Saturday, August 23, 2025
ECB rate cut talk may resume after September pause, sources say
The European Central Bank is likely to keep interest rates on hold next month but discussions about further cuts may well resume in the autumn if the economy weakens, five sources told Reuters.
ECB President Christine Lagarde said in July the euro zone's central bank was "in a good place" as it left its key rate at 2%, bringing a year-long cutting cycle to an end and leading investors to bet on a prolonged pause.
Data since then showed the euro zone economy was proving more resilient than expected while inflation hovered at the ECB's 2% target, central bank officials in Europe and at the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Symposium said.
This meant that a rate cut on September 11 was now largely seen as unnecessary, barring a sudden worsening in incoming data such as a flash inflation reading for August and economic activity surveys, according to the sources. They all declined to be named because policy deliberations are confidential.
Farage pledges £10b 'mass deportation' plan for 5 migrant flights out of UK a day if Reform take power
Nigel Farage has unveiled a £10billion 'mass deportation' plan that would see five migrant flights leave the UK every day if Reform take power.
The party leader said the five year plan, called Operation Restoring Justice, would also bar small boat migrants from claiming asylum in the UK.
They would be held in detention centres on 'surplus' RAF bases while awaiting deportation, with the Government being required to build detention centres capable of holding 24,000 people within 18 months.
As many as five charter flights would leave the country every day, deporting hundreds of thousands of migrants. They would also be offered the opportunity to 'deport themselves' using an app and given £2,500 to leave the country.
Mr Farage would also seek to introduce criminal offences for people who attempt to return to the UK after being deported or destroy their identity documents.
He pledged to explore deals with 'third countries' such as Rwanda and Albania to house asylum seekers after they are deported, while British overseas territories such as Ascension Island would be used as a 'fallback' option.
These sweeping changes, which are likely to encounter legal, political and practical challenges, would be introduced under emergency legislation known as the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.
'The aim of this legislation is mass deportations,' Mr Farage said in an interview with the Times. 'We have a massive crisis in Britain.'
Nigel Farage has unveiled a £10billion 'mass deportation' plan that would see five migrant flights fly out of UK every day if Reform take power.
People thought to be migrants scramble to board a small boat near Wimereux in France
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to the Border Force compound in Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel on August 15
'It is not only posing a national security threat but it's leading to public anger that frankly is not very far away from disorder. There is only one way to stop people coming into Britain and that is to detain them and deport them.'
He added: 'Who is our priority? Is it the safety and security of this country and its people? Or are we worrying about everybody else and foreign courts? That's what it comes down to. Whose side are you on?'
Setting out the cost for the plans, Mr Farage said they would cost £10billion over five years, with £2.5billion spent on repurposing disused RAF and other military bases into detention centres.
People housed in these centres would be barred from leaving or claiming bail and would have access to canteens and medical facilities
Prime Minister Keir Starmer had pledged to stop housing asylum seekers on disused military sites during last year's general election amid concerns about the pressures placed on local services by large-scale sites, but is yet to do so.
As part of Reform's plans, a further £2billion would go towards detention costs, with £1.5billion also set aside for staff and £1.5billion for chartering flights.
Mr Farage has also set out £2billion for 'diplomatic incentives' that would help strike returns deals with countries where migrants are most commonly fleeing from, such as Afghanistan and Eritrea.
He claimed that Britain's place on the international stage and use of incentives like international aid to secure agreements would help secure such deals.
Migrants sprint through the surf at Gravelines beach in northern France to board a traffickers' dinghy to Britain earlier this month
According to Amnesty international, the Eritrean Government regards claiming asylum abroad as evidence of treason, with anyone forced to return to the country facing torture and sometimes death.
Meanwhile, corporal punishment, amounting to torture and other ill-treatment, has been common under the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan and is employed for crimes including theft, adultery and alcohol consumption.
Mr Farage said migrants would 'ideally' sent back to their country of origin, but 'if we have some problematic ones', then British overseas territories such as Ascension Island in the south Atlantic would be used as a 'backstop'.
Such places would be used as a holding destination before they are moved on, Mr Farage suggested, adding that they would have no choice in the matter.
Mr Farage's plan would also take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, replacing it with a British Bill of Rights, which would not include any reference to human rights.
Valneva suspended from marketing chikungunya shot in U.S. over safety concerns
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) late Friday announced that it has suspended the marketing application granted for French biotech Valneva’s (NASDAQ:VALN) chikungunya vaccine Ixchiq due to safety concerns, including several deaths.
The FDA initially cleared the shot in November 2023 under its accelerated approval pathway to prevent chikungunya, a mosquito-borne viral disease, in individuals aged 18 years and older who are at an increased risk of contracting the virus.
The decision to suspend its marketing application was “based on serious safety concerns related to the vaccine, which appears to be causing chikungunya-like illness in vaccine recipients,” the regulator said.
The FDA has recorded one mortality directly linked to Ixchiq and more than 20 serious adverse events similar to chikungunya-like illness in those who received the live-attenuated vaccine.
Overall, there have been 21 hospitalizations and three deaths, the agency noted, adding that Ixchiq’s clinical benefit has not yet been proven in confirmatory trials and the vaccine’s benefits do not outweigh its risks according to a benefit-risk analysis conducted by the FDA’s biologics division.
“For these reasons, CBER believes this vaccine is not safe and that continued administration to the public would pose a danger to health,” the regulator added.
The decision comes in the same month that the FDA and CDC removed a recommended pause in the use of Ixchiq in those aged 60 years and older, after requiring labeling changes to the shot following an investigation into serious adverse events linked to the vaccine.
Other operators in the U.S. chikungunya vaccine market include Danish biotech Bavarian Nordic (BAVN) (OTCPK:BVNRY) (OTCPK:BVNKF).
Meta partners with Midjourney on AI image and video models
Meta is partnering with Midjourney to license the startup’s AI image and video generation technology, Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang announced Friday in a post on Threads. Wang says Meta’s research teams will collaborate with Midjourney to bring its technology into future AI models and products.
“To ensure Meta is able to deliver the best possible products for people it will require taking an all-of-the-above approach,” Wang said. “This means world-class talent, ambitious compute roadmap, and working with the best players across the industry.”
The Midjourney partnership could help Meta develop products that compete with industry-leading AI image and video models, such as OpenAI’s Sora, Black Forest Lab’s Flux, and Google’s Veo. Last year, Meta rolled out its own AI image generation tool, Imagine, into several of its products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta also has an AI video generation tool, Movie Gen, that allows users to create videos from prompts.
The licensing agreement with Midjourney marks Meta’s latest deal to get ahead in the AI race. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on a hiring spree for AI talent, offering some researchers compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. The social media giant also invested $14 billion in Scale AI, and acquired the AI voice startup Play AI.
Meta has held talks with several other leading AI labs about other acquisitions, and Zuckerberg even spoke with Elon Musk about joining his $97 billion takeover bid of OpenAI (Meta ultimately did not join the offer, and OpenAI denied Musk’s bid).
While the terms of Meta’s deal with Midjourney remain unknown, the startup’s CEO, David Holz, said in a post on X that his company remains independent with no investors; Midjourney is one of the few leading AI model developers that has never taken on outside funding. At one point, Meta talked with Midjourney about acquiring the startup, according to Upstarts Media.
Midjourney was founded in 2022 and quickly became a leader in the AI image generation space for its realistic, unique style. By 2023, the startup was reportedly on pace to generate $200 million in revenue. The startup sells subscriptions starting at $10 per month. It offers pricier tiers, which offer more AI image generations, that cost as much as $120 per month. In June, the startup released its first AI video model, V1.
Meta’s partnership with Midjourney comes just two months after the startup was sued by Disney and Universal, alleging that it trained AI image models on copyrighted works. Several AI model developers — including Meta — face similar allegations from copyright holders, however, recent court cases pertaining to AI training data have sided with tech companies.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-partners-midjourney-ai-image-214131243.html
Big Tech Could Soon Use Brain Chips To Read Your Inner Most Thoughts: Study
A new study out of Stanford University reveals that neural implants, also known as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), might not just help paralyzed individuals communicate - they could potentially lay bare your innermost thoughts to Big Tech.
Published in the medical journal Cell, the research shows these devices can decode brain signals to produce synthesized speech faster and with less effort.
BCIs work by using tiny electrode arrays to monitor activity in the brain’s motor cortex, the region controlling speech-related muscles. Until now, the tech relied on signals from paralyzed individuals actively trying to speak. The Stanford team, however, discovered that even imagined speech generates similar, though weaker, signals in the motor cortex. With the help of artificial intelligence, they translated those faint signals into words with up to 74% accuracy from a 125,000-word vocabulary.
“We’re recording the signals as they’re attempting to speak and translating those neural signals into the words that they’re trying to say,” said Erin Kunz, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford’s Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory.
But this technological leap has raised red flags among critics who warn of a dystopian future where your private thoughts could be exposed.
Nita Farahany, a Duke University law and philosophy professor and author of The Battle for Your Brain, sounded the alarm telling NPR, “The more we push this research forward, the more transparent our brains become.”
Farahany expressed concern that tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta could exploit BCIs to access consumers’ minds without consent, urging safeguards like passwords to protect thoughts meant to stay private.
“We have to recognize that this new era of brain transparency really is an entirely new frontier for us,” Farahany said.
While the world fixates on artificial intelligence, some of the tech industry’s heaviest hitters are pouring billions into BCIs. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has raised $1.2 billion for his Neuralink venture, which is now conducting clinical trials with top institutions like the Barrow Neurological Institute, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
Now, another tech titan is entering the fray.
OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman is launching Merge Labs to challenge Musk’s Neuralink. Backed by OpenAI’s venture arm and valued at $850 million, Merge Labs is seeking $250 million in funding, according to the Financial Times. While Altman will serve as a co-founder alongside Alex Blania of the iris-scanning World project, sources say he won’t take an operational role.
'Even After The Headmaster's Humiliation, Europe Insists That Peace Is War'
by Pepe Escobar,
The Empire of Chaos is at war, hybrid and otherwise, not only against BRICS, but against Eurasia integration...
It took just one pic to imprint on posterity the utter humiliation of the EUrotrash political elites in Year 2025: the Coalition of the Twats, in the Oval Office, lining up like a bunch of frightened schoolkids, severely reprimanded by His Master’s Voice – the Headmaster cum Circus Ringmaster.
That was also neatly described as Trump breaks Europe over his knee.
Of course, President Putin had already predicted it, over six months before the fact:
“I assure you, Trump, with his character and persistence, will restore order quite quickly. And all of them, you’ll see, soon all of them will stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails.”
The White House humiliation sealed the deal, and reconfirmed an obsession: for the EUrotrash “leadership”, at all levels when it comes to relations with Russia, Peace is War.
Brandishing their warped logic, they cannot possibly understand that if Ukraine is instrumentalized – actually since before Maidan in 2014 – to harass and destabilize Russia in its western borders, Russia will forcefully counter-attack.
That’s at the heart of the Russian concept of “underlying causes” of the Ukraine tragedy, which must be thoroughly addressed if there is any real shot at Trumpian or not Trumpian “peace”.
In the Big Picture, that translates as the Empire of Chaos and Russia sitting down to set up a new “indivisibility of security” arrangement – just like Moscow proposed in December 2021: then, it was met by a non-response response.
EUrotrash Inc.’s new delirium is to attribute to itself the design of the future borders between a re-weaponized Europe and a Russia that will inevitably inflict on it a massive strategic defeat.
It’s a very long shot to imagine that Trump is capable, by himself, of imposing a new strategic reality on the warmongering yet penniless Coalition of the Twats. Whatever happens to rump Ukraine, Trump, based on his own twist and turn vociferations, actually wants Europe to “contain” Russia from now on, using an arsenal of ridiculous expensive American weapons.
So what changes is the character of this particular chapter of the Forever Wars: it will be fought by the Coalition of the Twats, and not by Americans.
In the short term, that also unveils the only strategy available for the EUrotrash/Kiev combo: outlast Trump until the 2026 mid-terms, destroy the remainder of his presidency, and be secure with the return of the mega-Russophobe gang in 2028.
Which Dead Hand will prevail?
And old school Deep State hand, who had privileged access to all Cold War era honchos, sums up the pitfalls ahead for Russia:
“Russia is taking too long to neutralize Ukraine, allowing time for NATO to reignite diversions. While the snail offensive in Ukraine does save lives, NATO seeks to weaken Russia’s strategic position in the Balkans and elsewhere that can cost far more lives in the future. If the Slavs in the Balkans are crushed that can strategically weaken Russia’s overall position, and that is far more costly than a major lightning offensive a la Stalin in Russian Ukraine. Russia must finish this war now and turn to its southern problems in the Balkans and the intrigues in Baku.”
Trump of course is oblivious to these Big Picture niceties. At best he admits, to Fox News, that “Ukraine will not regain Crimea” and “Ukraine will not join NATO.” But he does not seem to mind that “France, Germany and the UK want to deploy troops in Ukraine” as part of the new kabuki: “security guarantees”. That is an inter-galactic red line for Moscow.
In parallel, it’s wishful thinking to believe that Putin is now finally ready to negotiate “peace”. This is not about peace; it’s always about coming up with incontrovertible facts on the battle field, because Moscow knows this war will only be won in the battle field.
Russian forces have reached the final Ukraine defensive line in Donbass: Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. And is fast encircling key strongholds near Pokrovsk and Konstantinovka. Talk about a strategic/psychological turning point. From there, the – steppe – sky is the limit.
Compound it with the combined hacking of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – which revealed that Kiev’s losses, in terms of dead and missing, amount to a staggering 1.7 million.
All of the above means that we are fast approaching the fateful moment when the victor dictates the full terms of the enemy’s capitulation. No need to march to Bankova in Kiev and plant the Russian flag.
To indulge in a tawdry Trump-spun “peace” agreement carries an overlapping amount of serious strategic defeats for Russia. For example: leaving Odessa and Kharkov to MI6 and Brit machinations. At the same time Moscow needs to start paying much closer attention to its underbelly in the South Caucasus front, where the mellifluous Turkish drive is to establish a pan-Turanic belt/corridor.
The Empire of Chaos is at war, hybrid and otherwise, not only against BRICS, but against Eurasia integration. Some of its implications will certainly be discussed in the upcoming SCO summit in Tianjin, on August 31/September 1st. Putin, Xi, Modi, Pezeshkian will all be at the table.
And that should impress on all players the imperative of BRICS and SCO, sooner rather than later, representing Eurasia, getting their act increasingly together, turbo-charging not only their economic but also geostrategic cooperation. There’s only one way to go: negotiate with the increasingly out of control Empire of Chaos as a group. Putin and Xi already now it. Lula and Modi are starting to get the picture.
Meanwhile, the temptation is irresistible to frame Putin as granting Trump a magnanimous exit: to get out of the imperial strategic defeat in Ukraine while saving face.
The problem is the massive Peace is War front will never accept it. And that goes way beyond EUrotrash Inc., including Atlanticist old money, key players in international finance, and the walking dead but not really dead neo-cons.
Russia, China, BRICS/SCO need to be on red alert 24/7. The Peace is War front is already in the process of converting themselves into the NBT front: nuclear threats, bioweapons and terror attacks. Russia may have the Dead Hand – which will exterminate any attacker. The NBT front at best has the scrawny dead hand of a dead man walking.