NY Post : Oh mama! Qatar bankrolled over a decade worth of films directed by Zoh

Oh mama! Qatar bankrolled over a decade worth of films directed by Zohran Mamdani’s mom

Hamas-backing Qatar has bankrolled film and stage projects by socialist Zohran Mamdani’s Israel-bashing movie-director mom — and one of its royals is now pushing her son’s mayoral bid, The Post has found.

Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, sister to the ruling emir, and the state-funded cultural institutions she controls, have supported Mira Nair and her creative projects since at least 2009, even extending a personal invitation to participate in the cultural program the country organized as part of the festivities around hosting the 2022 World Cup.

Since mid-June, Sheikha Al-Thani has taken to promoting Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy on social media, boosting news of favorable polling on Instagram and posting fire emojis under a TikTok video of him embracing Nair.

“They are buying somebody who is willing to be bought and at the time of their choosing they will ask for what they want,” warned Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, of Nair’s Qatar ties. “They need a rainbow coalition of people who will support the ideology they promote: sometimes it will be Islamism, sometimes it will be antisemitism, sometimes it will be anti-Israel.”

The Post found extensive ties between the Queens assemblyman’s mom and the Qatari elite, including:
  • In 2009 her film ‘Amelia’ opened the first-ever Doha Tribeca Film Festival in the Gulf regime’s capital.
  • From 2010 until 2014, the Doha Film Institute — founded by Sheikha Al-Thani — underwrote a “bootcamp” to train Qatari students in screenwriting and filmmaking at Nair’s Maisha Film Labs in East Africa and in Doha, according to both organizations’ websites.
  • The Doha Film Institute also paid the entire $15 million budget of Nair’s 2012 film “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” one of the first movies it produced. The flick, which had previously struggled to obtain financing, tells the story of a Pakistani immigrant who suffers mistreatment at the hands of U.S. authorities after 9/11, and opened the Doha Tribeca Film Festival that year.
  • Nair’s film “Nafas,” about historic Qatari pearl divers, was the first movie commissioned by the Qatar National Museum, which Sheikha Al-Thani chairs. It premiered at the museum’s 2019 opening, which Nair attended, and remains one of its flagship exhibits. Its budget has not been made public.
  • A company Nair set up in her native India did $102,000 in business in 2022 and 2023 with event management firm Agence Publics Qatar, which shares its chairman with the Qatar Engineering & Construction Co., a major player in Qatar’s piggy-bank oil and gas industry, according to LinkedIn and publicly-listed import records collected by private supply chain-monitoring firms.
  • The country’s most high-profile support for the auteur came in 2022, when state-owned Qatar Airways and Qatar Creates — another of the sheikha’s pet projects boosting the country as a cultural destination — produced an extravagant Nair-directed stage adaptation of her Golden Globe-nominated film “Monsoon Wedding” as part of the World Cup festivities.

Qatar’s sharia-inspired social policies, which bar women from marrying or holding government roles without a male guardian’s permission and which can punish homosexuality with torture or even death, are at odds with the progressive images Nair and Mamdani have cultivated.

The filmmaker has presented herself a voice for the “marginalized,” while her son has pledged to make New York an “LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city.”>


Thousands of migrant workers died building facilities for the World Cup in Qatar’s 125-degree temperatures amid conditions human rights activists described as “modern day slavery.”

But in an interview with the website Qatar Happening during the soccer tournament and the ‘Monsoon Wedding’ musical’s run, Nair had only praise for the regime and her royal patron.

“Her Highness Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani has loved the movie but also supported the inception of this musical over several years,” Nair said.

Nair has boycotted the Haifa International Film Festival over Israeli policies she says “privilege one religion over another.” But Qatar bans non-Muslims from practicing in public, and the State Department has warned the country is “pursuing a number of actions which will ultimately lead to the eradication” of its Bah’aii religious minority.

Despite these well-documented abuses, as recently as November 2024, Nair was photographed attending a high-profile exhibit opening at the Qatar National Museum. There is no record of her ever speaking out on the regime’s notoriously deplorable human rights record.

The filmmaker did not respond to repeated requests for comment, nor did the Qatari entities that have financed her work.


Critics have called Qatar “America’s ultimate ‘frenemy,’” as it provides support to anti-U.S. Islamist organizations while simultaneously hosting an American airbase. Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the nonprofit Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, called it “both arsonist and firefighter”: backing destabilizing organizations like Hamas and the Taliban, then offering itself as a mediator with the groups on behalf of the West.

Schanzer said it was concerning only “one degree of separation” could exist between the country’s ruling elite the mayor of America’s biggest city, given how the Qataris have used their country’s vast wealth to bribe ex-New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and figures in the European Parliament.

“The Qataris are hyperactive in terms of international diplomacy, international investment, and everything that they do is designed to spread their funds and spread their influence,” he warned.

There is no publicly available evidence of a direct relationship between Mamdani and the Qatari regime. The assemblyman maintained he had never traveled to Qatar, nor received direct financial assistance from the country’s institutions.

But his campaign declined to answer whether he had received such assistance from his mother, or whether he had had contact with the sheikha, and would not directly condemn the Al-Thani family’s rule—only attesting to “his belief in universal human rights and the freedom to advocate for justice everywhere.”

“The attempt to weaponize his mother’s career against him is an insult to voters who care about actual issues, not manufactured distractions,” said campaign spokeswoman Dora Pekec.

WSJ : Junk Bonds Are on a Tear This Summer

Junk Bonds Are on a Tear This Summer
Investors are piling back into funds that buy junk-rated corporate bonds and loans, despite elevated default rates

  • Companies with below-investment grade credit ratings are issuing bonds and loans, capitalizing on the appetite for risk.
  • Junk bond issuance hit a monthly record of $240 billion in July, and this month is expected to be the busiest August ever.
  • Junk-rated company defaults have been elevated, and could increase if tariffs fuel inflation or slow the economy.


So much for the dog days of summer. Companies with low credit ratings are feverishly issuing new bonds and loans to capitalize on the appetite for risk that is driving stocks to record highs.

Buying by individual and institutional investors is pushing up prices for junk debt and driving down yields to levels not seen since before President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. That is prompting companies to refinance existing debt and slash their interest expenses.

One possible danger: Defaults among junk-rated companies have been elevated. If tariffs fuel inflation or slow down the economy, analysts say more defaults are likely. That means investors could lose out on their bets and likely see prices of other high-yield bonds fall.

Chasing yields
Investors have been piling back into high-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds since May.

They are betting U.S. economic activity will strengthen if the Federal Reserve begins cutting interest rates as expected in September. But there are also signs tariffs are pressuring corporations.

Downgrades accounted for two-thirds of S&P Global Ratings’ credit-rating actions in the second quarter, up from about half in the first quarter.

The average yield of around 6.75% is still juicy enough to attract buyers. The premium for junk bonds—or the spread on yields compared with Treasurys—remains slightly above its recent low in January, suggesting the rally could continue.

A surge in new debt
Issuance of junk-rated bonds and loans hit a monthly record of $240 billion in July, according to data from JPMorgan Chase. This month is also expected to be the busiest August ever, with total issuance set to exceed $100 billion.

That brings the amount companies have raised from junk bonds and loans so far this year to $930 billion, just shy of the $1 trillion issued during the same period in 2024, despite the credit freeze this spring.

Most of the deals refinanced existing debt, but others went to less conservative uses. Aircraft parts maker TransDigm Group issued a $9 billion bond in August to fund a dividend to shareholders.

“If the markets stay in the condition they are, they will remain busy through the rest of the year,” said Trip Morris, co-head of leveraged finance at Wells Fargo.

Private credit powers on
Funds that make private loans to riskier corporations have been booming in part because they pay even higher yields than their public counterparts.

The money managed by business development companies, which make private loans to small and midsize companies, jumped by about 33% over the 12 months ending in June, according to data from LSEG’s loan data unit.

The performance of the funds’ portfolio companies has been generally stable, according to Morgan Stanley research. But smaller borrowers have been pressured by tariffs and weakening consumer spending, pushing the ratio of delinquent loans held by BDCs to 2.9% at the end of June. That’s up from 2.7% in March and about 2.25% in December.

Higher for longer
Signs of trouble are also emerging in public high-yield bonds and loans, where the default rate has remained above the 30-year average since July 2023. That is a longer stretch than any of the previous three default cycles, including the subprime credit crisis, according to data from S&P Global Ratings.

The period of elevated defaults has the potential to drag if the risk of runaway inflation prevents the Fed from sharply cutting interest rates. If interest rates remain elevated, larger junk-rated companies could start to buckle under their debt loads.

The current default rate of 4.7% is still well below the 12% peak hit in 2009.

WSJ : China Has a Different Vision for AI. It Might Be Smarter.

China Has a Different Vision for AI. It Might Be Smarter.
With growing fears of an AI bubble, Beijing is charting a pragmatic alternative to Silicon Valley’s pursuit of artificial superintelligence

The U.S. is spending billions to win the race to artificial general intelligence, while China focuses on practical, low-cost AI applications.
China is integrating AI into many sectors, such as agriculture and medicine, and is embracing open-source models to boost its AI industry.
U.S. trade restrictions have made it difficult for China to compete in advanced AI models.

The U.S. is spending billions of dollars and burning gigawatts of energy in a rush to beat China to the next evolutionary leap in artificial intelligence—one so great, some boosters say, that it will rival the atomic bomb in its power to change the global order.

China is running a different race.

Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT nearly three years ago, Silicon Valley has spent mountains of money in pursuit of AI’s holy grail: artificial general intelligence that matches or beats human thinking. Enthusiasts say it will give the U.S. insurmountable military advantages, help cure cancer and solve climate change, and eliminate the need for people to perform routine work such as accounting and customer service.

In China, by contrast, leader Xi Jinping has recently had little to say about AGI. Instead, he is pushing the country’s tech industry to be “strongly oriented toward applications”—building practical, low-cost tools that boost China’s efficiency and can be marketed easily.

The diverging visions represent a head-to-head bet with significant stakes. If China’s gamble turns out to be wrong, it could find itself lagging far behind the U.S. in the most consequential technology of the 21st century.

But if AGI remains a distant dream, as more people in Silicon Valley now believe, China will be in position to steal a march on its global rival in wringing the most out of AI in its current form, and spread its applications worldwide.

Already in China, domestic AI models similar to the one that powers ChatGPT are being used, with state approval, to grade high-school entrance exams, improve weather forecasts, dispatch police and advise farmers on crop rotation, say state media and government reports.

Tsinghua University, China’s equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is rolling out an AI-powered hospital, where human doctors will be assisted by virtual colleagues armed with the latest data on diseases. Intelligent robots are being deployed to run automotive “dark factories” and inspect textiles for flaws while still on the loom.

“They see highly impactful AI applications not as something to theorize about in the future but as something to take advantage of here and now,” said Julian Gewirtz, a former National Security Council official who specialized in tech competition with China during the Biden administration.

U.S. tech companies are developing plenty of practical applications using current AI, of course. Google has wired its latest Pixel smartphones to do real-time translation, while U.S. consulting companies are using AI agents to build PowerPoint decks and sum up interviews for clients. Others are using it to improve drug discovery and food delivery.

But unlike the U.S., which largely leaves the industry to its own devices, Beijing is putting the full muscle of the state behind its vision. In January, the central government unveiled an $8.4 billion AI investment fund focused on supporting startups. Local governments and state banks have since rolled out their own funding programs, while cities have published AI development plans as part of a campaign dubbed “AI+.”

On Tuesday, China’s cabinet spelled out broader ambitions for the campaign, calling for an even stronger push to integrate AI into science and tech research, industrial development and other areas to “comprehensively empower” China’s economic development by 2030.

China is also more actively embracing open-source models that are free for users to download and modify, making it cheaper and easier for Chinese companies to build businesses around the technology. That approach is helping Chinese AI spread globally, a trend that has shaken Silicon Valley into following suit.

AGI dreams
That emphasis is somewhat different from the ambitions of many of the U.S.’s biggest tech players, who believe that machines that can outthink humans will revolutionize science, open up entirely new fields of inquiry and transform the American military.

Some in the tech industry have predicted that artificial superintelligence could arrive as soon as 2027. Companies such as Meta, Google and OpenAI are spending lavishly in a competition to acquire the talent, data centers and energy they need to be first.

A congressional commission focused on competition with China has floated a “Manhattan Project” for AGI to ensure the U.S. wins the race.

But OpenAI’s highly anticipated release in August of GPT-5, a model the company had initially touted as a major steppingstone on the path to AGI, left many users underwhelmed. OpenAI’s Sam Altman acknowledged the bumpy rollout and has since tried to tap the brakes on AGI hype and warned about the possibility of an AI investment bubble.

Other Silicon Valley titans have also started to waver, opening the door to the idea that China’s approach might make more sense.

“It is uncertain how soon artificial general intelligence can be achieved,” former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and technology analyst Selina Xu wrote in a recent opinion column for the New York Times.

“In being solely fixated on this objective, our nation risks falling behind China, which is far less concerned with creating A.I. powerful enough to surpass humans and much more focused on using the technology we have now.”

Pragmatic approach
The Chinese government’s enthusiasm for more-practical uses of AI is visible in Xiong’an, Xi’s built-from-scratch dream city two hours south of Beijing.

In February, the city announced the release of an agricultural AI model, using technology from the Chinese startup DeepSeek, which gives local farmers guidance on crop selection, planting and pest control, according to a local government report. The city’s meteorological service is using DeepSeek to improve the accuracy of weather reports. DeepSeek is also helping local police analyze case reports and decide how to respond to emergencies.

Xiong’an’s branch of 12345, a government question hotline that fields hundreds of thousands of calls a day nationwide, is using DeepSeek to sort and route inquiries.

A major portion of government investment is going to build data centers. But unlike the sprawling facilities being built in the U.S. to train cutting-edge models, the Chinese versions tend to be smaller.

To a large extent, Beijing has no choice but to break a different trail on AI. U.S. trade restrictions, particularly on high-end semiconductors, have made it difficult for Chinese AI companies to compete head-to-head with American giants in scaling up the training of the most advanced models.

The choice makes even more sense given growing uncertainty about the return on investment of chasing scale, said Jeffrey Ding, a professor at George Washington University and author of ChinAI, a newsletter focused on Chinese AI.

“You let the technology leader, the U.S. in this case, eat the cost of exploration, and then you try to be the fast follower or be the one who optimizes for implementation,” he said.

To be sure, some Chinese companies, including DeepSeek and Alibaba, have said they would pursue AGI. And some analysts have speculated that China could be trying to keep a lid on some of its AGI ambitions.

It is possible, even likely, that Xi will decide at some point to more aggressively pursue AGI, said Kendra Schaefer, head of tech-policy research at Trivium China, a Beijing-based consulting firm. But he will do so cautiously with plenty of safeguards, she said, given the potential risk that thinking machines could pose to Communist Party stability.

“It is one of the most risk-averse governments on the planet,” she said.

As with the internet, which had to weather the dot-com crash and years of development before being able to rewire the global economy, it could take decades to determine winners and losers in AI, according to George Washington University’s Ding.

The U.S. has important advantages over China in harnessing new technologies, he said, including a broad education system beyond elite universities that can spread technical knowledge widely.

If it is careful to maintain that edge, Ding said, the U.S. has a good chance at eventually beating China at its own race.

FT : Rise of AI shopping ‘agents’ set to transform ecommerce

Rise of AI shopping ‘agents’ set to transform ecommerce
OpenAI, Perplexity and Google create AI-powered features, leading brands to rethink how they sell products online

The world’s leading artificial intelligence companies are betting that shopping will become a major application of AI “agents”, in a shift that is set to transform the multibillion-dollar ecommerce sector.

OpenAI, Perplexity, Google, and Microsoft have in recent months introduced AI-powered features that allow users to search for products through chatbots, with autonomous agents able to complete orders on behalf of consumers.

The rise of AI-powered agents has prompted sellers and brands to rethink how they sell products online, in particular how their products are spotted by AI systems and recommended by chatbots.

Advertisers are employing techniques — such as creating longer URLs with keywords or securing a mention on websites considered to be more authoritative by bots — to appear more prominently in AI-generated results.

Start-ups, including Profound, fashion-focused Refine and Algolia, have also emerged, offering the ability to monitor brand presence in AI chatbot responses.

Profound co-founder James Cadwallader said consumer behaviour is reaching an “inflection point” where people may no longer visit ecommerce sites.

“AI [agents and chatbots] steal or hijack that consumer from the brand,” he said. “Eventually, the consumer will only interact with the ‘answer engine’, and agents will become the primary visitors for websites and the internet.”

At the same time, AI services are being increasingly used as a search tool. Almost 60 per cent of European Google searches no longer result in a click, according to data from search engine marketers Semrush. Instead users rely on the AI-generated text “overview” that helps to answer their query.

Analysts at Gartner anticipate that traditional search engine volume will fall 25 per cent by next year, owing to the rise of generative AI chatbots and agents.

AI companies are launching ecommerce services to utilise these developments. OpenAI released an updated version of its Operator shopping system, renamed Agent, which can complete tasks within a web browser, highlighting shopping as one of its core use cases.

For example, when a user asked the system to purchase ingredients for a roast dinner with a dessert, the system navigated to a supermarket website, added the necessary items to the shopping cart and then handed control back to the user to complete the purchase.

OpenAI also plans to take a cut from online product sales made directly through ChatGPT by introducing an integrated checkout feature that will allow users to complete transactions without leaving its platform.

Perplexity recently launched its Comet agentic browser, which completes tasks across different apps on the desktop, such as calendars, websites and emails.

Microsoft’s “Action” feature can also browse the web for shopping requests. Google’s new “AI mode” brings up different product options and the company recently released an AI product tracker, which alerts consumers when the price of a desired item has dropped to a certain level.

“Shopping has to be a deeply personalised experience that resonates with users,” said Lilian Rincon, vice-president of product for Google Shopping. She added that Google’s latest features are designed to save consumers “time and effort”, preventing them from “having 20 tabs open, trying to research different products, and it being complex and painful.”

AI chatbots or agentic systems primarily select products for inclusion in their results by picking one of the top results in traditional search engines. Google, however, uses a combination of advertising and search results, alongside personal data already stored on users, to provide more tailored recommendations.

This means brands can sometimes target them through so-called search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques. However, marketers are adopting new methods to improve the likelihood of brands appearing in AI-generated results.

Nikhil Lai, an analyst at Forrester, said this requires a focus on specificity in product descriptions and improving technical details, such as ensuring a brand’s website loads within three minutes, which has become increasingly important as bots prioritise sites that load quickly.


Hannah Chelkowski, co-founder of Blank Ventures, a Refine investor, said retailers are seeing a rise of “semantic search” in AI chatbots, where users will look online in broader terms, for example, clothes for “a wedding in the south of France” instead of specific fashion items. This means product catalogues need to be “reorganised” to include text descriptions that match this style of searching.

Recent research from the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria suggests that chatbots are exposed to and can be influenced by advertising on traditional websites, with a preference for text over images. This means that simpler forms of clear-text advertising may be better for brands seeking to appear within chatbot results.

Beyond influencing recommendations, Dimi Albers, chief executive at media agency Dept, said brands need to prepare for a world where transactions occur on chatbots, rather than their own websites.

“It will be very complex for most brands to move fast enough, not only to be visible, but also to understand that where you sell your goods is not going to be either on your platform, Amazon or retail, but in all the models that are popping up,” he added. “The agents are talking to each other instead of people necessarily doing some of those transactions.”

However, Inrupt, a start-up co-founded by World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee and John Bruce, aims to give control of personal data back to consumers, storing such information in a digital wallet that the individual can choose to grant access to agents and later remove.

Bruce cautioned that AI agents mark a move to a world where “shops and brands no longer count” and consumer choice could be limited as the system selects products for them, rather than showing all of the options.

“[Consumers] trade utility for privacy, freedom of operation and choice . . . Surrender a pair of shoes today and who knows what you are going to give up tomorrow?”

FT : Bitcoin boom sees newly wealthy splurging on luxury travel

Bitcoin boom sees newly wealthy splurging on luxury travel
High end private jet and cruise companies accepting payment in cryptocurrency to tap into growth market

A growing number of private jet and ultra-luxury cruise operators are taking cryptocurrency payments amid booming demand from travellers made rich by soaring bitcoin prices.

“Tremendous” demand from young, wealthy customers has prompted Flexjet-owned FXAIR to accept crypto payments, Flexjet chair Kenn Ricci told the Financial Times.

FXAIR charges about $80,000 for a trip from Farnborough airport, near London, to New York City.

Ricci said Flexjet has had a “significant” rise in bookings in recent months from “young entrepreneurs in the bitcoin space [who] fly farther and want larger planes. We save them time . . . And time is the most precious luxury.”

Bitcoin hit a record high of $124,000 in recent weeks, boosted by US President Donald Trump’s support for the sector and vow to make America the world’s “crypto capital”.

Congress also passed landmark legislation, while Trump has appointed crypto-friendly regulators and backed several digital asset businesses.


As well as token prices, shares in companies such as exchange Coinbase and stablecoin operator Circle have reached record highs.

“Those who are seeing the value of their bitcoin grow rapidly are spending it on private jets or luxury hotels or luxury cruises,” said Paul Charles, chief executive of luxury travel consultancy PC Agency.

“There is a younger generation that’s grown up that is desperate to travel, to not be stuck with the humdrum and the usual.”

Luxury cruise company Virgin Voyages’ $120,000 annual pass can now be bought with crypto payments.

Meanwhile SeaDream Yacht Club, which operates two super-luxury yachts with a crew-to-guest ratio of almost 1:1, started accepting bitcoin payments shortly after Trump began his second term.

For some of the newly wealthy, luxury “is not about butlers with white gloves and golden mirrors, it is about freedom of choice”, said one person close to the yacht company. “If you want to pay in crypto we want to let you do that.”

Boutique hotel groups including US-based The Kessler Collection and Hong Kong-founded The Pavilions Hotels and Resorts also accept tokens including dogecoin, litecoin and ethereum.

Deep-pocketed young entrepreneurs have sparked a boom in the global luxury travel market.

People aged 30 to 40 spent $28bn on luxury travel in 2023, and are projected to spend $54bn in 2028, according to a McKinsey analysis.

Nick Fazioli, head of commercial aerospace and aviation at investment bank Jefferies, said the “younger crowds” do not want to “sip champagne and eat caviar”.

Bitcoin and tech entrepreneurs have “infinite resources, infinite money, infinite kinds of ambitions”. “The most important thing that is in short supply for them is time,” he said.

Private jets mean travellers “can be in three cities in one day and still come back to see your family at night”, Fazioli said. “Once you’ve got used to private travel it’s really hard to go back.”

FT : UK biotech to trial cancer treatment based on ‘super donor’ immune cells

UK biotech to trial cancer treatment based on ‘super donor’ immune cells
Lift BioSciences hopes to use cells from people with unusually strong immune system

What if one answer to treating cancer was not a blockbuster drug but a way of boosting the immune system to kill tumours and stop them from spreading?

A UK-based bioscience company will test that novel approach in clinical trials set to begin in Ireland next year, saying it offers hope to patients for whom other therapies have failed.

Lift BioSciences, whose chair Antonin de Fougerolles helped develop the mRNA technology Moderna used in its Covid-19 vaccines, believes it could have its treatment on the market by the end of the decade.

In the past decade, cancer treatment has been transformed by therapies that harness the immune system to fight tumours. These include checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T therapy, which rely on healthy white blood cells called neutrophils to detect and kill cancerous cells that have escaped the rest of the immune system, said Alex Blyth, Lift BioSciences chief executive.

Lift’s approach would intravenously transplant healthy neutrophils, cultured in a lab from stem cells from “super donors” who have the best potential immune responses. Lift said it had a pool of about 500,000 people with no family history of cancer, whose neutrophils were exceptionally good at tackling cancer, and that it could grow such cells “like baker’s yeast”.

“We are giving cancer patients Usain Bolt immunity to fight off these cancers and become responsive again to cancer therapies,” Blyth told the Financial Times.

Lift’s approach focuses on the “innate” immune system — defences such as neutrophils that everyone is born with. Either alone or together with drugs that target the “adaptive” immune system — which develops over time through exposure to pathogens — “we can cure cancer in more patients”, Blyth predicted.

Checkpoint inhibitors, such as ​​Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda and AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi, prevent cancer cells from disabling the immune response to tumours. Blyth believes Lift’s Immuno-Modulatory Alpha Neutrophils (IMAN) therapy could work in cases that do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors.

IMAN therapy could also replace or complement chemotherapy, or be used preventively, Blyth said, adding that he expected it to be safe and well tolerated because transfusions of granulocytes — a class of white blood cells that include neutrophils — are already used in some leukaemia patients and others vulnerable to infection.

Lift plans to begin human clinical trials in patients with advanced cervical, head and neck cancers in Galway next year — but to do that, it must secure another £22.5mn. Blyth said the company was targeting venture funds and family offices.

The therapy could cost about £10,000 per patient to produce, but would retail at about £100,000 per patient, similar to checkpoint inhibitors, he said.

The company chose Ireland for the trial because it offers high-level support: in July it won a €12mn government grant to fund a partnership with the University of Galway and Hooke Bio, an Irish medical R&D tools company.

Blyth sold his house and medical consultancy to found his business after his mother died from pancreatic cancer. Lift has already raised £10mn in a Series A funding round.

He predicts initial results from clinical trials in 2027 and “you could look at something being made available to patients by 2030-31”.

He said he owned the patents and had no direct competitors but “the biggest delay risk is the anti-biotech investing environment”, adding that since Covid, biotech was “no longer on trend”.

“We can produce this on an infinite off-the-shelf scale,” Blyth said. “Cell therapy is the future and we will show that.”

FT : Shipping companies seek non-Chinese finance to dodge steep US port fees

Shipping companies seek non-Chinese finance to dodge steep US port fees
Operators are seeking alternatives to avoid potential multimillion-dollar charges for American visits

Shipping companies with a widespread form of Chinese financing are rushing to find different funding sources to avoid potential multimillion-dollar fees for US port visits when new Trump administration rules come into force in October.

Operators are seeking alternatives to the “sale and leaseback” deals that make up a high proportion of the $100bn in outstanding financing from Chinese institutions for shipping companies worldwide.

Shipping companies are concerned the arrangements could mean that ships with no other Chinese connection will count as Chinese-owned under new US rules due to be introduced on October 14.

Under draft rules, the fee for most Chinese-owned ships would be $50 per net ton, rising to $140 per net ton over two years from April.

The fees mean that even a modest container ship of about 20,000 net tons is likely to pay about $1mn per port visit, rising to about $2.8mn. For a Very Large Crude Carrier of about 100,000 net tons, the initial cost per visit would be $5mn, rising to about $14mn.

James Lightbourn, founder of New York-based ship financing company Cavalier Shipping, said the fees — set out in the not yet finalised rules — were causing a “major shift” in the ship finance market.

He added that some Chinese leasing structures had become “problematic” for shipowners who would otherwise not be subject to the new fees. “We’ve seen some shipowners decide to refinance Chinese lease financing prior to their scheduled maturity,” Lightbourn said.

An executive at one shipping company said the business had ended a number of Chinese-linked leases. “We think that there’s a clear risk with the leases of being considered Chinese-owned,” the executive said.

The ownership charge is separate from a proposed $18-per-net-ton fee for vessels built in Chinese shipyards. That fee will rise to $33 per net ton. Operators eligible for both charges will pay only the ownership fee.

Chinese institutions started to finance a large number of ship purchases about a decade ago when many European and US banks were repairing their finances following the 2008 financial crisis.

Lightbourn estimated that China’s $100bn in outstanding financing arrangements accounted for just over 15 per cent of the sector’s worldwide $600bn total.

Industry figures suggested some of the world’s largest ship operators, including container shipping lines and energy majors, were seeking to exit China-linked leases.

Earlier this year, Greek group Okeanis Eco Tankers, which is listed in New York, announced deals to replace Chinese sale and leaseback deals on three VLCCs with $195mn in lending from non-Chinese banks.

Finance director Iraklis Sbarounis said at the time that this would improve the company’s capital structure while making it more resilient to “geopolitical and other risks and costs”.

Another ship financier, Dimitri Vassilacos, a partner at Ship Finance Solutions, said some of his company’s clients had been seeking refinancing to exit Chinese leasing deals.

However, he stressed that the reasons for this were often complex. Among other factors he cited were improved industry profitability — which allowed operators to obtain better financing terms — and the increased willingness of traditional financiers such as European banks to lend.

>>> Barron’s Weekend Summary

Cover:
-Deregulation has transformed firms like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America into behemoths, while financial entrepreneurs have created companies like Blackstone, Bridgewater Associates, and Andreessen Horowitz. However, a new wave of digital-first powerhouses, driven by the explosive growth of technology in finance, is emerging. This trend is driven by the growth of technology in finance, leading to companies like Interactive Brokers Group, Susquehanna International, Jane Street, and Citadel, a burgeoning Wall Street empire controlled by billionaire Ken Griffin. Citadel consists of Citadel LLC, a $68B hedge fund operation, and Citadel Securities, a market maker that facilitates and engages in stock, derivatives, and bonds trading.
Interview:
-Stephen Miran, currently chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, is set to be the nominee for a temporary open seat on the Federal Reserve's board of governors. The administration wants the Senate to vote on his candidacy before the Fed's next policy committee meeting on Sept. 16-17. Trump is also considering Miran for the longer-term seat held by Governor Lisa Cook, who Trump fired.
Miran discusses Trump's recent decision to convert loans and grants to Intel into a 10% equity stake, which some White House economists described as a "down payment on a sovereign-wealth fund." Debate continues over Trump's other high-profile interventions in the economy, including tariffs and firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Miran, a Harvard-trained economist, has been at the center of this debate since his Senate confirmation in March.
Tech Trader:
-Nvidia has reported a 56% increase in revenue for the July second fiscal quarter to $46.7B, ahead of expectations. The company's revenue forecast range for the current quarter ending in October was above analysts' consensus of $53.4B. However, Nvidia shares initially fell modestly after the results, possibly due to profit-taking after the stock rose about 35% over the previous three months. Uncertainty over its business in China may have been another factor. China remains Nvidia's biggest problem, as analysts had hoped for a quick rebound in sales of its China-specific H20 graphics processing unit (GPU). Nvidia has not assumed any H20 shipments to China in its guidance for the current quarter.
The Trader:
-Salesforce has experienced a significant drop in shares, dropping over 25% this year and making it the second-biggest laggard in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, some fund managers and Wall Street analysts believe that the worst may be over for the customer relationship management services leader. Concerns about artificial intelligence affecting revenue streams and profit margins for corporate software companies have hit the entire software sector, with Salesforce facing an undeniable threat from AI. Salesforce is currently trading at 22 times earnings estimates for this year, a 10-year low and well under its average forward price/earnings ratio of 54.
-The Russell 2000 has seen a 7.5% increase in August, more than double the return on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and nearly triple that of the S&P 500. This rally in small-company stocks was triggered by Fed Chair Jerome Powell's dovish speech, and the talk is now about how small can outperform large for the foreseeable future. The odds of a September interest-rate cut have increased, and lower rates could support the US economy, benefiting smaller companies with higher levels of floating-rate debt. Fiscal stimulus from the White House and Congress should also help.
Features:
-Kyivstar Group, Ukraine's largest mobile and broadband operator, has boosted its NASDAQ opening bell after a delegation of business elites from the war-torn country visited New York to raise interest on Wall Street. Western investors believe that Ukrainian assets are undervalued, and the stock has risen 0.3% since the SPAC merger. Kyivstar's shares soared 32% in their first two trading sessions earlier this month, possibly due to investors' hopes for peace talks. However, the stock's overall performance has flattened since then.
-Financial markets are expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates several times over the next few months, potentially leading to disappointment for investors. The Federal Reserve is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate at its Sept. 16-17 meeting, and recent data indicates slow economic growth. The federal-funds futures market is pricing in a 90% probability of a September cut, which has led to the S&P 500 reaching new highs this year. However, markets also anticipate more rate cuts beyond September, potentially leading to a stock market dip. Futures pricing also reflects an 86% probability of a second cut by December. Historical data shows that fed-funds futures often overestimate interest rate movements in either direction. The actual fed-funds rate today is at a target range of 4.25% to 4.5%.
Europe:
-Denmark has reduced its annual growth outlook to 1.4%, down from 3%, and blamed the slowdown on sweeping US tariffs. The Danish krone slid 0.1% against the dollar, and Copenhagen's flagship OMX stock-market index dropped 0.9%. The ministry blamed the slowdown on the bursting of the obesity-drug bubble, which has dragged down Denmark's exports to countries like the US, which in turn has weighed on growth. Novo Nordisk, the company behind the guidance cut, has not immediately responded to a request for comment from Barron's. Demand for Novo's flagship products Wegovy and Ozempic has faltered this year, dragged down Denmark's exports to countries like the US, which in turn has weighed on growth.
Emerging Markets:
-No update
Commodities:
-Mexico has vast potential petroleum resources to replace the dwindling elephant fields it struck last century. These resources are either in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico or in a belt of shale reserves south from the US border. Exploiting either will require capital and expertise from private oil giants outside Mexico. Mexico's previous president, Enrique Peña Nieto, opened the door to collaboration in 2013-14, with promising results. However, President Lopez Obrador shut it down in 2018, citing a perverse energy reform approved for looting and theft. He also reined in Pemex's exploration in deep water and shale. Sheinbaum suggests a more moderate tack, floating "mixed public-private contracts," but this would be insufficient to attract big market participants. Additionally, Lopez Obrador's "judicial reform" further damaged Mexico's attractiveness for investment, as it allows for the replacement of all the country's judges by 2027.
Streetwise:
-No update

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FINANCIAL TIMES
-Ukrainian nationalist politician Andriy Parubiy was assassinated in Lviv, marking the most significant killing in a string of high-profile murders since the war with Russia began. Parubiy, 54, played a key role in the pro-western 2014 Euromaidan revolution. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the killing as a "terrible murder" and authorities mobilized all necessary forces to find the killer. A manhunt has been launched.-Jay Powell has suggested a Federal Reserve rate cut in September due to a softening US labor market, which could offset risks of Donald Trump's tariffs worsening inflation. Powell's remarks put him in the camp of doves on the Federal Open Market Committee and signaled he could support a quarter-point cut at the central bank's next meeting in September. US government debt rallied after his speech, with the yield on the two-year Treasury note dropping 0.1 percentage points to 3.69%. The speech comes amid a pivotal time for the Fed, as the US president and his allies have launched a campaign against Powell and other top Fed officials, insisting the central bank should drastically cut rates. The Fed has held its main rate at a 4.25-4.5% range this year, following 1 percentage point of cuts in 2024, as some officials worry Trump's tariffs on US trading partners will ignite a fresh surge in inflation.
-The Trump administration is threatening to fire Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Powell, and other top Fed officials to curb central banking independence, which has underpinned America's economic foundations for over half a century. This comes amid a White House putsch at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has shaken confidence in the sanctity of economic data. The meetings in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, have become synonymous with central bankers' power and prestige, but economists are aware that the ascendancy of technocrats is in danger of being thrown dramatically into reverse. Glenn Hubbard, a chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, cites the broad discontent among Americans with experts and fears that if they don't pick up the thread, the populist frenzy will only get worse. Powell stated that he and his colleagues would make their decisions "solely" on the basis of economic evidence, as he teed up the possibility of further interest rate cuts.
-US President Donald Trump's administration is planning to take a 10% stake in struggling chipmaker Intel, as part of a corporate intervention to strengthen America's semiconductor industry. The US government will make an $8.9B equity investment, funded by federal grants under the 2022 Chips Act. This will give Washington a roughly 9.9% stake in the group. The deal is part of Trump's move towards a more interventionist approach to corporate America, edging closer to 1960s European state capitalism than US free-market orthodoxy. The US will also receive a five-year warrant, allowing it to purchase an additional 5% of the group at $20 a share, provided Intel divests majority ownership of its foundry business.
-Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has faced backlash and disappointment within its Middle Eastern business after revelations that the firm helped set up an Israeli-backed aid scheme for Gaza and modeled plans to relocate Palestinians from the enclave. The revelations have widened fissures within the firm, which has been triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack and Israel's military campaign in Gaza. A US BCG team worked for seven months to establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an aid distribution scheme condemned by humanitarian groups. The team also produced a financial model of postwar Gaza for Israeli businessmen backing GHF, including the economic impact of incentives for Palestinians to relocate abroad.
-Revolution Wind, a US offshore wind project developed by Orsted and Skyborn Renewables, is 80% complete, with foundations and 45 of 65 planned turbines installed. The project, which was set to start operations next year, was due to supply power for 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut under 20-year contracts. The Trump administration intervened in the project for the second time, after paused Equinor's Empire Wind project. Ørsted has obtained necessary permits and is evaluating its options, including legal action. The potential delay or loss of revenues puts pressure on the company, which launched a $9.4B emergency rights issue.
-The Congressional Budget Office has reported that Donald Trump's tariff drive will reduce US deficits by $4T over the next decade, addressing concerns that the president's tax bill will worsen public finances. The tariffs announced so far this year will reduce primary deficits by $3.3T over the period to 2035, while interest payments will fall by an additional $700B. The overall effect of the levies on debt levels is about a third higher than the $3T estimated by the CBO based on measures announced between January and mid-May. The impact of tariff revenue is expected to dull the fiscal hit from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is projected to increase debt levels by $4.1T over the period.
-Canada has lifted billions of dollars' worth of retaliatory tariffs on US goods to reduce economic tensions with the US. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Ottawa would remove the 25% tariff it has imposed on many US goods since March, but reciprocal steel and aluminum duties would remain in place. The measures will come into effect on September 1, marking the latest episode in a months-long trade battle between the US and Canada, which was strained in March when Trump imposed duties as steep as 25% on Canadian exports.
-California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken his criticism of US President Donald Trump to a new level by using his all-caps, idiosyncratic style to troll him on social media. Newsom's aggressive campaign, including posts declaring "DONALD IS FINISHED — HE IS NO LONGER 'HOT'" and artificially-generated images of himself carrying an American flag, is generating buzz and drawing critical commentary from Fox News presenters and conservatives. This aggressive campaign is energizing some Democrats concerned about the party's failure to mount an effective pushback against Trump. Veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum believes Newsom's approach is born out of frustration with the president and a determination to find new ways to fight back.
-Meta, a social media company, is set to license technology from artificial intelligence start-up Midjourney to improve its products and services. The move follows Meta's shift towards third-party collaborations to stay competitive. The technology will be used in the development of multimedia AI generation features for its apps, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects AI-generated content to become more prominent on the platform. The collaboration will involve world-class talent and collaboration with industry leaders.
-China has refused to disclose details of its plans for a "mega" embassy in London after the UK demanded more information about greyed-out areas in its drawings. The Chinese government argued that the request was not appropriate and that the level of detail provided was sufficient for understanding what was permitted. The Chinese government also opposed a request for a wall around a paved area in front of the building to ensure safe access. The UK's deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, has demanded unredacted drawings or a comprehensive identification of withheld parts.
-The FBI has conducted a raid on John Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland, following his criticism of Donald Trump. Bolton, who served as Trump's national security adviser during his first term, has become a vocal critic of the US president. The search was related to "classified documents" and the FBI had a "broad concern" about Bolton. Vice-president JD Vance stated that the raid was related to "classified documents." Trump, who had previously expressed his disapproval of Bolton, said he did not know about the raid. The raid follows Trump's repeated vows during his 2024 campaign to seek retribution against his political opponents. The relationship between Trump and Bolton, who served as US ambassador to the UN under George W Bush, fell out after Bolton left his post in September 2019. Trump has also been criticizing Bolton for criticizing Trump's approach to brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

NEW YORK TIMES
-Corporate America has developed defenses against corporate raiders like Carl Icahn and Nelson Peltz, but now faces a new investor: the US president. President Trump has inserted the government into US companies, taking stakes in US Steel and pushing for a cut of Nvidia's and Advanced Micro Devices' revenue from China. The Pentagon has also taken a 15% stake in MP Materials and Intel agreed to allow the US government to take a 10% stake in its business, worth $8.9 billion.
-Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet with Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office. Vance warned Zelensky to "behave" and not to say anything, which the Ukrainian leader chuckled at. This is not the first time Vance has addressed Zelensky during a diplomatic summit. In February, Vance criticized Zelensky for disrespecting the US and not thanking Ukraine for military assistance. The jovial tone of the meeting highlights the importance of Zelensky's actions in influencing Trump's approval.
-California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed two redistricting bills, a response to the Republican-led map passed by Texas at the request of President Trump. The move will put California in a national campaign as Democrats and Republicans vie for control of the House of Representatives. Newsom, a potential presidential candidate, will be at the forefront of a partisan fight against President Trump. He emphasized neutralizing the situation in Texas and giving the American people a fair chance.
-A federal judge has ordered the removal of immigrant detainees from a Florida Everglades facility, Alligator Alcatraz, and the dismantling of much of the facility. The ruling rebuked the state and federal governments for not considering environmental harms before building the facility. The judge gave both branches 60 days to move out detainees and remove fencing, lighting, and power generators. The decision is a major legal setback for the facility, the nation's first state-run facility for federal immigration detainees, which has faced numerous lawsuits and complaints.
-Lisa Cook, a former Federal Reserve chair, has consistently voted with Jerome H. Powell, the chair, on interest rate cuts last year and this year. However, she is often viewed as a "dove" by some observers. In a November speech, Cook suggested that the Fed should continue to lower interest rates, but the pace of cuts would depend on economic data. In June, she warned that high inflation after the pandemic could make firms more willing to raise prices and consumers more likely to expect high inflation to persist. Cook, a daughter of a hospital chaplain and nursing professor, grew up in Georgia and earned an undergraduate degree from Spelman College and another at Oxford University.
-President Trump has been aggressively expanding his power since taking office, asserting the right to override spending decisions by Congress, dismiss leaders of independent agencies, and push through legal and constitutional barriers on issues like immigration and birthright citizenship. He has also used the government to pursue his campaign of retribution against political and personal foes, instigating criminal investigations, demanding large payments, revoking security clearances, and dismissing federal employees. However, when Trump called for the resignation of a Federal Reserve governor, it marked the merging of these two defining features of his second term. The move came after Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, found that Cook appeared to have falsified bank documents to obtain favorable mortgage loan terms.
- Thailand's former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has won a significant legal victory after a court dismissed a case accusing him of insulting the nation's monarchy. The case, which was indicted last year, was the most high-profile to be charged with violating the royal defamation law, which is one of the world's harshest and has long been used to quash dissent. Thaksin faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The charges were seen as politicized and the latest salvo in a decades-long clash between Thaksin and Thailand's royalist-military establishment. The Criminal Court in Bangkok ruled that Thaksin's interview could have been edited in a way that did not fully represent his remarks and that he did not specifically mention the monarch at the time.

NEW YORK POST
-Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and now federal prisoner, has shared her relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in an interview with President Trump's Department of Justice. Maxwell, 63, described her connection to Epstein as romantically strung-along while serving as "general manager" of the late millionaire pedophile's real estate portfolio. In her two-day interviews last month with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Fla., she revealed that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks were when she realized they would never have a romantic future.
-The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, was fired after a classified assessment of US strikes on Iran was leaked to the media. The assessment suggested that US strikes on Iran only set back the rogue nation's nuclear program by a few months. The DIA's classified, "low confidence" estimation of the effectiveness of the June 21 airstrikes on Iran's Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear facilities was leaked to CNN three days after American B-2 stealth bombers and cruise missiles bombarded the sites. The document, based on limited intelligence gathered the day after the strike, reportedly indicated that the Iranian regime could bring its nuclear program back online as quickly as one to two months. The preliminary assessment also suggested that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed by the airstrikes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly fired Kruse over a "loss of confidence" in the lieutenant general.