Brussels is tightening its grip on some of the internet’s fastest-growing services, designating ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox for heightened scrutiny under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), writes Catherine Feore.

The European Commission said all three services meet the 45 million average monthly users threshold in the EU, triggering the DSA rules reserved for digital players considered large enough to pose systemic risks to European society.

“These new designations mean that ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox will now be held to a higher standard of scrutiny and accountability in the European Union,” said Henna Virkkunen (pictured), the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.

The move puts the companies firmly in Brussels’ regulatory crosshairs. They must assess and mitigate risks ranging from illegal content and harm to minors to threats to fundamental rights, elections, public security, and users’ physical and mental well-being. Importantly, the designation also gives the Commission investigative powers to scrutinise relevant features and systems underpinning the services.

ChatGPT has been designated a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE), while Reddit and Roblox are now Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs). They have until the end of January 2027 to comply with the DSA’s tougher obligations.

ChatGPT’s inclusion is particularly significant. The Commission considers the AI service a hybrid product that qualifies as an online search engine because it can search the web when answering users’ queries, bringing a major generative AI service into the DSA’s toughest tier of oversight for the first time.

The Commission will supervise compliance with the DSA, in cooperation with Coimisiún na Meán (Ireland’s media regulator) for ChatGPT and Reddit, and the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) for Roblox.

With the latest additions, 28 platforms and search engines have now received the EU’s “very large” designation.

Photo credit: Commissioner Virkkunnen Photographer: Lukasz Kobus © European Union

Adilet wins 110 seats in the 145-member Kurultai, while four smaller parties share the remaining 35, writes Georgi Gotev.

Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission announced final results on 25 August confirming a decisive victory for the Adilet party in the country’s first elections to the new unicameral Kurultai. Adilet won 71.17 percent of the vote and 110 of the 145 seats, establishing a dominant position in the legislature created under the constitution that took effect on 1 July.

Adilet is the recently formed pro-presidential party in Kazakhstan created months before the elections as the successor after the long-ruling Amanat party dissolved into it.

Final figures show 9,351,539 ballots cast from an electoral roll of 12,623,289, for a turnout of 74.08 percent. Five parties cleared the 5 percent threshold required for representation:

Adilet: 6,528,948 votes (71.17 percent) — 110 seats

Auyl People’s Democratic Patriotic Party: 574,621 votes (6.26 percent) — 10 seats

Respublica: 509,631 votes (5.56 percent) — 9 seats

Aq Zhol Democratic Party: 478,083 votes (5.21 percent) — 8 seats

Nationwide Social Democratic Party: 469,058 votes (5.11 percent) — 8 seats

The People’s Party of Kazakhstan (3.11 percent) and Baytaq Green Party (1.07 percent) fell short. A further 2.51 percent of voters chose the “against all” option.

The Kurultai replaces the former bicameral parliament and is elected entirely by proportional representation from party lists in a single nationwide constituency. The 23 August vote was the first parliamentary election held under the new constitutional framework approved in a March referendum.

First session convened

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a decree convening the inaugural session of the Kurultai for 28 August at 11 a.m. The opening will formally launch the work of the new 145-member legislature and mark the next stage in implementing the institutional changes introduced by the constitution.

Once the Kurultai begins its work, the sitting government is required to resign. Under the new rules, the president will nominate a candidate for prime minister after consultations with the party factions represented in the chamber. The appointed prime minister then has ten days to propose the structure and composition of the cabinet; ministers are appointed by the president following further consultations with the Kurultai.

The constitution also creates the office of vice president. Tokayev has indicated that an appointment — “a well-known person you all know” — would be announced within days of the election and must receive Kurultai approval within two months of the first session. The vice president may not serve as a lawmaker or belong to a political party and would assume presidential powers if the head of state leaves office early.

Experts: Higher stakes for parties and foreign policy

At an expert discussion organised by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KazISS) on 24 August, analysts said the vote raises the stakes for political parties, the functioning of the new parliament, and Kazakhstan’s positioning amid growing geopolitical interest in Central Asia.

KazISS Director Zhandos Shaimardanov highlighted the combination of high turnout and a dominant party alongside four smaller ones as features likely to shape the legislature. “The task now is to understand how this electoral choice will translate into the work of the new Kurultai, its legislative priorities and the parties’ day-to-day activities,” he said.

Italian Asia expert Domenico Palmieri stressed that the election itself is only the beginning. The real test of the institutional reform will come in the months ahead as deputies begin legislating. He noted the relatively high turnout compared with many European countries and described the voting process as technically smooth.

Political scientist Andrey Kazantsev cautioned against reading the strong participation solely as enthusiasm for party politics. In a period of international uncertainty, many voters appeared more concerned with the country’s overall direction and the future for their families. Because deputies are now elected exclusively from party lists, parties face greater responsibility for translating public expectations into concrete policy. “The demand is high. Now the parties have to provide the supply side,” he said.

Ken Moriyasu of the Hudson Institute placed the transition in a wider regional and global context. Interest in Central Asia has risen in both Washington and Beijing as the United States seeks to diversify critical mineral supplies away from China and Beijing looks to overland Eurasian routes less vulnerable to maritime disruption. “Both China and the U.S. are trying to escape each other, and they’re meeting each other in Central Asia,” Moriyasu observed. Greater clarity and stability in Kazakhstan’s domestic institutions, he argued, could strengthen Astana’s ability to maintain its multi-vector foreign policy and contribute to gradual regional consolidation.

What comes next

With final results certified and the first session scheduled for 28 August, attention turns to the practical launch of the new system: formation of the government, the appointment of a vice president, and the early legislative agenda of a chamber in which one party holds a commanding majority while four others retain a formal presence.

The high turnout and orderly conduct of the vote have been widely noted. Whether the new Kurultai delivers more responsive and effective governance – and how the dominant Adilet faction works with the smaller parties – will determine if the constitutional redesign of 2026 translates into lasting political change.

On 13 August, Zambia re-elected President Hakainde Hichilema for a second term in a historic landslide vote which was independently verified against public polling-station records. Yet since that day, a handful of so-called statistical critiques have circulated questioning the result. It is crucial to walk through what the underlying data actually show, writes Dr Namuunda Mutombo.

Start with how the count was verified from the more than 13,000 polling stations. Results in Zambia are recorded on Gen 20 forms, completed and displayed publicly at each polling station, in front of party agents and observers, before a single figure travels anywhere. That is the record of what happened, station by station, and it is available for anyone to check against the final declaration. Independent monitors did check it. Transparency International Zambia ran its own parallel count against those station-level forms and found it matched the electoral commission's figures to within roughly one percentage point. SADC observers, covering the near totality of the polling stations they visited, reported a calm and orderly process. None of this is the electoral commission grading its own homework. It is outside verification, against a public paper trail, converging on the same number.

The other claim making the rounds is more technical: that in some constituencies, more people voted for president than for their MP, and that this gap is suspicious. As a statistician, I would ask anyone making that argument to first rule out the far more mundane explanation, which is roll-off, the well-documented tendency, in any democracy holding simultaneous elections, for turnout to differ across the ballot depending on how satisfied voters are with each race. Survey work published earlier this year (ironically by those academics now making the negative claims), before a single vote was cast, already told us to expect exactly this pattern here: strong national approval for the president alongside real frustration with sitting MPs in specific provinces. When the geography of the "gap" lines up precisely with where that pre-election dissatisfaction was strongest, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. It is not manipulation. It is Zambians voting for a president and against an MP in the same afternoon, which is their right; and exactly what was predicted.

No election, anywhere, is without noise, complaint, or contested reading of the data. That is not a Zambian shortcoming; it is what elections are in democracies worldwide. The standard by which a result should be judged is not whether every number is uncontested, because by that standard no democracy on earth would ever pass. The standard is whether the process was open enough, and the paper trail public enough, that the disputes can actually be checked, and whether they change the outcome when you do. Here, they don't. Even the more skeptical readings of the data, taken at face value, leave the president's win comfortably intact.

That is, in the end, also the judgment the country's own political actors have reached. The National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Progress, the opposition party which fought a hard campaign and won roughly 60 parliamentary seats in the process, has formally accepted the result, congratulated President Hichilema, and said it will now focus on its role as a check on government from within Parliament. That is what functioning democratic competition looks like: parties that contest hard, then accept the count and get to work.

Zambia's constitution provides a clear, evidence-tested route for any candidate who still disputes the outcome: a petition to the courts, not a headline. That door remains open. What the data do not support is the idea that the result itself is in doubt. I would simply ask that the same rigor applied to the graphs be applied to the conclusions drawn from them.

Dr Namuunda Mutombo is a seasoned Demographer with over two decades of experience. He holds PhD, MA, and BA degrees in Demography, and serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Demography, Population Science, Monitoring & Evaluation at the University of Zambia.

Sudan's war has entered a more dangerous phase after fighting spilled across the country's borders, raising fresh concerns about the conflict's regional consequences, writes Mohsin Osman.

The Chadian army accused the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of carrying out an airstrike against a convoy inside Chadian territory. According to the Chadian General Staff, the attack occurred at about 8 p.m. on August 20 in the Mourdi department of Ennedi-Est province, near the Sudanese border. It said aircraft and drones believed to belong to the SAF or its allies pursued and struck the convoy more than 100 kilometres inside Chad. The convoy was reportedly carrying reinforcements for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which the Sudanese army regards as a rebel group.

The US has since condemned the airstrikes, calling for an end to external forces supporting the conflict. Massad Boulos, the US president's senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, said the US government opposed the expansion of violence beyond Sudan's borders and stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict.

“The parties must immediately accept a humanitarian truce, protect civilians, and allow unhindered humanitarian access,” he said.

Bolous also called for the expansion of the UN arms embargo, currently focused on Darfur, to cover the whole of Sudan, while accusing foreign powers of escalating the war.

“The UN Security Council must also act with urgency to ensure that the arms embargo and sanctions regime reflect the realities of the conflict today and hold those fueling and expanding this war accountable. External financial and military support to the warring parties must stop,” he said.

The US has also warned that external support was escalating the war, just as that the growing use of armed drones was obstructing the peace process.

The war began on April 15, 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) amid a deepening power struggle over Sudan’s political transition and the proposed integration of the RSF into the regular army. It has continued despite repeated ceasefire efforts and international initiatives to end the conflict.

The recent strike in Chad has now brought into sharper focus how far the war is spreading and how much the SAF's expanding aerial capabilities depend on foreign support, especially with the presence and prominent use of Turkish drones.

French report highlights Turkey's involvement

French newspaper Le Monde reported that Turkey has emerged as the Sudanese army's principal military supporter since the war began. The report said the Turkish government supplied Bayraktar TB2 and Akıncı drones and deployed instructors alongside them. It also reported that Saudi Arabia financed purchases of Turkish drones and Pakistani weapons for the SAF.

The report comes on the heels of Turkey's deepening political relationship with Sudan's military leadership. On August 7, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, which provides that an armed attack against any one of the three countries would be regarded as an attack against all three.

According to Le Monde, cooperation among the three countries over Sudan predates the agreement, with Riyadh financing Turkish drones and Pakistani weapons for the SAF. The newspaper also reported a $1.5 billion Pakistani arms contract involving fighter jets, armoured vehicles and drones.

Since late 2024, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 and Akıncı drones have reportedly become part of the Sudanese army’s expanding aerial arsenal. The SAF has also used Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drones, while Chinese-made CH-95 and FH-95 systems have been deployed by the RSF, reflecting the growing role of foreign-supplied drone technology in Sudan’s war.

While there is no concrete evidence that a Bayraktar drone carried out the specific strike inside Chad, the presence of Turkish military technology in the Sudanese conflict is increasingly well documented.

In March 2025, The Washington Post reported that Turkish defence company Baykar had supplied the Sudanese army with at least $120 million worth of military equipment, including TB2 drones and hundreds of warheads. The investigation, based on contracts, correspondence, registries and visual material, also documented Baykar personnel providing technical support in Sudan.

In May 2026, Chatham House examined reports of Turkish drone supplies to the SAF while noting Ankara's denial of direct deliveries. The relationship took on a clearer political dimension in June, when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in Ankara. The Turkish presidency said the two countries were seeking to expand cooperation in trade, agriculture, energy and defence.

This places Turkey's role in Sudan beyond the question of individual drone deliveries. Turkey is deepening ties with the military leadership while presenting itself as a diplomatic actor in the conflict.

Beyond the current battlefield, Turkey's relationship with Sudan dates back decades. But Erdoğan's 2017 meeting with Omar al-Bashir and the agreement to redevelop Suakin underscored Ankara's strategic interest in Sudan's Red Sea coast.

The potential economic stakes here are also substantial. Sudan's eventual reconstruction will require major investment in infrastructure, energy, agriculture and other sectors, while its Red Sea coastline and mineral resources offer significant strategic and commercial opportunities.

Foreign powers are therefore increasingly shaping not only how the war is fought but also the interests that will surround Sudan after the fighting ends. Turkey's expanding relationship with the SAF is part of that wider contest, while the strike inside Chad shows how increasingly difficult it is to contain the war's consequences within Sudan.

Kazakhstan is moving rapidly to position artificial intelligence at the center of its economic modernization strategy, investing in computing infrastructure, skills, startups and Kazakh-language technologies as governments worldwide compete for a place in the emerging AI economy, writes Assel Satubaldina.

Kazakhstan has an increasingly ambitious AI agenda. The government has made AI part of its broader economic modernization strategy, betting that it can improve public services, attract investment and help the country generate more value beyond its traditional reliance on raw materials.  It has been investing heavily in computing infrastructure, training, startup ecosystems, and Kazakh-language models. At the 38th plenary session of the Foreign Investors’ Council in July, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev explicitly called the integration of AI into state investment policy a “critically important priority”. 

The government has adopted a Digital Code and a law on artificial intelligence, launched the Digital Qazaqstan strategy, established a Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, and designated 2026 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development. This push comes at a time as AI is becoming both a major global industry and an increasingly important source of economic and strategic power. UN Trade and Development estimates the global AI market will rise from $189 billion in 2023 to $4.8 trillion by 2033. This is a 25-fold increase in just a decade. 

Globally, AI push is concentrated among a handful of countries. U.S. private AI investment alone reached nearly $286 billion in 2025, more than 23 times the level in China, according to Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index.  Global corporate AI investment more than doubled in 2025, while private companies produced more than 90% of the year’s notable AI models. For emerging economies, the concentration of AI infrastructure in a small number of countries can make this race appear expensive, not to mention that training large language models requires massive quantities of computing power, electricity, connectivity and capital. Kazakhstan is unlikely to compete with the United States or China at the most capital-intensive layer of the AI industry nor does it need to. Experts say its opportunity lies in combining global AI technologies with domestic expertise, while building its own capabilities in areas where dependence creates economic or strategic vulnerabilities.

Strong foundation
The country’s AI push builds on years of its experience of deploying digital technologies at a scale. Advanced technologies are increasingly embedded in government services and banking. “Right now, especially in the artificial intelligence applications in fintech, Kazakhstan is one of the most progressive countries in the world,” Huseyin Atakan Varol, dean of the School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence and director of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence at Nazarbayev University, told The Astana Times.  He pointed to technologies including palm-recognition authentication and AI-powered banking assistants as examples of how quickly digital tools have entered everyday life. International indicators tell a similar story but also expose an important weakness.

Kazakhstan ranks 10th globally for online government services, according to figures from the World Intellectual Property Organization. Yet it ranks 115th for university-industry collaboration and 112th for venture-capital deal activity relative to the size of its economy. Dr. Varol said Kazakhstan still allocates a relatively small share of its economy to research and development, with the government providing most of that funding. While spending on science has increased in recent years, spending on research and development does not reach 1%.  “Nearly all of this allocation comes from the state, very little from the private companies,” he said. “So basically, industry, academia, government interaction, the triple helix structure is not yet fully working in Kazakhstan.”

That may prove to be one of the important constraints on Kazakhstan’s AI ambitions. While the government can establish institutions, purchase computing infrastructure and train specialistics, building a durable innovation economy requires more. Alem.AI center in Astana is intended to help close that gap by connecting education, research, startups and companies.  “We have some real and simple goals. The first one is to build a community of professionals, who not just use but understand what AI actually is. It means that we train different categories,” Alyona Slavkina, head of the Alem.AI Development Office, told The Astana Times. 

The community is supposed to include schoolchildren, students, working professionals, researchers and entrepreneurs. The idea is to create a pathway from first exposure to AI to education, research and eventually the development of commercial products. The challenge, however, is that AI is evolving faster than conventional education systems. Olzhas Urazalin, head of Tomorrow School, said technologies and development tools can change within months, while formal academic programs often require years to adapt. “Many graduates have strong theoretical knowledge, but very limited experience working with modern AI tools, real data sets, and product development.

\This indeed creates a gap between learning and creation. Young specialists often learn how to use existing AI solutions, but they rarely get the opportunity to understand how these systems are built, or how to develop new ones,” Urazalin said.  Tomorrow School is built around an alternative model. Students learn primarily through projects rather than conventional lectures and work on real problems brought into the curriculum by businesses. The program is free, runs for 18 months and is open to applicants without traditional technology backgrounds. “In my opinion, Kazakhstan must focus on developing, first of all, creators, not only consumers of AI technology,” he said, highlighting talent, infrastructure, and international collaboration as priorities. 

Development pathways
Dr. Varol describes two broad pathways for technological development. One is indigenous development, which requires substantial investment, time and a long-term commitment. The other is what he calls “technological piggybacking,” adopting technologies already developed elsewhere. For Kazakhstan, Varol said that generative AI requires elements of both approaches.  “We have been also debating and discussing a lot about what is the best strategy for Kazakhstan, especially in the development of generative AI technologies. Our internal deliberations always pointed out that we must develop these technologies indigenously as well,” he said. 

Varol also stressed that developing domestic capabilities is not only about owning a model, but also about creating a pool of specialists with expertise who can later move into startups, established companies and new commercial products. Recent events also demonstrated that access to foreign technologies can become subject to government restrictions. In June, the US government temporarily imposed export controls barring foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, including foreign-national employees of Anthropic itself.  “Creators of these technologies can stop your access to these technologies and this creates a very big dependence risk,” said Dr. Varol. 

Technological sovereignty, however, should not be confused with technological self-sufficiency. Mohamed Eissa, chief investment officer at the International Finance Corporation, emphasized that this explains why emerging markets are unlikely to compete directly at that layer of the industry.  “You are not seeing LLMs [large language models] being developed in emerging markets because you need compute, connectivity, power,” Eissa said. “Those things are big infrastructure gaps in emerging markets.” But he draws an important distinction between building AI infrastructure and using AI.

He pointed to a rapidly growing AI company in content creation that originated from Kazakhstan as an example. “But using AI in emerging markets, you don’t need to build that to be able to use it. That is an opportunity in emerging markets: finding innovative people who have really good ICT skills, have focused on a business problem and now have the tools to compete with Silicon Valley,” he said during The Development Podcast on the World Bank Group YouTube channel. 

That may be one of the most important opportunities for Kazakhstan. According to him, in emerging markets, the much larger opportunity may be the application of AI to businesses that already exist. Likewise, in Kazakhstan, potential economic impact of AI should not be measured only by how many programmers, AI startups or research laboratories the nation generates, but rather by whether this technology raises productivity gains across the wider economy. 

Existing strengths
Dr. Varol said some of the applications of AI lie in sectors where the country already has an expertise. Mining, energy and logistics are among them.  “Kazakhstan is one of the richest countries with respect to mining and natural resources, but most of these natural resources are exported with a small amount of added value to other countries,” he said.  Using AI and digital technologies in those industries, he noted, could allow Kazakhstan to generate more value from resources before they leave the country. Where dependence matters  There are areas, however, where Kazakhstan has stronger reasons to maintain domestic capabilities. Dr. Varol said questions about where information is processed and stored become significantly more consequential when AI systems are used by companies or public institutions.

“In general, I believe this is also very important with respect to the sovereignty aspects of a country,” he added.  Language presents a different form of dependence. Global AI systems are trained on enormous quantities of data, but languages are represented very unevenly in those datasets.  Dr. Varol said approximately half of publicly accessible internet content is in English, compared with only around 0.03% in Kazakh. That means developing Kazakh-language AI starts long before a model is trained. ISSAI, which was founded in 2019, has developed the country’s first LLM in 2024. Drawing on the institute’s experience, Dr. Varol explained that researchers first need to collect texts and other data, remove poor-quality material, organize the information and convert it into formats suitable for machine learning. Researchers faced another problem once a model has been trained on how to determine whether it actually understands the language. “Because the internationally accepted method for doing this is called model benchmarking and all model benchmarks are in English language or Chinese language, but none were in Kazakh language. Basically, we also have created a suite of benchmarking data sets,” he said. 

The development of Kazakhstan’s LLM illustrates another benefit of indigenous AI development. The process itself creates capabilities. The team had to recruit and train specialists while learning to operate multi-node AI computing infrastructure, expertise that had not previously been used at that scale. The significance of the project therefore extends beyond the model it produced. It helped build a domestic pool of engineers with experience in the infrastructure and workflows required for advanced AI development. Kazakhstan’s AI strategy therefore does not require choosing between complete technological independence and reliance on global platforms. The more realistic task is to determine which capabilities the country needs to control, which technologies it can efficiently import and where AI can create the greatest economic value.

• Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev outlined key priorities for Kazakhstan's education system at the annual August Conference of Teachers. Qazinform News Agency summarized the main points of his speech.

Based on the objectives outlined by the head of state, schools must simultaneously deliver quality education, foster self-confident individuals, and prepare young people for the new opportunities of the digital economy.

More schools, less shortage

Among the top priorities, the President identified the continued building of high-quality schools in all regions, particularly in areas still facing a shortage of school places.

"This is a pressing task of national importance. From next year, it is necessary to begin this work without any delays. Next year, we must ensure rapid construction," he instructed.

Reform is not an experiment

President Tokayev also addressed the numerous changes taking place in the education system.

"We must stop empty, content-free reforms done for the sake of reforms. In other words, reforms and changes are certainly indispensable, but they should not drain all the strength and stress out of teachers. Before implementing each reform – and this applies especially to education – we must conduct a comprehensive analysis and thoroughly verify it is effective," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said.

Cutting red tape for teachers

The President also called for relieving teachers of excessive paperwork, meddlesome certification procedures, and unrelated workloads.

"Reports keep coming in about teachers being pulled into repair work and various public events that have nothing to do with the learning process. We agreed long ago that this is unacceptable. The Ministry of Enlightenment and regional akimats must focus on improving the legal and regulatory framework, building an effective learning process, and carefully analyzing curricula," he noted.

Raising a "nation of winners"

A significant portion of the Head of State's speech was dedicated to educating children and youth. In his view, the education system must foster confident individuals capable of overcoming challenges.

"It is the duty of teachers to nurture new generations of optimists – not those consumed by sorrow, insecure, and spreading seeds of depression. We are a nation of winners, ready to overcome all difficulties and threats, looking confidently only forward, believing in a bright future – not searching for the causes of tragedies, defeats, failures, or psychological complexes in our historical past or in other states and peoples," President Tokayev emphasized.

Rethinking historical narratives

The President also pointed to the need to revise educational materials, which, he said, contain unreliable facts and mythologized heroes.

"Raising children in a spirit of patriotism by spreading false, fabricated information will inevitably undermine the moral backbone of our people. I have said many times that we must abandon the image and character of an eternally grieving nation.

Sorrow is a bad companion for our youth. I can tell you that for sure. Our young people must understand their people's history correctly and look to the future with hope and confidence," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev underscored.

Digital protection for children

The Government is entrusted with fast-tracking legislation banning under-16s from social media (a bill already submitted to Parliament in June) and to step up content filtering.

The President stressed that relying solely on parental responsibility is not enough, and called for scaling up mandatory children's SIM cards as a tool for "informational immunity."

AI as a tool for earning

Tokayev also announced that in his upcoming State of the Nation Address, he will set the goal of involving young people, including those in rural areas, in using digital tools and AI to generate income.

"We are to transition from a digital state to a digital people's economy. In other words, artificial intelligence and its tools are not fun toys – they are means of making a living. That is how it should be. In higher education, an inter-university standard already exists that addresses the ethical, legal, and organizational aspects of AI use. The Government must introduce a similar standard in secondary and vocational education," the President instructed.

Key message

The President's core message is that education is not just a sector — it is a tool for shaping a modern individual: confident, not dwelling on past grievances, capable of earning income through digital technology, and protected by the state.

And there we have it: yet another proposed date for parliamentary elections in Serbia. This time, according to President Aleksandar Vučić, they may take place on either 18 or 25 October, writes Helena Ivanov.

But, this is not the first date the President has suggested. Earlier this year, July was among the possibilities mentioned – which, obviously, did not happen. In June, Vučić went considerably further, announcing that he would remain President for only a few more weeks, after which he would resign and support the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, potentially as its candidate for Prime Minister. More than a few weeks have since passed, and he remains President.

In the meantime, October, November, December and even January 2027 have all been suggested at various points in the never-ending discussion over when Serbia will actually go to the polls.

And then, a few days ago, speaking to the Radio Television of Serbia, the country’s public broadcaster, Vučić claimed that he had finally made his decision: parliamentary elections would take place on either 18 or 25 October. Even this supposedly final announcement, of course, still leaves us with two dates.

A foreign reader may reasonably wonder why there has been so much drama over when, exactly, Serbia will hold its next elections. But domestically, this constant pushing back of the date has raised eyebrows for another reason: Vučić has historically been anything but reluctant to call an election.

Since the Serbian Progressive Party came to power in 2012, Serbia has held four rounds of snap parliamentary elections: in 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2023. Snap elections have, in other words, become quite regular in Serbia’s political life.

Vučić repeatedly used them at times of political pressure. When the country entered a crisis, or when protests threatened to gain momentum, an election offered an opportunity to reset the political landscape. Most recently, after the two mass shootings in May 2023 triggered months of large anti-government protests, Serbia went to early parliamentary elections that December. Vučić’s coalition won, and the protest movement gradually lost momentum.

The political logic was relatively straightforward. Each electoral victory allowed Vučić to present the result as renewed democratic legitimacy and, in practice, helped kill the momentum from the streets.

This time, however, things have been different.

The student-led protests that began following the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024 grew into something far more durable than previous protest movements. More importantly, they eventually transformed from a protest movement into one that is openly demanding political change. Since May 2025, students have explicitly called for snap elections.

Unlike previous waves of protest, this one did not simply disappear after several weeks or months. It survived for well over a year, repeatedly bringing enormous numbers of people onto the streets across Serbia. For example, on 15^th March 2025, it is estimated that as many as 350,000 people attended the protest in Belgrade, making it the largest protest in Serbia’s contemporary political history.

The students have also stated that they intend to contest the election through a list of 250 MP candidates. Crucially, these candidates are not expected to be the students themselves. Rather, the movement has been selecting people it considers capable of representing its demands, while deliberately distancing itself from both the existing opposition and the ruling establishment. As of today, the names of those on the list remain unknown, with students stating that the list will only become public when the elections are officially called.

And yet, despite his previous willingness to resort to elections to end the protests, Vučić spent more than a year refusing to give the students precisely what they were asking for.

That reversal inevitably produced speculation that, unlike on previous occasions, the President was no longer quite as confident that an election would resolve the crisis in his favour. Vučić himself has never said anything to suggest that he fears losing, and he continues to project confidence in his party’s prospects. But he has also never offered a particularly convincing reason for why a political leader who once reached for snap elections so readily became so reluctant to call one all of a sudden.

This is ultimately why the endless discussion over dates matters. The question is not whether Serbia votes on 18^th October, 25^th October or some later date. It is why elections, once one of Vučić’s favourite tools for consolidating power, suddenly became something he appeared determined to postpone for as long as possible.

There is one potential, and relatively simple answer: he needed time to get his ducks in order, weaken the protests’ momentum, and try to win the public back before going to the polls. And indeed, while Vučić has been reluctant to formally call elections, he has certainly not been reluctant to campaign. Quite the opposite. For months, he has been campaigning in full gear.

He has toured Serbia, met citizens, announced new projects and attempted to address some of the voters’ grievances. He has promised another package of direct financial assistance, including the possibility of cash payments to all adult citizens. In July, Vučić also launched the Ko si bre ti? [Who The Hell Do You Think You Are?] portal, through which citizens can anonymously report public officials for corruption, abuse of office, or unlawful behaviour.

The political purpose is not particularly difficult to understand. The message is that Vučić has heard the public, that he understands why people are angry, and that he will fix the very problems that brought people onto the streets in the first place.

Moreover, by launching the portal, Vučić has reinforced the message that citizens’ grievances are not his fault, but that of other officials whom he intends to hold accountable.

Of course, Vučić’s campaign has also been accompanied by sustained media attacks against the students and virtually anyone associated with the movement, aimed at discrediting the protesters, their demands and, increasingly, their very ability to govern the country.

The same campaigning effort is visible in foreign policy. Vučić has continued doing what he has always done particularly well: maintaining relationships in virtually every direction and presenting himself domestically as the only figure capable of speaking to everyone.

In May, despite the EU’s pressure not to do so, he went to Moscow for the Victory Day parade. That same month, he travelled to China for a state visit with Xi Jinping. He has repeatedly courted the Trump administration and publicly invited President Donald Trump to Serbia on many occasions. In July, to the surprise of many, the European Commission recommended opening Cluster 3 in Serbia’s EU Accession talks, although the move was ultimately blocked by several member states. And, perhaps most strikingly, in August, Vučić hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Belgrade, despite Serbia refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow. All of this has reinforced one of Vučić’s key messages: that he is the only man capable of keeping Serbia on good terms with Beijing, Washington, Brussels, Moscow and now apparently Kyiv simultaneously and at a geopolitically very complex time.

Taken together, Vučić’s strategy becomes fairly obvious: delay the elections for as long as possible, use the extra time to get a head start on campaigning, and call them only once he believes the political tide has turned sufficiently in his favour. This also gives him a considerable advantage once the official campaign begins, as his opponents will only have a few weeks to catch up with what has effectively been his months-long campaign.

The real test will therefore begin when the elections are finally called. The students have demonstrated that they can mobilise hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. They now have to demonstrate that they can turn that mobilisation into votes and defeat a political veteran who has spent more than a decade perfecting the art of winning elections.

As for Vučić, he is set to find out whether the political instrument he once used so effectively to end protests can still save him from the most persistent protest movement of his rule.

Artificial intelligence is becoming part of the machinery of modern markets. Banks, hedge funds and trading firms are using increasingly sophisticated models to identify opportunities, manage risk and execute trades, writes Amir Naser Hojati.

Most discussion focuses on one question: What happens when an AI model gets something wrong?

I think there is another risk.

What happens when many good models reach the same conclusion at the same time?

After roughly 15 years of trading futures, I have learned that markets often become dangerous not because one participant is wrong, but because too many become convinced of the same thing.

As traders sometimes say: when everyone moves to the same side of the boat, start watching the waterline.

Different models, same trade

Financial institutions may believe they are diversified because they use different models, vendors and strategies.

But those systems may still be learning from similar information: price history, volatility, order flow, economic data and news sentiment. They may also be optimizing toward similar goals.

Different models do not need to be identical to produce the same trade.

Several independent systems can simultaneously decide to reduce the same exposure, buy the same asset or hedge the same risk.

That creates hidden dependence.

A market can appear diversified while many supposedly independent systems are reacting to the same information in similar ways.

The real vulnerability may therefore not be one bad model, but the connection between many good ones.

Markets have seen this before

Crowded trades are nothing new.

Portfolio managers react to the same data. Traders watch the same levels. Risk desks cut exposure when volatility rises.

Technology increases the speed of those reactions. AI may also increase their consistency.

Humans disagree, hesitate or sometimes simply choose to do nothing.

Machines are less likely to disagree unless that behaviour is deliberately built into them.

If many models detect the same deterioration in risk and begin reducing exposure simultaneously, individually rational decisions can produce an irrational market outcome.

Each model may be doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The market can still become unstable.

Historical success can be dangerous

A strategy can perform well for years because market conditions remain broadly familiar.

That history creates confidence.

But markets do not owe us tomorrow because something worked yesterday.

One of the most dangerous moments is not when a model is obviously failing, but when it has accumulated enough successful history that people stop questioning its assumptions.

A calm sea can make almost any captain look skilled.

For AI-driven markets, the important question should therefore not only be:

How accurate is this model?

It should also be:

What assumptions does this model share with everyone else's?

More intelligence is not always more resilience

The usual response to model risk is to add more: more data, more parameters, another model, another control.

But resilience does not always come from adding complexity.

Sometimes it comes from removing exposure.

A system may become safer not because it predicts markets more accurately, but because it knows when conditions are unsuitable for taking risk.

That is one of the hardest lessons to translate from discretionary trading into automation.

Finding a trading signal is relatively easy.

Teaching a machine when a valid signal should be ignored is much harder.

Experienced traders know that a setup can look perfectly good and still not deserve capital. The market may be too crowded, liquidity may be changing, or correlations may be breaking down.

Sometimes the best trade is no trade.

Diversity of behaviour matters

Using several different AI models does not necessarily provide diversification if all of them react to stress in the same way.

Real diversification may require different behaviour, not just different architecture.

When should a model refuse to trade?

When should it reduce confidence?

When should it respond more slowly?

And how should it behave when the actions of other models are themselves changing the market?

That matters because financial markets are not ordinary prediction problems.

Predicting the weather does not change the weather.

Predicting a market can change the market because participants act on the prediction.

As more intelligent systems enter that feedback loop, their collective behaviour may become as important as the quality of any individual model.

The next edge may be restraint

Financial institutions will continue building faster and more powerful models.

But I suspect the next competitive advantage will not come only from making machines better at finding trades.

It will also come from making them better at recognizing when everyone else has found the same trade.

Markets have always punished excessive certainty eventually.

AI does not remove that principle. It may simply allow certainty to spread faster.

The smartest trading systems of the next decade may therefore be distinguished not only by how quickly they act, but by something harder to program:

Kknowing when not to join the crowd.

Amir Naser Hojati is a futures trader and fintech entrepreneur with around 15 years of experience in financial markets. His work focuses on algorithmic trading, automated risk management, and AI-driven trading systems.

It is a mistake to respond to antisemitic accusations, writes Fiamma Nirenstein.

Would responding have served any purpose at the time of the racial laws and the deportations? No. The intention is the same: to eliminate the Jews and their independent state, Israel.

There is no point responding to those who claim on social media that organs are removed from children killed by Jews—an accusation that echoes the ancient blood libel of Jews murdering children for their blood.

Nor is there any point arguing with professors who describe an all-powerful “Israeli lobby” controlling Italian politics.

Who is going to reason with the owner of yet another Swiss hotel that expels Israeli tourists? Or with the thugs who beat up a family on the streets of Athens?

Who will argue with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who, together with the UN General Assembly president, Annalena Baerbock, recently lit a memorial flame for deceased UN personnel, including Imad El Samhouri, a United Nations Relief and Works Agency employee who was also a Hamas terrorist and whose videos invoked death as a shahid?

And who wants to shout themselves hoarse arguing with Hollywood, Turkey, Canada and the rest? Don’t answer them.

In Hollywood, more than 200 figures from the worlds of film, music and culture backed a campaign calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli prison, including actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton. They neglect to mention that Barghouti is serving five life sentences after an Israeli court convicted him in 2004 of five murders and involvement in a string of terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada.

We must stop feeling obliged to argue that Jews are good, that Jews are innocent or that Israel has the right to defend itself. Anyone genuinely interested in the evidence can find it. The facts are available to everyone.

The accusations of colonialism, genocide, racism and systematic cruelty directed at Israel are contradicted by history and by evidence that has been documented and quantified.

Consider the United Nations.

In 2025, the U.N. General Assembly adopted 15 resolutions singling out Israel, compared with 11 concerning all other countries in the world combined, six of them concerning Russia.

That disparity illustrates how politics manufactures hatred of Jews.

Antisemitism today is not simply a matter of prejudice or ignorance. It has become a political instrument. It is used to obtain votes, influence, positions, money and power.

The United Nations exploits it in its alignment with the Third World and Islamic blocs. Turkey and Iran exploit it through Islamism. Political movements exploit hatred of Israel while claiming to champion human rights.

In reality, hatred of Israel has become both a substitute for human rights and their graveyard.

That is why explanations are not enough.

What is required is political struggle: criminal complaints where laws are broken, legislation where protections are inadequate and serious scrutiny of the political and financial interests behind campaigns targeting Israel and Jews.

It also means defending the rights that Israel’s enemies so often disregard: the rights of children, women, gays and political dissidents.

It means defending security, of which Israel remains a guardian.

It means reclaiming universities and political parties from ideologies that have transformed hostility toward Israel into an acceptable political creed.

And it means establishing institutional boundaries for businesses, hotels, media organizations and cultural festivals that discriminate against Israelis or legitimize antisemitism.

Italy has even witnessed a general strike directed against Israel. Nor is there any point arguing with those who describe an all-powerful “Israeli lobby” controlling Italian politics, supposedly headed by none other than Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

This is no longer merely a debate about foreign policy. It is a political war.

The battle against antisemitism cannot be won by endlessly answering every lie. It must be fought where antisemitism now operates: in politics, institutions, universities, international organizations and culture.

The fight against antisemitism can restore the human rights that have been buried beneath the genocidal slogan: “From the river to the sea.”

The Belgian federal government has nominated Hans Kluge (pictured) for the position of Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“I am very honoured by the trust Belgium has placed in me and am grateful for the opportunity to take on this important responsibility,” Kluge said on X. “Serving the WHO has been the greatest privilege of my professional life.”

Kluge has served as WHO Regional Director for Europe since 2020 and began a second term in February 2025. Under WHO rules, he will step aside as WHO/Europe Director while campaigning for the role, a process that involves lobbying member states, NGOs and the organisation's largest funders.

Tried and tested
After qualifying as a doctor in Belgium, he began his international career with Médecins Sans Frontières in conflict settings in Liberia and Somalia. He subsequently coordinated tuberculosis programmes in Siberian prisons and across the former Soviet Union.

Kluge joined WHO in 1999, initially working on tuberculosis and HIV in...

Kazakhstan plans to turn two of the world’s largest undeveloped tungsten deposits into the country’s first full-cycle tungsten operation, requiring ore to be processed domestically rather than exported as raw material as Astana seeks to capture more value from its critical mineral reserves, writes Assel Satubaldina.

The Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty deposits are being developed by a venture between US-based Cove Capital, which holds a 70% stake, and Kazakhstan’s state mining company Tau-Ken Samruk, with 30%. Cove Capital is expected to provide at least $1.1 billion in financing as well as processing technology and access to international markets. The agreement was signed in November 2025 during President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to Washington DC.

The partners formalized the investment in February, signing a package of transaction documents, including a sale and purchase agreement and a shareholders’ agreement, for the critical minerals project. The mines are located in the Shet district of the Karagandy Region, close to transport and transport and energy communications. Karagandy, the region’s administrative center, is around 130 kilometers from the deposits.  “The Northern Katpar project involves establishing a full production cycle in Kazakhstan, from ore mining and beneficiation to metallurgical processing, based on the Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty deposits. This is the first project of its kind to be implemented in Kazakhstan,” Tau-Ken Samruk told The Astana Times. Its planned output includes ammonium paratungstate, or APT, a key processed product in the tungsten supply chain.

The agreement envisages processing all extracted ore domestically and producing higher-value tungsten products in Kazakhstan. 

The timeline

The project is currently in the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) phase, meaning its final production capacity, economics and launch date have yet to be determined. “This work will confirm and optimize the existing feasibility studies, and refine the project’s economic and technical indicators, as well as its mineral resources and reserves. As part of the project’s implementation, preparatory and technical work is scheduled to begin on-site, including topographic surveying, the construction of temporary access roads and fencing, the preparation of drilling sites, the opening of a field office, and other related activities,” said Tau-Ken. 

The definitive feasibility study, which began in July, is expected to be completed before the end of 2027, Cove Kaz Capital told The Astana Times.  “The principal objective of this stage is to finalize the overall mine plan, define the parameters of the processing facilities and prepare the project for a Final Investment Decision, as well as for detailed due diligence by prospective financing partners,” the company’s CEO Dominic Heaton told The Astana Times. The company said physical activity has commenced at the site in July, including surveying, access road and drill pad preparation, and establishment of field facilities. 

Untapped potential 

The two deposits are considered among the world’s biggest undeveloped tungsten deposits. Together, the deposits contain an estimated 410,000 metric tons of tungsten trioxide reserves under JORC standards, while total resources are estimated at 1.4 million tons, according to previous studies cited by Tau-Ken.  Cove Capital said a key distinction is between mineral resources and mineral reserves.  “The current figure represents JORC-compliant [JORC refers to an internationally recognized reporting standard used to classify and publicly report mineral exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves] mineral resources, while the ongoing DFS [Definitive Feasibility Study] will further update the geological and technical data and optimize the development plan for the deposits,” said Heaton.

“Based on existing studies, Northern Katpar has the potential to support production of approximately 5,000 metric tons per annum, while Upper Kairakty has the potential to contribute approximately 7,000 metric tons per annum. Combined production of approximately  12,000 tons per year would be equivalent to roughly 15% of current global tungsten mine production,” Heaton explained. The company is also developing the Akbulak rare earth project in the Kostanai Region with Qazgeology national geological exploration company. 

The financing Under the agreement, the U.S. partner is expected to provide at least $1.1 billion in financing, introduce modern processing and beneficiation technologies, build a complex of production facilities and develop international sales channels for the output. The partners formalized the investment in February, signing a package of transaction documents. Photo credit sk.kz “The approximately $1.1 billion figure represents the current estimate of the total investment required to develop Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty, including the associated mining and processing infrastructure. It does not mean that the full amount has already been financed, committed or deployed,” said Heaton.

At this stage, Cove Kaz Capital Group has financed the acquisition of its 70% controlling stake in Northern Katpar, along with site preparation, drilling and work related to the definitive feasibility study.  “An important component of the prospective financing structure is the interest expressed by U.S. government-backed financial institutions. The Export-Import Bank of the United States has issued a Letter of Interest for financing of up to $900 million, while the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation has issued a Letter of Interest for up to $700 million, including project financing and development support,” Heaton explained.  Potential financing could reach $1.6 billion, but the figure remains indicative rather than committed, Heaton added.

The amounts represent expressions of interest from prospective lenders, with the final financing package still contingent on completion of the definitive feasibility study, lender due diligence and a final investment decision.

Why it matters

What this project illustrates is that Kazakhstan is betting on higher-value domestic processing rather than remaining primarily a supplier of raw tungsten ore or concentrate. Cove Capital said it seeks to create an integrated domestic value chain in Kazakhstan, spanning mining, beneficiation and downstream chemical processing.  “The principal benchmark product currently planned for the Kazakhstan refinery is ammonium paratungstate, or APT, a high-purity intermediate product that is the internationally recognized benchmark product of the tungsten industry.

The project may also have the potential to produce other tungsten compounds depending on the final technical configuration,” Heaton explained.  Deeper processing would allow Kazakhstan to retain more of the value generated from its tungsten resources rather than exporting mainly ore or concentrate.  “APT is subsequently used to produce tungsten oxides and powders, tungsten carbide, hard metals and other specialized materials used across advanced manufacturing, high-technology and defense-related industries,” said Heaton. Kazakhstan launched the Boguty facility, its first tungsten project, in 2024 in the Almaty Region.

Global tungsten dynamics

According to the US Geological Survey, tungsten is a strategically important metal used primarily in tungsten carbide for mining, construction and metalworking, as well as in electronics, aerospace, high-performance alloys and defense applications. Its combination of hardness, heat resistance and high density makes it difficult to substitute in many industrial uses. Tungsten is relatively scarce in the Earth’s crust, ranking 57th among chemical elements by abundance. Its wide industrial use stems from a combination of distinctive properties. No other known metal matches tungsten in heat resistance, and its boiling point is close to the temperature at the Sun’s surface.

China has remained the world’s leading producer, importer and consumer of tungsten concentrates.  The project is advancing at a time when tungsten is taking an increasingly greater geopolitical importance as the U.S. and other economies seek to diversify critical mineral supply chains away from China. Beijing tightened controls on exports of selected tungsten products and related technologies in February 2025, adding pressure to already concentrated global supply chains.

The restrictions, alongside growing demand and trade tensions, helped push tungsten prices sharply higher in 2025. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, throughout 2025, prices went up from $266 to $551 per metric ton unit for 65% concentrate and from $331 to $675 per metric ton unit for APT. “At the same time, the strategic importance of secure and diversified critical mineral supply chains is growing rapidly. The United States, the G7 and other advanced economies are actively seeking to reduce reliance on highly concentrated sources of supply and support the development of alternative supply chains. Tungsten is one of the critical minerals receiving particular attention in this context,” said Heaton.

Kazakhstan is emerging as a potential alternative supplier. Production began at the Boguty tungsten deposit in the Almaty Region in 2024, operated by Aral Kegen, a subsidiary of China’s Jiaxin International Resources Investment. The project with Cove Capital is also emerging as part of a broader build-out of Kazakhstan’s tungsten industry, with additional deposits moving toward development. The country’s total tungsten trioxide reserves are estimated at more than two million metric tons. Esil-Mining, owned by Britain’s Resources Enterprise Limited, plans to begin developing the Aksoran deposit in northern Kazakhstan in 2027, with production targeted for 2028. 

The planned development of Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty would take the country further downstream by combining extraction with domestic processing rather than exporting raw material. “More broadly, our strategy is to build a portfolio of critical mineral assets in Kazakhstan and Central Asia supported by domestic processing and refining capacity,” said Heaton. He emphasized this ambition is supported by the country’s substantial mineral resource base, a mature mining sector, extensive geological data and established industrial infrastructure. “Just as importantly, Kazakhstan is increasingly focused on moving beyond the extraction and export of raw materials toward higher-value processing and manufacturing,” he added. The project illustrates Kazakhstan’s broader effort to extract more economic value from its mineral wealth by pairing foreign capital with domestic processing. But major questions, including production capacity, final economics and the start of commercial output, remain unresolved while the venture completes its definitive feasibility study.