if you have joined if you havejoined us, you are welcome and we are looking at the top business stories. we start here in the uk, where there is some relief for millions of people facing soaring housing costs. lenders have started the new year by slashing the cost of mortgages as financial markets bet the bank of england will soon begin to cut interest rates from their 15 year high. from today banking giant hsbc becomes the first major lender to bring back mortgages below 4% since last march. it comes as rival halifax slashed almost a percentage point off some of its mortgage rates this week. and it s raised hopes of a price war between banks. hsbc is offering a five year fixed rate mortgage at 3.94%. it s only available to people remortgaging their home not to first time buyers. but it s far below rates of almost 6.5% that borrowers were facing just a few months ago. and it will be a welcome development for many uk households as our cost of living correspondent kevin peach
singapore, this is bbc news. it s newsday. hello and welcome to the programme. we start with a notable increase in military activity increase in military activity in the southern and eastern ukraine. the ukrainian armed forces say they ve launched several attacks, forces say they ve launched severalattacks, but forces say they ve launched several attacks, but the russians insist there attacks have been repelled. russian officials are claiming that their troops have succeeded in blocking attacks around donetsk, luhansk and zaporizhzhia. the ukrainian attack on donetsk was set to be on a significant scale, but the eastern city of bakhmut is described as the epicentre of hostilities, where ukraine s ground forces are set to be moving forward strongly against russian positions. in the moment, we will have the latest from moscow, but there is to keep, and our ukraine correspondent, james waterhouse. shhh. in a war of words, a call for quiet from kyiv. shhh. when it comes to its an
this is bbc news. it s newsday. hi there, thank you for being with us. we start with the notable increase in military activity, in southern and eastern ukraine. the ukrainian armed forces say they ve launched several attacks, but the russians insist those attacks have been repelled. russian officials are claiming that their troops have succeded in blocking attacks around donetsk, luhansk, and zaporizhzhia the ukrainian attack on donetsk was said to be on a significant scale. but the eastern city of bakhmut is described as the epicentre of hostilities , where ukraine s ground forces are said to be moving forward strongly against russian positions. in a moment, we ll have the latest from moscow but first to kyiv, and our ukraine correspondent james waterhouse. shh. in a war of words, a call for quiet from kyiv. when it comes to its anticipated counteroffensive, ukraine has certainly revelled in trying to confuse russia. this video came with the caption plans love silence
we begin with microsoft. the tech giant has just revealed its financial health and investors are satisfied for now as it showed some strength in the face of a weak global economy. its cloud business hit wall street targets for the end of 2022 and revenues rose 2% to just under $53 billion. but what is the outlook? microsoft last week announced it would be slashing 10,000 jobs worldwide in a bid to cut costs. it s also investing in a company behind chat gpt the chatbot that is predicted by some experts to be the future of search. let s discuss this withjeremy goldman director of briefings at insider intelligence. good at insider intelligence. morning to you. looking at what good morning to you. looking at what microsoft had to say, after its resolve without, shares went up 4% and fell back i% shares went up 4% and fell back 1% higher by the end of the day, your thoughts on how it s doing? day, your thoughts on how it s doinu ? , ., day, your thoughts on how it s doin.?