Scientists claim to have successfully ‘conversed’ with a whale


Vishwam Sankaran
Tue, 16 April 2024 


Scientists at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) in the US claim to have conversed with a humpback whale in Alaska as a proxy for communicating with aliens.

Whales are known to make complex vocalisations that can travel thousands of miles underwater to converse with one another but a complete understanding of their sounds has remained elusive.

Researchers have previously recorded several whale populations immersing in lengthy songs underwater that are also rhythmic and constantly evolving.


“Humpback whales are extremely intelligent, have complex social systems, make tools – nets out of bubbles to catch fish, and communicate extensively with both songs and social calls,” Fred Sharpe, a co-author of the study, explained.

“Their language is complex. They make whoops and thrups and groans and squeaks. Their vocalizations are fascinating. We are trying to figure out what the vocalizations mean,” Lisa Walker, another author of the study, told the New York Post.

In the study, researchers played underwater recordings of humpback whales to other whales off the coast of Alaska.

They found that while most of the whales ignored the recorded calls, one of them – a female named Twain – circled the scientists’ boat, mimicking the noises for about 20 minutes.

Researchers are not entirely sure what the recorded call meant, but suspect it is a kind of “contact call” that whales use to call each other.

“It might have just been us saying hello, and her responding hello, and us saying hello again,” Dr Walker explained.

“We believe this is the first such communicative exchange between humans and humpback whales in the humpback ‘language,’” study lead author Brenda McCowan said in a statement.

Scientists currently assume that extraterrestrials will be interested in making contact and target human receivers.

This assumption, they say, is “certainly supported” by the behavior of humpback whales.

By studying intelligent non-human communication systems, such as in whales, researchers hope to develop filters to apply to any extraterrestrial signals received.

The latest findings also point to the use of effectively designed playback calls to make experimental conversation with whales and other interactive nonhuman species.

UK’s native poultry under threat as bird flu takes hold worldwide

Helena Horton
Tue, 16 April 2024 

A mottled araucana, one of many UK native breeds causing concern. 

Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

All of the UK’s native breeds of chicken, duck, geese and turkey are under threat because of bird flu, a report from the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) has found.

The disease, which has swept the globe after it originated in poultry farms in Asia, has caused devastating declines in bird populations. It has also now jumped to mammals and some cases have been found in humans, though it has not been found to be spreading from human to human.

The annual watchlist produced by the RBST also highlights concerns for native pig breeds. British Pig Association data shows declining numbers overall for the priority category pig breeds, including the Berkshire pig (total sows down from 363 in 2021 to 288 in 2023) and the Tamworth pig (total sows reduced from 304 in 2020 to 239 in 2023).


These declines continue after the pig market failure caused by rising costs, meaning farmers were being offered less than the cost of production for their products. The UK pig population has fallen from about 8m in the 1990s to just over 5m today.

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust chief executive, Christopher Price, said: “Today’s new RBST watchlist reflects the major challenges faced by people keeping pigs and poultry over the past two years, notably the avian flu outbreaks and the sustained increase in animal feed and husbandry costs. We have moved all native poultry breeds to the priority category as we continue providing urgent support for these irreplaceable breeds’ conservation.

“Seven of the UK’s 11 native pig breeds remain in the priority category, with most of the rare pig breeds now showing a sustained downward trend in total sow numbers. The at-risk Welsh pig, for example, has fallen from 457 sows in 2020 to 296 in 2023. We must reverse these worrying declines before it is too late.”

Native breeds of livestock are often used in rewilding projects for grazing because they tend to be hardier, so do not have to be kept indoors. Native poultry breeds are often seen as more sustainable and preferable to broiler chickens from an animal welfare perspective because they grow more slowly and tend to be kept free range.

Tom Davis, and RBST trustee and farm manager at Mudchute Park & Farm in east London, said: “The UK’s brilliant array of rare and native poultry is under serious threat. Under the continued threat of avian influenza, there is a clear decline in active breeding programmes – and when breed populations are so low, losing flocks can be devastating. Collecting comprehensive rare breed poultry data to steer conservation efforts is a serious challenge, and we really need more people to be encouraged to keep these birds and work with RBST and breed societies to help conserve them for the generations of the future.”

Record 3.7m workers in England will have major illness by 2040, study finds


Anna Bawden

 Health and social affairs correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 16 April 2024

Graffiti points towards a local food bank in Harehills, one of the most deprived areas of Leeds.Photograph: Daniel Harvey Gonzalez/In Pictures/Getty Images

A record 3.7 million workers in England will have a major illness by 2040, according to research.

On current trends, 700,000 more working-age adults will be living with high healthcare needs or substantial risk of mortality by 2040 – up nearly 25% from 2019 levels, according to a report by the Health Foundation charity.

But the authors predicted no improvement in health inequalities for working-age adults by 2040, with 80% of the increase in major illness in more deprived areas.


Researchers at the Health Foundation’s research arm and the University of Liverpool examined 1.7m GP and hospital records, alongside mortality data, which was then linked to geographical data to estimate the difference in diagnosed illness by level of deprivation in England in 2019, the last year of health data before the pandemic.

They then projected how levels of ill health are predicted to change in England between 2019 and 2040 based on trends in risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, obesity, diet and physical activity, as well as rates of illness, life expectancy and population changes.

Without action, the authors warn, people in the most deprived areas of England are likely to develop a major illness 10 years earlier than those in the least deprived areas and are also three times more likely to die by the age of 70.

Chronic pain, type 2 diabetes, anxiety and depression are forecast to grow at a faster rate in more deprived areas, while prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is four times more common in the most deprived areas than the least. These conditions have a significant impact on quality of life and may limit people’s ability to work for long periods of time.

Related: Levelling up: what has the government spent – and where?

The findings came as separate new figures showed record levels of economic inactivity. According to Office for National Statistics data, the number out of work due to long-term ill health is now a record 2.8 million.

The Health Foundation warned that without more measures to improve working-age health, the government’s target to improve healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035 and narrow the gap between the areas with the best and worst health will be missed by a significant margin.

Jo Bibby, director of health at the Health Foundation, said good health was a “precious asset”, adding: “A healthy workforce is the backbone of any thriving economy. We are already seeing the impact of poor health on the economy, with record numbers of people out of the workforce.

“Without action, the number of working-age people living with major illness is set to increase, particularly in the most deprived areas of the country.”

In addition to tackling smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity and harmful alcohol consumption, the report also called for cross-government approach to deal with poor housing, inadequate incomes and poor-quality jobs, investment in public services and for employers to improve working conditions and staff wellbeing.

Responding to the findings, Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive at NHS Providers, called for more support and funding for public health services.

“National support is vitally needed for local councils to meaningfully improve the health and wellbeing of their communities,” Cordery said.

“Without it, demand for already-stretched NHS services will rise even further.

“A whole-government approach is needed to prevent ill health, starting with tackling the root causes of why some people – such as those living in poverty and in deprived areas, as well as ethnic minorities and people with learning disabilities – are more likely to have worse physical and mental health.”

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak criticised “years of NHS underinvestment”, saying: “Alongside urgent support for the health service, we also need to address the wider drivers of poor health – insecure work and poverty wages.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “NHS England is working to reduce health inequalities and improve the health outcomes of the poorest 20% of the population, regardless of where they live.

“Our Back to Work Plan, backed by £2.5bn, is also helping more people into work – including those living with long-term health conditions – so everyone can reach their full potential.”

‘Rat bites and chronic asthma’: schools on frontline of UK housing crisis


Sammy Gecsoyler
Tue, 16 April 2024

‘In the middle of the night, I just lock myself in the bathroom and cry.’Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Some children living in dire housing conditions have been woken up by chesty coughs caused by damp, others by the smell of sewage leaking down their walls. Toby* was woken by rats on his chest.

“It was midnight and he came to me crying,” said his mother, who does not want to be named. He is one of more than 3,800 children living in temporary accommodation in Lewisham, the council with the 10th highest number of children living in such housing in the UK.

Nationally, 142,000 homeless children are living in places like commercial hotels, converted offices and dingy hostels, an all-time high, after rents and no-fault evictions have soared across the country.


Schools have seen the impact of this first-hand. Last week, a National Education Union survey found that 59% of teachers in England and Wales had seen their students experience frequent ill health due to poverty, with housing a major factor. In Lewisham, south London, 11 headteachers have signed a letter to the council declaring a local housing emergency is jeopardising the health of their students.

Beecroft Garden primary school is a microcosm for Lewisham as a whole. About one in five children at the school live in temporary accommodation, the same proportion as across the borough.

The school is situated in Crofton Park, a gentrified pocket of the borough where a small bridge divides multimillion-pound homes and council estates. Some students come from rooted, affluent homes while others are being shifted around by the council or forced to live in squalor by negligent landlords. Where a child calls home has become increasingly clear by the condition they turn up to school in, if they turn up at all.

“Some children are unable to bathe or wash their clothes. It affects our students’ self-esteem. A lot of them are worried that their friends will know how they’re living. It’s drastic on their physical and mental health,” said Naomi Lothian, the school’s family support officer.

She grew up in an estate near the school, across the bridge that divides the area into up-and-coming and left behind. She is on the frontline of a housing crisis affecting the school’s poorest students. Those living in homes with damp and mould are coming into local schools with coughs and chest infections, others are being bitten by mice and rats in pest-filled homes.

When the Guardian visited the school last month, Lothian was zooming around dealing with the needs of numerous students under her watch, including one long-running case.

Two boys at the school had been living in mould-filled, rat-infested temporary accommodation for over a year with their mother. They had had no electricity or hot water for months after rats had bitten through wires and damaged the boiler. Their mother was bitten twice by rats and her three-year-old son had had repeated chest infections due to the mould. Her older son did not attend school for two weeks after being woken up by rats on his chest.

When the Guardian visited the home, rat droppings were visible on the floor and sofa and large holes in the floor and walls where rodents roamed remained exposed. The family were sent to live there by Southwark council.

The letting agency who manages the property on behalf of the private landlord ignored the complaints about rats and mould. After months of emails and phone calls, Lothian was told that the family were being rehoused nearby. Moments after signing the new tenancy agreement, the family’s current landlord rung up to say they needed to leave the property within 24 hours.

Temporary accommodation for many families is no longer temporary. Data obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information requests shows that in Lewisham, 297 households had been in temporary accommodation for more than five years by the end of 2023. In nearby Lambeth, 1,006 households spent more than five years in such housing, and 311 for over 10 years.

At Rushey Green primary school in Catford, the majority of students live in social housing. Some have been without heating for months, others live in rooms blighted by damp and leaking sewage. One seven-year-old girl lives in a single room with her mother. She has an oven as a bedside table. They were put into temporary accommodation four years ago by Lewisham council. “They put us in that building and abandoned us there,” said her mother, who does not want to be named.

Her daughter often wakes up in the night due to the smell of sewage and has injured herself playing in the cramped room. “She was doing a handstand and she banged her mouth, it was full of blood,” said her mother.

“In the middle of the night, I just lock myself in the bathroom and cry because I don’t want my daughter to see me. I want her to see me as a strong mum.”

Lisa Williams, the school’s headteacher, said some of her students have developed chronic asthma due to damp and mould and others have been bitten by mice or bedbugs. “It’s horrendous,” she said.

The Guardian spoke to a number of parents at the school who shared similar stories. One mum, who has two children attending the school, lives in a flat with one working window that was so mould-infested a mushroom grew out of the doorway.

Teachers say the council have been sending families out of the borough, as far away as Kent. These students often arrive to school exhausted and end up missing school.

Cheryl Powell, 47, was sent to live in temporary accommodation in Woolwich two years ago. She has to take three buses to bring her son Jaheen to school. “He has no life. I get him up for 6am and we leave at 7am. School doesn’t start until 8:45am,” she said. He eats his dinner, usually a takeaway, on the bus home before sleeping shortly after getting in.

Staff at the school are also not immune. Rosaline Fofornah is a supervisor at the school. She lives in a mould-infested council home. “It’s going to make me and my children sick,” she said.

For many children, staying put in torrid conditions is their only option. “I’ve got so many families that are literally living on top of each other. They either try to get private accommodation, which they can’t afford, or they stay where they are. There is literally nowhere to go,” said Lothian.

Lewisham council did not respond to a request for comment.

Southwark council said they were made aware of the issues at the home in Crofton Park in February and agreed that the family should be moved after visiting the property. They were moved “as soon as alternative housing was found in early March”.

Brussel Police attempts to shut down conservative conference ‘extremely disturbing’, says No 10

Ben Riley-Smith

(TORY) TELEGRAPH
Tue, 16 April 2024 

Nigel Farage said there had been 'no public order threat whatsoever'

 - Yves Herman/Reuters

Downing Street has said attempts by police in Belgium to shut down a conservative conference featuring Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman on Tuesday were “extremely disturbing”.

Mr Farage was on stage at the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels when officers entered the venue to serve a court order demanding its closure with “immediate effect”.

Legal papers, seen by The Telegraph, suggested speeches at the event could cause public disorder, be homophobic or offend minorities.

The conference organisers had been forced to relocate to the venue on Monday night after a conference hall and a hotel cancelled their bookings following claims of “political pressure” from the local Left-wing mayor.

A No 10 spokesman said: “Clearly, these reports are extremely disturbing. The Prime Minister is a strong supporter and advocator for free speech, and he believes that should be fundamental to any democracy.

“Speaking more broadly to the principle of such events, he is very clear that cancelling events or preventing attendance and no-platforming speakers is damaging to free speech and to democracy as a result. He is very clear that free debate and the exchange of views is vital, even where you disagree.”

Mrs Braverman, the former home secretary, who also spoke at the gathering, criticised what she called the “Brussels thought police” for undermining free speech.

After her speech, she told reporters: “The thought police instructed by the mayor of Brussels are so fit to try and undermine and denigrate what is free speech and free debate.

“I remember the words of Mrs Thatcher, and I’m going to misquote her, but the more ridiculous and far-fetched and extremist their attempts are to silence us, the more cheered on I am. Because it just shows that they’ve lost their political argument.”

Suella Braverman said opponents had 'lost their political argument' - Omar Havana/Getty Images

Miriam Cates, the Tory MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, had to be smuggled into the venue to deliver her speech on protecting children. She was disguised in a tartan headscarf and taken in through a service entrance.

She said: “It’s just incredible. Many of the speakers are elected politicians in their own countries, and people can disagree with them, but they’re legally elected. It’s just extraordinary that there’s been an attempt to shut them down like this. It’s the opposite of liberalism.”

Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Farage said: “The monstrous reaction in Brussels to this conference comes as no surprise to me. I was personally banned from restaurants, pubs and coffee bars in my last few years in this city.

“But today, the Brussels elite have exhibited their culture on a global stage. In fact, it’s far more serious than that.

“Cancel culture is saying: ‘I do not want to hear your opinion.’ What happened today is an updated form of Soviet communism. It says that no other view is allowed, that anybody that holds it is, by definition, mad, bad, and dangerous. It’s an approach that has, and will always, fail in the end.”

Mr Farage, the honorary president of Reform UK, told the audience that police would have to drag him from the stage if they wanted to silence him.

A police cordon was erected to prevent people from entering the venue, but officers did not go into the conference room to remove speakers or delegates as a court battle ensued.

The event was allowed to continue while organisers mounted a legal challenge against the order to shut it down from Emir Kir, a local Brussels mayor. “This event could undeniably lead to violent reactions [and] considerable disturbances of public order,” the order said.

Mr Kir, the long-serving mayor of the city’s Saint-Josse district, was kicked out of the Socialist Party in Brussels in 2020 after he met politicians from Turkey’s far-Right.

The event had originally been due to be held at the Concert Noble ballroom, but on Friday Yoram Hazony, the conference chairman, said his team had been told by the venue that it had to pull the event amid “political pressure” from Philippe Close, the Socialist Party mayor of Brussels.

Belgian police enter the conference venue on Tuesday - Omar Havana/Getty Images

The Claridge club, owned by Lassaad Ben Yaghlane, a Belgian-Tunisian businessman, stepped in to host it. As he defied orders to shut it down, officials ordered his car to be towed away and catering firms were blocked from delivering supplies.

“These are not the people I normally share the same values with,” Mr Ben Yaghlane said of the conference attendees. “The difference is that I understand they want stability and maintaining [of] traditional values, but we live in a world that evolves a lot at the moment and needs more openness and acceptance for the values of others.”

Mr Ben Yaghlane has owned the venue, which is more used to hosting weddings, bar mitzvahs and parties, since 2013. Mr Farage said: “He is hugely brave.”

Nigel Farage

Nasty Brussels police have just proven Brexit right

Read more

Mr Farage, who delivered a speech on his history of clashing with the ruling class in Brussels, said there was “no public order threat”. Eric Zemmour, the French firebrand, delivered his speech on the pavement outside after he was refused entry by police.

Mr Hazony, the conference chairman, said: “We work very hard to make sure that fringe elements, political extremists don’t catch a ride on our conferences.” A spokesman also insisted the event was “extremely peaceful”.

Frank Furedi, of the MCC Brussels think tank, said the attempt to shut down the event was “an entirely political act ... political decisions are masqueraded as technical ones.”

On Tuesday, organisers were working to secure a new venue for the second day of the conference, when Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, is due to speak. There were doubts the legal challenge to overturn the court order would succeed in time to hold the event.

In her speech, Mrs Braverman claimed Rishi Sunak lacked the “political will” to take Britain out of the European Convention of Human Rights.

She said the Prime Minister’s promise to prevent “foreign courts” from stopping Britain from sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was “inauthentic”, calling leaving “right and necessary” and also the “politically expedient” option for the Government.

UK Government ‘scores three out of 10’ on energy security commitments – analysis

Emily Beament, PA Environment Correspondent
8 April 2024·



The Government has only achieved three out of 10 commitments it made to boost the UK’s energy security two years ago, analysis has suggested.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) examined the plans laid out in the British Energy Security Strategy in April 2022, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to boost security of supplies and keep bills low.

It accused the Government of “going backwards” on reducing the country’s reliance on expensive foreign fossil fuel imports.

The think tank’s assessment highlighted 10 key areas for action in the Government’s 2022 strategy, from energy efficiency and grid operations to offshore wind and nuclear power, and warned only three of them had been achieved.

The areas where the Government has made progress in boosting energy security are on hydrogen, including awarding the first contracts for hydrogen projects, work to improve the network and grid operations, and boosting oil and gas production.

But the ECIU warned that issuing more oil and gas licences would not help with bills as international markets set the price of fossil fuel energy, and as oil and gas drilled here does not necessarily stay in the UK it would not improve security.

Elsewhere, the Government was off track to retrofit 450,000 homes with insulation and energy saving measures by 2026 to cut gas demand and bills, according to the ECIU, and likely only to manage half the target level.

The last offshore wind energy auction delivered no new projects, targets to develop new nuclear power had not been met and green levies had not been moved off electricity to support clean tech such as heat pumps, the analysis said.

The analysis also found that while there had been some progress on shifting heating away from gas and oil to clean heat pumps, with a £7,500 grant now in place for households making the switch, other targets and measures had been delayed or scrapped.

New onshore wind developments are still not progressing in England, while there is some progress on delivering more solar power and reducing wait times for energy projects to connect to the grid, the analysis said.

Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the ECIU, said: “The UK has had two energy security strategies within two years and we’re still going backwards, becoming more dependent on foreign imports.”

She said the Government’s Bill requiring annual auctions for North Sea licences for oil and gas drilling had been described as “unnecessary” by the regulator, and would generate minimal more output.

North Sea production was in decline and without a shift away from gas, the UK would be increasingly reliant on foreign fossil fuels, she warned.

“The PM’s U-turning on insulation standards and heat pumps is leaving the UK less energy independent.

“And his Government’s policy failures in securing new offshore wind farms mean the UK could miss out on 22 times more homegrown electricity than could be generated by gas from new North Sea licences.

“If it genuinely wants greater energy security it’s prioritising the wrong things,” she said.

She acknowledged that the Government had increased the heat pump grant and sales were picking up, but delaying other policies meant the UK was lagging far behind other countries including the US and many in Europe.

“Heat pumps are one of the UK’s best weapons in the fight for energy independence,” she said.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) spokesperson said the Government did not accept the claims.

“Since we published the British Energy Security Strategy we have allocated billions to improve energy efficiency, announced a dedicated record pot of £800 million to back offshore wind projects and increased our heat pump grant to £7,500 – making it one of the most generous schemes in Europe and helping families with costs.

“We have achieved all this while maintaining one of the most secure and diverse energy systems in the world, with renewables now accounting for nearly half of our electricity – up from 7% in 2010 – while backing a domestic oil and gas supply and ending the stop-start approach to nuclear,” they said.

Grant Thornton fined £40,000 for failings at council pension fund

Adam Mawardi
8 April 2024·

grant thornton

Grant Thornton has been fined £40,000 over failures of its audit of a council’s pension fund.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) found the UK’s sixth largest accounting firm made “material errors” during a major local authority audit for the year ending March 2021.

The accounting watchdog’s enforcement committee said these failures represented a “significant departure” from the standards expected of a registered auditor and had the potential to affect the public, employees, pensioners or creditors.

These included “two uncorrected material errors” in the pension fund’s audited financial statements that were included in the local authority’s annual report, which did not feature in the pension fund’s own financial statements.

They also found that Grant Thornton failed to obtain sufficient evidence that the value of the pension fund’s investments was “materially accurate”.

The FRC said that a sanction was necessary to ensure Grant Thornton’s local audit functions are undertaken, supervised and managed effectively.

The regulator initially proposed a £50,000 sanction against the firm, but discounted the penalty by 20pc to £40,000 to reflect the company’s cooperation and other mitigating factors.

The FRC said: “The committee acknowledges that Grant Thornton UK LLP provided cooperation, including at an early stage, took appropriate remedial steps promptly once the failing was identified and demonstrated contrition.

“There was also no evidence to support financial gain or benefit from the failure.”

Grant Thornton has accepted the sanction and has issued written undertakings in response to the penalty.

The FRC’s sanctions over local audits principally refer to local authorities and health bodies other than NHS Foundation Trusts, which are separately handled by NHS England.

Major local audits include those where council pension schemes have at least 20,000 members or manage more than £1bn in assets, according to accounting rules.

A Grant Thornton spokesman said: “We note the findings of the regulator’s investigation, with which we have cooperated throughout, and regret the errors identified.

“As a leading provider of audit and related assurance services to the public sector, we remain committed to high-quality work and have taken steps to further improve this.”

‘Shadow bank’ lending risks triggering new financial crisis, warns IMF


Szu Ping Chan
8 April 2024·

City of London

Risky lending by “shadow banks” threatens to trigger a new financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

The Washington-based organisation said there were “systemic risks” posed by the $2.1 trillion “opaque world of private credit”, which has boomed in recent years against a backdrop of record low interest rates.

Companies deemed too large or risky for commercial banks and too small to float their shares on the stock market have increasingly turned to non-bank funds to borrow money quickly, flexibly and confidentially.

However, regulation in this corner of financial markets is relatively lax and the IMF said a severe economic downturn could quickly expose vulnerabilities.

“In a severe downturn, credit quality could deteriorate sharply, spurring defaults and significant losses,” the IMF said in its latest Financial Stability Report.

The impact would be felt beyond just private lenders as a growing share of public and private pension funds are pouring money into these private funds.

The IMF’s warning comes just weeks after the Bank of England launched a review into financial stability risks posed by private equity.

Threadneedle Street is concerned about the value of assets controlled by private equity companies, how much money has been lent against them and how these loans are linked back to commercial banks and investors.

Some of Britain’s biggest companies are now backed by the private equity industry, including the supermarkets Asda and Morrisons.

While private credit differs from private equity, the IMF noted that “growth in private credit has followed the rise in private equity”.

It said private equity firms were involved in around 70pc of private credit deals. Some of the biggest “shadow bank” lenders include funds run by Apollo, Blackstone, KKR and Carlyle Group, which have driven some of the biggest private equity deals over the past decade.

The IMF said the immediate financial stability risks from private credit appeared to be “limited”. However, the nature of these risks is unclear.

It said: “Given that this ecosystem is opaque and highly interconnected, and if fast growth continues with limited oversight, existing vulnerabilities could become a systemic risk for the broader financial system.”

It added that the opaque nature of deals made losses hard to assess, which could trigger a new crisis.

“Significant interconnectedness could affect public markets, as insurance companies and pension funds may be forced to sell more liquid assets,” it said.

The IMF urged regulators to take a more “proactive supervisory and regulatory approach” to the sector, adding: “Regulation and supervision of private funds was strengthened significantly after the global financial crisis.

“Yet, the rapid growth and structural shift of borrowing to private credit requires that countries undertake a further comprehensive review.”

A separate IMF report warned that the Bank of England risked leaving interest rates too high for too long, inflicting unnecessary damage on the economy.

It noted that the high share of UK homeowners who have borrowed at fixed rates left many exposed to a mortgage shock when their deals run out. This could trigger a sudden drop in consumer spending, which would be damaging for the economy.

The IMF said: “Most central banks have made significant progress toward their inflation targets. It could follow from the discussion that if transmission is weak, erring on the side of too much tightening is always less costly.

“However, overtightening, or leaving rates higher for longer, could nevertheless be a greater risk now.”

The UK now has one of the highest shares of people on fixed-rate mortgages in the world, which has helped to delay the pain of higher rates for millions of borrowers.

The share of British households who have opted to fix their borrowing costs – usually for two or five years – has climbed from around a third in 2011 to almost 90pc at the end of 2022, according to the IMF.

Around 1.6 million mortgage holders are scheduled to come off cheap fixed rate deals over the next 12 months and roll on to higher rates. The Bank has raised interest rates from 0.1pc at the end of 2021 to 5.25pc last year.

The IMF said policymakers around the world could be underestimating the impact of this wave of higher mortgage rates on the economy.

It said: “Over time, and as rates on these mortgages reset, monetary policy transmission could suddenly turn more effective and thereby depress consumption. Although central banks already incorporate this possibility in their decisions, the effects on consumption could still be larger than expected.

“Financial instability could also follow if defaults rise abruptly.”

IMF warns of ‘fragilities’ in booming £1.7 trillion private credit market


Elliot Gulliver-Needham
8 April 2024·

The private credit market has swelled to £1.7 trillion. (Photo credit: Flickr, Bank of England)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of a “number of fragilities” in the global private credit market, even as the sector continues to soar in popularity.

In the IMF’s annual Global Financial Stability Report, published today, it stated that the $2.1 trillion (£1.7 trillion) market, which has been pursued for investors for its high returns and flexibility, may soon pose a “systemic risk” for the financial system.

“This market emerged about three decades ago as a financing source for companies too large or risky for commercial banks and too small to raise debt in public markets,” explained the Washington-based institution.


Now, private credit has swelled to an unparalleled size, as retail investors have poured into the market and banks have been eager to capitalise off the high returns offered by the sector.

Around three quarters of the private credit market is in the United States, where its market share is coming close to that of high-yield bonds and syndicated loans.

This increased popularity has pushed increased competition from banks for large transactions, putting pressure on private credit recipients to deploy capital, which the IMF warned were “leading to weaker underwriting standards and looser loan covenants”.

These companies relying on private credit tend to be smaller and carry more debt, making them more vulnerable to rising interest rates and economic downturns

“With the recent rise in benchmark interest rates, our analysis indicates that more than one-third of borrowers now have interest costs exceeding their current earnings,” the report warned.

Meanwhile, the pricing of private loans is a key risk in the IMF’s eyes, as since the loans rarely trade, they can’t be valued using market prices, and must instead use shaky risk models that probably aren’t accurate.

An analysis of private credit found that despite having lower credit quality, private credit assets tend to have smaller markdowns than normal leveraged loans during times of stress.

A downturn could also affect banks and pension funds could have concentrated exposures to private credit, which could be a problem due to the “significant degree of interconnectedness in the private credit ecosystem”, the IMF said.

“Severe data gaps make monitoring these vulnerabilities across financial markets and institutions more difficult and may delay proper risk assessment by policymakers and investors,” it added.

If the sector’s fast growth continues, and regulators don’t start taking a more active role in supervising it, it could soon become a “systemic risk for the broader financial system”, the IMF concluded.

‘Hallucinating’ AI could cause social order collapse, warns tech giant


Matthew Field
8 April 2024

A ChatGPT prompt is shown on a device near a public school in Brooklyn, New York

Artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to the collapse of the social order and trigger wars, two of Japan’s biggest companies have claimed.

In a warning, Japanese technology giant NTT and Yomiuri Shimbun, the publisher of one of the country’s leading newspapers, said “trust in society as a whole may be damaged” by AI tools which are inaccurate or biased.

The companies said: “There is a concern that, in the worst-case scenario, democracy and social order could collapse, resulting in wars.”

They said current AI chatbots suffered from an issue known as “hallucination”, where the bots make up facts, adding that they often “lie with confidence”. AI bots could be used to spread “malicious information” that could “cause social unrest”.

They called for “rigid restrictions by law” on AI programmes and companies, including legislation for areas of the highest risk, such as around elections and protecting Japan’s national security.

NTT is Japan’s biggest telecoms company, formerly the state monopoly, while Yomiuri Shimbun is the country’s most widely circulated newspaper with six million daily readers.

The warning follows a crackdown by the European Union on AI companies, while the US, UK and Japan have all set up research institutes aimed at monitoring AI for potential risks.

A new wave of AI tools have been developed by US labs, including OpenAI, Google Deepmind and Anthropic. Some experts have raised warnings over the risks posed by AI, including potential existential risk to humanity.

Last year, thousands of entrepreneurs and scientists called for a six-month moratorium on the development of more powerful AI machines over fears they posed a “profound risk to society and humanity”.

However, these claims have divided researchers, with others insisting that the threat is being overblown. So far, the AI bots have largely been used for writing emails, summarising reports or creating pictures, but they are often prone to errors.

Impax reports ‘improved’ sentiment on ESG-focused investment despite heavy outflows

Lars Mucklejohn
9 April 2024

Data published by Morningstar in January found that sustainable funds saw their first net redemptions ever in the last quarter of 2023.

ESG-focused Impax Asset Management has noted “improved” investor sentiment in recent months, despite the sector grappling with heavy outflows from sustainable funds.

The company reported in a stock market update on Tuesday that its assets under management (AUM) totalled £39.6bn on 31 March 2024, up 1.3 per cent from the end of the previous quarter.

However, Impax’s net flows came in at negative £1.71bn during the first quarter of 2024, from negative £988m in the final three months of last year.

Impax has been affected by the shift away from ESG over the past couple of years, with its share price down 70 per cent since its peak at the end of December 2021.

Its most recent annual results reported a 28 per cent drop in pretax profit to £52.1m, also driven by rising costs.

The strong performance of oil and gas firms after the war in Ukraine and regulatory issues have made investors question the ‘environmental, social and governance’ label.

Analysts say the sector has likely reached a “saturation point” after years of investors scrambling to pump cash into responsible investment strategies.

Impax’s chief executive Ian Simm said on Tuesday: “I am pleased to be able to report another quarter of rising AUM in the context of sustained positive market sentiment.

“Although our net flows were moderately negative, the outflows were overwhelmingly from a small number of intermediary clients largely representing European private wealth, and we again recorded an increase in the number of institutional clients, and no segregated mandate terminations.

“Following nearly two years of relative headwinds, asset owner sentiment around the transition to a more sustainable economy and associated areas of Impax expertise has improved in recent months. Looking ahead, we continue to develop a healthy pipeline of potential new business and to expand our distribution capabilities around the world.”