that another bank would step up as a savior and buy the defunct institution.