Kazakh billionaire Timur Turlov brings his chequebook to the battle for world chess

Kazakh billionaire is the front runner to take over as president of FIDE, the world chess federation, in a controversial and hard fought election. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Leon Aris in Samarkand September 25, 2026

Three businessmen are battling to become the new president of the global chess federation, and Kazakh billionaire Timur Turlov is campaigning with his personal chequebook open. In Samarkand, the annual Chess Olympiad has doubled as backdrop to the end of the campaign trail.

With days to go before FIDE's (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) delegates vote for a new president, the candidates have been working the halls of the biggest Olympiad ever staged. Some 400 teams - 208 in the Open section and 192 in the Women's - have come to Samarkand, beating the record of 380 set in Budapest in 2024, and nearly 2,000 players, around 240 of them grandmasters, are competing in the first Olympiad ever held in Central Asia. Turlov has made himself unusually easy for the press to reach, squeezing interviews in between a lunch with delegates, commission meetings and a string of one-on-ones. "He doesn't shy away from interviews," said his media adviser, Milan Denic, adding that this is why Turlov likes to call himself his own campaign manager.

"We're feeling, frankly, ourselves extremely strong now in terms of position," he told journalists in Samarkand, the legendary city in the middle of the ancient Silk Road.

For the first time in FIDE's history, according to former president Arkady Dvorkovich, all three candidates come from business rather than from the chess world or politics. With three wealthy businessmen in the field, finances are playing a bigger role than in past FIDE races. And Turlov brings the largest business of the three front runners: he is chief executive of Nasdaq-listed brokerage Freedom Holding Corp and president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation. His wealth is also where his rivals aim their fire, arguing that his bid blurs the line between a corporation and a sporting body.

The backstop

One of the central pillars of Turlov's plans for FIDE is a financial guarantee. He told IntelliNews he has committed at least $8.5mn to FIDE development funds over a four-year term and expects the final sum to pass $10mn.

The money breaks down into roughly $7mn of core development money plus a further $1.5mn earmarked for media. The core fund is meant to pay for open tournaments, coaching and arbiter training, and to subsidise travel for young talent from federations with less resources. Turlov called $8.5mn a floor rather than a ceiling. "I think it will be more than $10mn for sure," he said.

Asked whose money it would be, his own or Freedom's, he answered: "I think it's both. My personal guarantee is there at the end of the day, but I'm almost sure Freedom will also join me," he told IntelliNews in an exclusive interview, adding that he would, "persuade my board".

The weakness of a personal guarantee is that it is personal. When asked whether the money would walk out the door with him if he lost a re-election bid in 2030, Turlov conceded that "nobody knows what will happen in the next few years". He said he expected to remain wealthy enough to keep giving. He also said he would be happy to stay involved and help a new team run FIDE, as he had with Dvorkovich's administration, the outgoing FIDE president.

Freedom Holding has been actively sponsoring chess events long before Turlov’s bid for the presidency, such as organising a world blitz chess tournament on Wall Street in New York in December 2024 as well as the first chess open in Kazakhstan last year.

Making rock stars

The most concrete part of his programme is $1.5mn a year, for at least four years, to build media operations at member federations. It would fund training and dedicated staff, which Turlov says many smaller federations cannot afford. FIDE's own central media team would get a separate and bigger budget.

His logic is commercial. He described chess as a club of smart, wealthy and powerful people, and said governments and corporations will pay to be associated with it. He pointed to FIDE's recent sponsorship deal with Salesforce, which he called the largest single sponsorship contract in the organisation's history. The missing piece, he argued, is visibility.

"If we make our chess players real rock stars, if we make our events attractive and popular for the media, we will definitely achieve much better financial sustainability and independence for each member federation," he said.

The approach has already worked at home, where the Kazakhstan Chess Federation has become one of the country's most popular sports bodies.

Where Freedom ends

His critics' sharpest question is how to separate FIDE from Freedom. The group already has a hand in digital chess: its customers can earn mobile data by solving chess puzzles, and it owns the chess software company ChessBase. Meanwhile, Turlov wants FIDE to take a bigger role in regulating online play. That would leave a Freedom-owned platform operating under rules set by a body its chief executive runs.

The overlap sits exactly where FIDE's reformers want change. Dvorkovich told IntelliNews in an interview in Samarkand that digital transformation is one of the two things FIDE most needs.

"Most of our systems are still based on the previous generation of digital technology, if not an even older one, and that hurts," he said. "We are not using all the potential we have with such a massive base of players and chess lovers.”

Asked whether he would publish every contract between FIDE and Freedom and step back from those decisions, Turlov said he would recuse himself from any deal involving ChessBase and "make things as transparent as possible". He stopped short of committing to publish the contracts but said he did not expect there to be many.

Any such deal would also be vetted from both sides. On Freedom's side, it would count as a related-party transaction at a listed company, so it would have to be approved by an audit committee made up entirely of independent members. "The same would happen on the FIDE side," he said.

On the wider question of wearing both hats, as FIDE president and as Freedom's chief executive, Turlov did not see much of a problem. He pointed to Freedom's existing sponsorship of sport at home.

"I've never seen much conflict of interest between Freedom and a chess federation, or other non-profit activities, such as football in Kazakhstan," he said, adding that he would follow best practice on related-party deals.

He described Freedom as "a financial ecosystem" with no major potential interests in chess. Asked whether keeping the two apart would be hard, he was emphatic: "I'm sure it won't be difficult.”

Dvorkovich's man?

His rivals also cast him as the machine candidate: Dvorkovich's system with a new name on the door. A former Russian first Deputy Prime Minister, some have worried that Dvorkovich is representing the Kremlin’s interests, but he left government service in 2018 and has held no public position since, focusing all his attention on chess since then. Nevertheless, he was added to the EU sanctions list in July, triggering his immediate step down from acting as FIDE’s president, with Viswanathan Anand becoming interim president. The EU sanctioned him on the grounds that his actions supported policies undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity – a characterisation Dvorkovich has disputed.

The former FIDE president doesn’t deny his support of Turlov’s bid and asked whether Turlov would get his vote, Dvorkovich said: "Yes, 100%.”

Dvorkovich said FIDE needs Turlov's commercial and digital skills, while the rest should change "evolutionarily, not revolutionarily". He also argued that Turlov's consumer-facing business suits a sport with a vast amateur following better than his rivals' work selling to other companies. His one caveat was that Turlov must surround himself with arbiters, grandmasters and trainers.

Turlov insists he is his own man. Asked to name one thing he would do completely differently from his predecessor, he pointed to presidential term limits, which were reversed under Dvorkovich.

"Yes, we'll consider reforming term limits in line with best practice in sports organisations," he said. It was a promise to look at the issue rather than a pledge to restore them.

He was firmer about who would be in charge. "I think I'm a strong leader with a strong reputation of my own. Regardless of what anyone wants, I'll build my own team and culture, and take a different approach to managing FIDE," he said.

Asked what that would mean in concrete terms, Turlov said he could not yet say, because he has never worked inside the organisation. "I know very well how I manage businesses, but I don't have a full understanding of how FIDE is managed," he said. "It's very difficult to judge an organisation if you've never been part of it.”

Once in, Turlov said, he would bring FIDE's culture into line with the one he runs at Freedom, and not everyone would survive the change.

"We'll start changing it to make it more like my management culture. Some people will fit; some won't," he said.

He said who stays would depend on how staff respond to his reforms, including the overhaul of the development funds, on relations and trust with member federations, and on how the team handles conflict. "These are natural management issues, not political ones," he said.

"I need an organisation that will allow me to run the programme I'm campaigning on now," he added. "I'm experienced enough to know that some things look different from the inside. I want to keep my commitments and reform FIDE effectively, but first I need to get inside.”

Rocks thrown

The race has been bruising. Well before the delegates gathered in Samarkand, the three camps were trading formal complaints to FIDE, calls for investigations and threats of legal action, World Chess reported in August. The contest was being fought through the federation's disciplinary machinery as much as on the campaign trail.

Turlov has been in the firing line. Buettner, the co-founder of Freestyle Chess who is running with British chess official Malcolm Pein, wrote to the FIDE Council in early August. His letter, headed "Cease and Desist", accused the federation of lending its staff and communication channels to Turlov's campaign and threatened legal consequences if it did not stop, according to the same report.

Dvorkovich, whose administration was the target of that complaint, called the campaign "very competitive" and, "in some aspects, unfortunately, dirty".

"I don't like it. Using all the tools to achieve the goal is not my style, at least," he said.

In public, Turlov has cast the fight as healthy. "We have a real competition in this election, which is also great," he told journalists in Samarkand. He argued that a hard race forces candidates to get to know the delegates and "start to trust each other".

Both men predicted a Turlov win, though Dvorkovich allowed that the race is close. The decision rests with FIDE's General Assembly, which votes on September 26. Each national federation gets one vote, cast by secret ballot.

"I truly believe we are now living in a moment of chess growth," Turlov said. "We see very strong support for our programme, and we're very confident in our ability to win.”

Apologies to Caligula: Trump Is Out of His Goddamn Mind

Trump’s horrific war in Iran as already shown that artificial intelligence can be an accessory to mass murder, and if we do nothing, it will kill again.


A map labeling Lake Ontario as “Lake America” is displayed as U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on August 27, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Will Bunch
Sep 24, 2026the Philadelphia Inquirer


I feel like I need to apologize for a column a couple of months ago when I compared the current president of the United States to Caligula, the possibly mad Roman emperor who is said to have nominated his trusted horse for high office. I need to apologize to Caligula. From pitching his triumphal D.C. arch as a storage shed for deadly snipers’ bullets to banning reporters from the White House in a narcissistic rage, Donald Trump is losing his grip on reality. This is unsustainable.
Worried about AI killing humans? Bad news: It already is.

Which is it?




‘The President of the United States Is Mentally Unwell’: Deranged Trump Posts AI Slop of Iran Bombing



‘Absolutely Bonkers’ and ‘Unacceptable’: Trump Posts Map Showing US Takeovers of Other Nations

Are the robots of AI, or artificial intelligence, so smart that they’re on the verge of holding a secret meetup in the darkest corner of the dark web and developing a plot to kill all humans through germ warfare, to make sure we don’t kill them first by pulling the plug?

Or is AI so dumb — artificial stupidity, despite the billionaires of Silicon Valley showing up daily on our TV screen to brag about the sky-high IQ of their son, Claude — that the thing that will murder us is a crazy hallucination that will turn a false alarm into World War III?

The fact that we can’t answer this should give us pause, but maybe we aren’t even asking the right question. Maybe the real issue is how easy we’ve made it to kill off the human race — a capability that was already created by people even before we invented the computer.

One thing is certain. Artificial intelligence has already been an accessory to mass murder, and if we do nothing, it will kill again.

Remember the very first days of the now seemingly endless Iran war, and the news that two missile strikes had obliterated a school for young children in the Iranian coastal city of Minab, in an apparent “double-tap” strike in which the second attack from the skies killed young girls and boys and their teachers as they huddled in a prayer hall?

Those bombings, which killed 156 people on Feb. 28, caused the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran to report last week that it found “reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed a war crime by launching indiscriminate attacks …” The U.S. government has never taken responsibility for the bloodshed, despite overwhelming visual evidence that the bombs were precision-guided U.S. Tomahawk missiles.

It didn’t take long for additional speculation that an AI program had mistakenly targeted the school, perhaps using outdated maps and info from an earlier time when its buildings were attached to an Iranian military complex. After all, the Pentagon has been openly bragging about the death and destruction facilitated by its use of Palantir’s Smart Maven System and also Anthropic’s Claude.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that the Pentagon’s overreliance on AI, and specifically the Palantir Maven program, was a major factor in the school tragedy, along with the outdated intelligence about the Minab site — the “garbage in.” Its exposé noted that U.S. military planners were racing to identify some 1,000 Iranian targets in the early hours of the war, giving humans little time to double-check the list. Kindergartners were slaughtered as a result.

This was hardly the first time robots have been linked to human death, both in war — in 2024, +924 Magazine reported the Israel Defense Forces were using an AI program code-named “Lavender” to target sites amid the mass killing in Gaza — and in peace, as shown by numerous accounts of robots helping troubled people die by suicide.

And yet, it could have been much, much worse. At the same time as the Bloomberg report on the AI link to the mass killing in Iran, the world also learned that a false report generated by robot intelligence nearly sparked a conflict between the United States and China that could conceivably have spiraled into major fighting.

CNN and other outlets have reported that a U.S. special operations command analyst working with AI generated an urgent report that a Chinese ship bound toward the Middle East was carrying components for a nuclear weapons system, which caused military leaders to scramble jets and assemble a team to seize the vessel.

Only at the last minute did the Pentagon dig deeper and learn the AI-generated report was completely false, a hallucination — one that nearly triggered a violent conflict between the world’s two largest military powers.

The two disturbing reports about the use, or misuse, of AI by the U.S. military in a time of war did make news but didn’t get nearly as much attention — either in the media or on sites like Bluesky or X — as warnings from both whistleblowers and CEOs in Silicon Valley that a swarm of robots could decide on their own and without any human intervention or awareness to try to kill off our so-called civilization.

The fear of an unprompted attack from AI secret agents is real, based on several incidents that have already occurred, including a well-planned and partly successful operation by OpenAI’s robot agents to hack into a company called Hugging Face.

Still, it says something about human intelligence that we are captivated by the unknown and mysterious possibility of a random attack, while the fact that people are currently misusing AI to cause death and suffering is a less compelling story. I noted in this space last week that the threat to humankind from climate change is arguably even more real — and yet this gets denied by many and ignored by others.

It’s also striking to me as a boomer born in 1959 that a generation that was born into a time of constant terror — backyard bomb shelters, “duck and cover” drills in the classroom, and sci-fi horror at the drive-in that an atomic arms race could kill us at any moment — is suddenly back to where we started.

Over 81 years, humans were smart enough never to drop another nuclear weapon (well, not intentionally) after the mass murders at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not bright enough to figure out how to eliminate the nuclear threat altogether.

The fact that civilization managed to — so far — pause the number of world wars at two has given us the space and the false bravado to create new and much more insidious killing machines, and the threat from invisible robots on a hidden dark web is somehow even scarier than the radioactive mushroom cloud that we more or less understand.

Boomers who went to bed as kids in the 1950s and ‘60s praying we wouldn’t die before we woke are now spending our senior-citizen-discount years fearful that something stranger than science fiction is coming for our children, or grandchildren. Over the course of a lifetime, the arc of that moral universe has not bent at all.

Still, humans were able, somehow, to prevent nuclear annihilation so far, and now it’s past time to get to work on the actual threats from AI and start on those workarounds. For example, the articles I’ve read speculating on how the robots plan to kill us frequently mention the prospect of AI agents developing bioweapons and releasing them, either on their own or prompted by a bad actor. (In theory, human development of bioweapons has been banned for a half century.)

From everything I’ve read so far about AI, it sounds like we’d have better luck safeguarding or eliminating the components that could make a biological agent rather than stopping the robots. Likewise, AI agents would not be able to start an atomic apocalypse if our human politicians went to work at finally eliminating nuclear weapons. Artificial intelligence won’t kill little girls in an Iranian school if humans don’t start dumb wars in the first place.

If Silicon Valley’s prophets of doom are serious, there’s no fix that’s too big or too ambitious. But understand that the biggest problem isn’t that AI wants to murder us, but that since 1942 we humans have been busy creating all the suicidal weapons AI agents could use.

Can you even “duck and cover” from a killer robot? I don’t intend to find out, and I don’t want my yet-to-be-born grandchildren to have to even think about it.


© 2023 Philadelphia Inquirer


Will Bunch
Will Bunch is the national columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer -- with some strong opinions about what's happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government.
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Trump Is Busy Renaming and Remaking the World In His Grotesque Image

Sometime before his third term in office, he’ll suddenly begin tearing down the West Wing of the White House (including the Oval Office) and in its place will construct a triumphal statue of—but of course, who else?—himself.


A gold Trump statue is grounded in Ohio.
(Photo by Eli Hiller AFP via Getty Images)

Tom Engelhardt
Sep 24, 2026

Common Dreams


Honestly, in this strange world of ours, what is there to write about except, of course, Donald Trump?

Oh, well, as a start, I could write about my country’s war with Iran and the way the militaries of the two countries are going after each other’s naval vessels. Oh, wait, that couldn’t be a more Trumpian subject, could it?
So, maybe I could write about great white sharks, which would certainly be cooler to see than “our” president. But what do I know about great white sharks? (Of course, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that, the moment after I wrote that, I put “Trump, Great White Shark” into my search window and promptly came up with a set of pieces beginning with the Palm Beach Post‘s “President Trump Misses Great White Shark Visit to Mar-a-Lago Waters” and The Guardian’s “Trump Is ‘Obsessed’ and ‘Terrified’ of Sharks—But His Fears Are Excessive.”

Sooner or later, once he’s finished with all the cities, states, and politicians, he could, of course, move on to the rest of our vocabulary and I would be able to Trump you rather than stump you when I write my future pieces.

Or maybe, I could write not about the present disaster of a war in the Strait of Trumpmuz, but the next one my country is likely to face, undoubtedly with Turkey—or do I mean Indonesia, or maybe Turkmenistan, or even perhaps Turkwomenistan (a country still to be created, of course, but that’s no reason not to go to war with it)? And all of them could be turned into Trumpific countries. Still, that’s so boringly unpredictably predictable, don’t you think? I mean, as the old line went, war, what is it good for? And the classic answer (if only!): Absolutely nothing! But in the era of Pete Hegseth and crew, that would need to be changed to: Absolutely everything!

Or maybe I could write about the odds that “my” president might be peached—that is, covered in overly ripe fruit, since in a historic first (or do I mean second?), he’s already been impeached twice to distinctly little effect. So why not try that instead? It makes him sound delicious, don’t you think?

Or perhaps I could focus on the future of mail-out voting, since “my” president is already distinctly (and yes, I just can’t help using that word again) determined to severely limit, if not simply do away with, the mail-in version of the same. Or maybe instead, I could deal with his administration’s likely urge to wipe out any chance of the future creation of an Antarctic Report Card about the second fastest-warming (and melting) area on this planet (and its ice sheet that has existed for a mere 30 million years or so), since his crew has already gone after the latest report on the fastest-warming place of all, the Arctic, by—yes, of course!—ending its funding.

Or, hey, how about if I focus instead on the fate of the US military’s privates, since Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been taking superior care of its leaders who have been endlessly in the news. After all, he’s already fired or blocked the promotion of more than 80 generals and admirals, or about 10% of its high command (and I don’t have the slightest doubt that he’s just getting started). Sooner or later, when all the generals and admirals are gone, he’ll have to move down the ranks, right? I can’t help but believe that, in the end, he and the rest of his crew in Washington will be eager to fully privatize the military and turn themselves into the missing generals and admirals, or do I mean privates first class?

Or, come to think of it, since Donald Trump (labelled by The Guardian’s Marina Hyde as this planet’s “most tireless freelance cartographer”) has had the urge not just to rename Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico as Lake America and the Gulf of America, but to dub the state of New Mexico as “New America,” how about if I spend a little time on what I’m sure will be his future renaming efforts. I mean, he’s certainly going to rename New York City (where he, like the author of this piece, was born so long ago) Old Trumpian City; and California as Trumpifornia (and, of course, its governor as Gavin OldTrump); and North and South Carolina as North Trump and South Trump, not to speak of Florida as Florump.

Phew! That was one long sentence and yet we’re undoubtedly only at the start of his renaming process. Sooner or later, once he’s finished with all the cities, states, and politicians, he could, of course, move on to the rest of our vocabulary and I would be able to Trump you rather than stump you when I write my future pieces.

Or, for that matter, I could skip to the president’s dance hall (undoubtedly to be known someday as Trump’s rock and roll) for which he’s already torn down the East Wing of that historically less than interesting building, the White House, or the 250-foot Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck he’s building that will be larger than Paris’s Arc de Triomphe, and instead put my energy into predicting the president’s next major architectural surprise in Washington, DC. Here’s my best guess (and I’ll be shocked if it doesn’t come true): Sometime before his third term in office—and count on him wanting that (to hell with such an ancient and useless document as the Constitution)—he’ll suddenly begin tearing down the West Wing of the White House (including the Oval Office) and in its place will construct a triumphal statue of—but of course, who else?—himself (or rather Himself). It goes without saying that it will be larger not just than the Arc de Triomphe but his own Arch of Triumph. And when he’s done with that, you can count on one thing: There will simply be no way to make our nation’s capital any more statuesque.

Not surprisingly, his White House spokespeople are already praising his construction efforts in Washington, including his magnificently green Trump Memorial Reflecting (or do I mean Deflecting?) Pool. As one of them put it recently, “Thanks to the Builder-in-Chief, no other president has done more to beautify our nation’s interior than President Trump.” (And don’t you find it beyond weird, under the circumstances, that, as The Washington Post reports, “nearly 2 in 3, 65% [of Americans], feel dissatisfied or upset” by his Washington building projects?)

Or what about a possible desire to replace presidentially loathed “birth tourism”—no matter that the Supreme Court last summer ensured babies born here would indeed become US citizens despite every effort by the Trump crew—with something distinctly presidential and much to be loved: “death tourism.” Wouldn’t that be the perfect formula for You Know Who?

Oh, and I don’t think I even mentioned it, but a source within the administration has assured me privately that President Trump is going to end his second term in office and begin his third term—no, the Supreme Court wouldn’t dare stop him!—by renaming himself Donald Trumplincoln and will come to be known in his later years as “Old Don” as his Civil War-era predecessor was known as “Old Abe.” (Whoops, sorry, my mistake! That was an eagle of the Civil War era!) I meant “Honest Abe” and (Dis)Honest Don.

And none of that, not a bit of it, should seem even faintly surprising from such a distinctly presidential figure.



Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Tom Engelhardt

The above piece, published here with permission, first appeared at Tom Engelhardt's substack page, where you can find more of his writing.

Engelhardt, was editor-in-chief of TomDispatch.com for over 24 years, is the author of numerous books, including: "A Nation Unmade by War" (2018, Dispatch Books), "Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World" (2014, with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald), "Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050"(co-authored with Nick Turse), "The United States of Fear" (2011), "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's" (2010), and "The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond" (2007).
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Could Trump, Who Coveted a Nobel Peace Prize, Become the Worst War Criminal in History?

In his UN General Assembly speech this week, Trump told the world that he is in the process of deciding whether to “annihilate” Iran and “send them to hell,” implying that he might use nuclear weapons. He has to be convinced that this is totally unacceptable—before he does something even more crazy than usual!


Connie Peck
Sep 24, 2026

Common Dreams

In a highly aggressive 40-minute speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, President Donald Trump once again issued ominous threats to Iran, saying: “I have a very big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill or destroy people or countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

He implied that his “very big decision” would come after the midterms, suggesting that Iran is waiting to make a deal until then and, if one isn’t forthcoming, then he would choose annihilation.

Several commentators have noted that his extreme rhetoric was all the more shocking in the context of being delivered, as it was, at the world’s foremost international organization for the peaceful settlement of disputes, created in the aftermath of World War II “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”

Every one of us has an obligation to ensure that we don’t experience such a bleak future, and to totally reject the idea that anyone should be able to decide to “destroy a civilization” or “annihilate” a people and a culture.

Indeed, all states that become members of the UN agree to resolve their disputes peacefully and to refrain from the threat or use of force against one another, as an obligation of membership—an agreement that the US is currently violating.

Although some news outlets lamented the tone of Trump’s speech and fact-checked it (finding the usual errors), few have explicitly pointed out his not-so-veiled threat to use nuclear weapons. Most have simply ignored it, and a few have even seemed to excuse it, suggesting that it was simply a “negotiating ploy.”

But this threat is similar to others he has made over the last seven months of the war, at moments of extreme personal frustration. On Easter morning, for example, he wrote on his social media account, “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

A couple of days later, he warned: “A whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will… We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.” He has also threatened on several occasions to “bomb Iran back to the Stone Ages.”

I have previously written about the extreme danger of the president of the United States having “sole authority” to launch nuclear weapons and the ease with which he can do so. As William Perry, former secretary of defense under Clinton, has written, “For President Trump, starting nuclear war is about as easy as sending a tweet.”

This is especially concerning given his mental state. On April 30, a group of 36 senior mental health professionals, experienced in the diagnosis of cognitive impairment and the evaluation of dangerousness, issued an update to their earlier 2024 report, concluding (after citing the reasons):
It is our professional opinion that the behaviors of Donald Trump, tragically, are neither momentary lapses nor political theater. It is our professional opinion that they reflect a rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline… For the reasons cited above, emphasizing that he presents a clear and present danger to our country and to the world, it is our expert opinion that Donald J. Trump is mentally unfit to be the president of the United States and that steps to remove him from office must be undertaken with the greatest urgency.

Although the use of nuclear weapons is a considered to be a taboo, Trump has previously broken international taboos (seemingly without even knowing they existed), such as the taboo against political assassination, which he violated on February 28, when Israel and the US attacked Iran, assassinating its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, four of his family members, and a number of other senior Iranian leaders.

Most ghastly of all is what would happen if Trump were to use his “sole authority“ to launch nuclear weapons against a country of 90 million people. The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—already overwhelming in terms of human tragedy—would be unleashed exponentially against the population of Iran, with whom Trump has previously claimed to empathize.

Because of the dramatically increased power of today’s nuclear weapons and their sheer numbers, the results could be more monstrous than any war crime in human history. Even the use of tactical nuclear weapons would be appalling beyond comprehension, and the use of a full-fledged nuclear attack that would “annihilate” the country would, without doubt, bring about one of the darkest periods in world history. The death, destruction, and suffering would be beyond parallel.

It would also make Trump the worst war criminal in history, instantly convert the US into a state pariah, be a terrible blight on humanity, and lead to many unforeseen consequences.

One playbook of unforeseen consequences is that Russian President Vladimir Putin could follow suit in Ukraine (with equally horrific effects). NATO might then feel that it would have to respond in kind, and the resulting escalation could lead to World War III and nuclear Armageddon.

Even if there were no further iterations (which is unlikely), the results could lead to a nuclear winter, where smoke and soot from Iran’s burning cities and other infrastructure would loft into the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight, darkening the sky, and chilling the Earth, creating massive crop failures and famine. Studies have shown that even a “limited” war could cause a nuclear winter that would (depending on the size of the attack) cause untold billions around the world to die of starvation.

It is no wonder that everyone wants to pretend that Trump’s threats weren’t really what they seemed and probably wouldn’t be acted upon because Trump would live up to his TACO (“Trump Always Chickens Out”) reputation.

But one of the very important, hard-learned lessons of international relations is that, when a leader makes a threat against another state, it should be taken with deadly seriousness. This has sometimes been overlooked, as, for example, in 1990, when Saddam Hussein amassed troops on his border with Kuwait and threatened to invade. No one took it seriously—until Iraq followed through, leading to the first Gulf War.

Much as we would all like to forget these terrible threats, we can’t. The leaders of the world must clearly communicate to Trump the likely consequences of his actions and the utter unacceptability of this path. Members of Congress must do the same, and we, the public, must collectively urge them to do so.

Legal means of removing Trump from office should also be undertaken, such as the 25th Amendment; Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-Md.) proposed nonpartisan “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office“; or impeachment. All of this is much more likely if the Democrats win the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterms, in which we, the public, can also make a significant difference—by voting accordingly.

Every one of us has an obligation to ensure that we don’t experience such a bleak future, and to totally reject the idea that anyone should be able to decide to “destroy a civilization” or “annihilate” a people and a culture (regardless of how we judge their behavior or our fears of their future actions). This is totally against international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law. Such a decision should NOT be made under any circumstances, especially by one individual, who is most likely cognitively impaired; definitely feeling frustrated and aggrieved; and who doesn’t have any understanding of the consequences of the extreme threats he is making—but who does have the capacity to carry out a nuclear launch at any time.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Connie Peck
Dr. Connie Peck is the founder of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research Programme in Peacemaking and Conflict Prevention—the first training program in negotiation and mediation for senior UN staff and diplomats (now in its 33rd year). She is the author of a number of books and numerous articles and book chapters on conflict resolution and the nuclear threat.
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White House Airs ‘Illegal’ Trump Propaganda Ad ‘Paid For By the US Government’

“Weirdest way to violate the Hatch Act, ever.”


A screenshot from an ad for President Donald Trump posted by the White House on September 23, 2026, which was labeled as “paid for by the US Government.”
(Screenshot from The White House on YouTube)

Stephen Prager
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The White House is being accused of violating federal law after it aired an ad glorifying President Donald Trump, which it explicitly said was “paid for by the US government.”

The ad was first reported by CBS News Miami investigative reporter Jim DeFede, who saw it airing on Fox News Wednesday night.

The 30-second spot features numerous videos and images of Trump, set to the song “Love Me” by JMSN. It includes voiceovers by the president railing against “communism,” a label he’s regularly used to hammer Democrats as the midterm elections approach.


“Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism, in America,” it features Trump saying. “America will never be a communist country.”

The video then goes on to amplify, in bright red letters, what the White House views as Trump’s signature policy accomplishments and goals: the “largest tax cuts in history,” “reigniting American manufacturing,” and “defend law and order and police.”

Footage from the 2024 Republican National Convention featuring Trump alongside Ultimate Fighting Championship president and CEO Dana White is then shown.

“He is the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met,” White is heard saying about Trump. “And nothing was going to stop him from fighting so hard for the country he loves.”

As White is heard slathering Trump with praise, a message appears at the bottom of the screen in large white letters: “Paid for by the US government.”

DeFede described the taxpayer-funded message as “clearly a campaign ad.”

Many onlookers found the use of government resources to flood the airwaves with nakedly partisan messaging chilling, particularly in light of Trump’s recent attempts to censor critical media outlets and establish a state-run TV channel, while designating political opponents as “terrorists.”

Fernand R. Amandi, a political science professor at the University of Miami and analyst at MS NOW—a network recently banned from the White House by Trump—said that the use of state organs for messages like these was an “unmistakable [sign] you live under an authoritarian, fascist government.”

Longtime Senate Democratic aide Jim Manley said the ad was not just “creepy,” but also “illegal.”

Provisions in annual appropriations laws explicitly forbid federal appropriations from being used for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”

For decades, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has interpreted this to mean that the executive branch can’t use federal dollars for material whose “obvious purpose is ‘self-aggrandizement’ or ‘puffery,’” or for communications that are “purely partisan.”

The Hatch Act also bans federal employees from using their official authority or government resources for partisan activity. While Trump himself is not subject to the Hatch Act, most other senior government employees and appointees are.

The Trump administration has been accused of violating the Hatch Act on multiple occasions during his second term, including by using official agency websites to run messages blaming “Radical Left” Democrats for last year’s lengthy government shutdown.

During Trump’s first term, multiple officials were found to have violated the Hatch Act for arguably less overt offenses.

Former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was found to have violated the law by hosting a naturalization ceremony orchestrated to generate footage for the 2020 Republican National Convention. Former Trump housing official Lynne Patton, meanwhile, admitted to violating the act by using her government position to recruit participants for an RNC video, resulting in a $1,000 fine and a four-year ban from federal employment.

It’s not clear which government employees were behind the taxpayer-funded Trump ad. But Max Flugrath, the communications director at the voting rights group Fair Fight, said it was the “weirdest way to violate the Hatch Act, ever.”

SPACE/COSMOS

France co-hosts major space summit with Germany despite US firms' withdrawals and Merz absence

Copyright AP Photo

By Estelle Nilsson-Julien

Published on 09/09/2026 -  EURONEWS

France is co-hosting a major space summit with Germany this week, as Europe finds itself at a strategic crossroads.

Astronauts, heads of state, as well as major economic players in the space industry united in Paris on Wednesday for the international space summit, co-hosted by France and Germany, at Paris’ Grand Palais.

On Wednesday afternoon, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that more than 50 projects are expected to be signed over the course of the two-day event, stressing the need to "strengthen the European and space research", but also to deepen partnerships with other countries around the world.

Alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he also welcomed the European Space Agency’s (ESA) next private astronaut mission, PAM-6, to the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled for 2027 — which will mark the first ever journey to space by a Greek astronaut, Adrianos Golemis.

Taking to X Wednesday evening, he also hailed a major deal signed between Amazon Leo and Arianespace, stating that “Amazon Leo is renewing its trust in Arianespace with 6 additional launches, 24 in total."

Ahead of the summit, several US companies reportedly withdrew from the event, due to pressure from Washington over support for "EU policy positions."

Challenging US dominance

Despite this, the summit comes at a strategic crossroads for the European space industry, described by President Emmanuel Macron as an opportunity to "bring Europeans together around a common ambition" and develop a "shared vision of Europe's place on the map of global space powers by 2035" when he announced the event in October 2025.

According to the Elysée, the summit will focus on international space cooperation and strengthening space security. In recent years, Europe has increasingly sought to challenge US dominance of the global space market: developing its own homegrown rockets and increasing funding for space at both a state and bloc-wide level.

Europe has historically invested 0.07% of GDP into space programmes, compared with 0.24% by the US.

But 2025 marked a turning point, as the European Space Agency (ESA) approved a record-breaking €22.3 billion budget for its three-year funding cycle (2026–2028) in November, with €35 billion for space for security and defence.

Lunar mining has also emerged as a potential avenue for securing clean-energy resources and critical raw materials, as Europe works to move away from Chinese and Russian dependencies.

Divergence between France and Germany

Nearly a year after Macron announced the summit, it encountered some bumps in the road before the event had even begun. Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed on Friday that he would not attend the summit due to domestic commitments, with defence minister Boris Pistorius and space minister Dorothee Bär set to go in his place.

Behind the scenes, France and Germany have faced a number of disagreements over space and defence projects, ditching the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project in June 2026, after years of disagreements.

Macron has consistently stressed the importance of building up Europe's strategic autonomy, backing programs like Ariane 6, rather than relying on US providers such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Meanwhile, Germany has expressed a greater willingness to rely on lower-cost US alternatives, such as SpaceX. On Saturday, German startup Isar Aerospace launched the first commercial rocket to reach orbit from mainland Europe, marking a major turning point in Europe's quest to secure independent access to space. Merz described the launch as “the beginning of a new era.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks during the general debate as part of the budget deliberations in the Bundestag in Berlin, 9 September, 2026 AP Photo

US companies withdraw from event

A number of US companies also withdrew from the event, after a White House official reportedly warned them that their attendance "could look like tacit support for EU policy positions," Politico reported.

A spokesperson for France's Ministry of Higher Education and Research, which oversees national space policy, told the AFP news agency that SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, and Starcloud had withdrawn from the event, stating "it’s hard not to link it to the rumours of pressure in the press.”

Speaking to Euronews, Hermann Ludwig Moeller, Director of the European Space Policy Institute described France as a "driving force" in Europe's space sector, providing "strong political support" to the industry, stressing that the "relevance of space is only increasing."

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the space observatory Roman Telescope lifts off from launch the Kennedy Space Centre, 30 August, 2026 AP Photo

"It is increasingly becoming a war fighting domain, while at the same time it has become evident also to the general public that conflict has become hybrid in nature, for instance through attacks on critical infrastructures in transport, energy, digital. This is where space can provide increased resilience."

Moeller stressed the role that space technologies such as satellite navigation have in terms of both civilian and military usage.

"While they are essential to everyday life, the war in Ukraine has also highlighted their strategic importance in modern warfare", he said.

Kyiv's reliance on Musk's Starlink following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has underlined the strategic importance of space services during wartime — that the satellite network provides resilient internet connectivity even when infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.

This reality also pushed Europe to develop its own independent satellite networks, notably the secure internet constellation known as IRIS².

Macron, von der Leyen call for stronger European space sector amid rising security concerns

Copyright AP Photo

By Estelle Nilsson-Julien

Published on 10/09/2026 - EURONEWS

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed their commitment to space at a major summit co-hosted by France and Germany in Paris.

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Europe to strengthen its space industry on Thursday, the second day of the international space summit, co-hosted by France and Germany, at Paris’ Grand Palais.

Speaking at the summit, Macron described Europe’s space sector as “fragile” and emphasised the need to bolster its capabilities, calling for “shared governance” of the industry.

“Outer space remains the only major global commons that is not subject to regulations that match the stakes,” he said. “Shared governance is necessary to address these challenges.”

Macron reiterated that more than 51 deals are set to be signed over the course of the summit, with some €20 billion of investments, listing a series of future milestones for Europe.

"In two years' time, I want to see the first European cargo capsule, Nyx, dock with the International Space Station; in five years' time, the first European lunar lander, Argonaut, land on the Moon's surface."

"And in 10 years' time, the first European manned capsule take off from Kourou with European astronauts and those from other nations on board," he added, referring to Europe's spaceport in French Guiana.

Meanwhile, von der Leyen stressed the importance of Europe stepping up, as she emphasised the crucial role space plays both in terms of both scientific exploration, but also defence — pointing to Russia's war in Ukraine.

"The ability to access and act in space not only underpins our prosperity, it increasingly determines our security and independence. Nowhere is this clearer than in Ukraine."

"Satellite communications keep soldiers connected, while satellite imagery reveal movements hundreds of kilometres away"."

Europe's Space push comes amid aim to cut dependence on US

Europe's push to build up its military space assets has been driven by Russia's war in Ukraine, as well as its decision to distance itself from its longstanding dependence on the US in the space domain.

Europe has historically invested 0.07% of GDP into space programmes, compared with 0.24% by the US. But 2025 marked a turning point, as the European Space Agency (ESA) approved a record-breaking €22.3 billion budget for its three-year funding cycle (2026–2028) in November, with €35 billion for space for security and defence.

"Security on Earth increasingly depends on our security in space", said von der Leyen, as she went on to underline the significance of IRIS², the European Union's upcoming flagship satellite constellation programme.

Relate

"Last month, we decided to accelerate the system, by expanding it to more than 350 satellites."

Von der Leyen also underlined the need for the Commission, the European Space Agency and national governments to "pool" their strengths, while also calling for investment "at scale."

Macron and Joseph Aschbacher, Director of the European Space Agency (ESA) — who also addressed the summit — were joined for a live call with astronaut Sophie Adenot, who is currently on a nine-month mission aboard the the International Space Station (ISS) named the εpsilon mission.

Chinese Space Promises Come With Financial, Sovereign Risks


Launch of China's Smart Dragon-3 (Jielong-3) Yao-1 carrier rocket. Photo Credit: China News Service video screenshot

September 10, 2026

By Africa Defense Forum

Key Takeaways:

The article says China has folded African space projects into the Belt and Road model: satellites, launches, and ground stations often come with Chinese vendors, financing, and control of tracking and operations.

Analysts cited (RAND, CSIS) warn of uneven deals and military overlap. Examples include Egypt’s Space City and MisrSat-2 being China-managed, Chinese tracking sites in several African states, and a planned $1 billion Djibouti spaceport to be run by a Chinese firm for 30 years.

Nigeria’s dispute with China Great Wall over about $11.44 million in NigComSat-1R operating costs is presented as a caution: partners can face debt, service cutoff threats, and limited access to their own systems.

As African countries stake their claim to space by developing satellites, China has folded space missions into its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Experts note, however, that space-related cooperation comes with debt, operating costs and other financial risks associated with other BRI projects.

“China’s space collaborations are structured to advance its own industrial and military goals at the cost of asymmetric outcomes to foreign partners,” researchers Cortney Weinbaum, Christopher G. Pernin, Camille Reeves, Libby Weaver and Shanshan Mei wrote in a recent Rand Corp. report.

Countries that work with China on space projects typically find that funding depends on using Chinese vendors and launch services. Tracking and operations also must flow through China’s systems, raising questions about a nation’s ability to access its own data. In some cases, financing comes from the Export-Import Bank of China, the same facility tied to billions of dollars in loans for BRI projects across the continent.

Countries can find themselves the junior partners in the arrangement with China. An example: Argentina’s national space commission hosts a Chinese satellite tracking ground station tied to the Chinese military. The facility has the same legal status as an embassy, meaning Argentinian authorities cannot enter without permission. Argentinian researchers have access during only 10% of its operating time, limiting their work, according to the Rand researchers.

Africa’s Space City, east of Cairo, Egypt, is an example of China’s relationship with African space agencies. The facility is home to the African Union’s Africa Space Agency and the Egyptian Space Agency. It also hosts satellite construction facilities.

Space City was developed with the help of China, which has, so far, been the complex’s primary beneficiary. Chinese workers staff Space City, and its first locally produced satellite, Egypt’s MisrSat-2, was launched and managed from China.

China has established space-related partnerships with nearly half of Africa’s 54 countries. In addition to manufacturing and launching African satellites, China has satellite tracking and receiving facilities in Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan and Tunisia. Tunisia also hosts a ground station for BeiDou, China’s version of GPS.

In 2023, Djibouti signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Hong Kong Aerospace Technology to build Africa’s first spaceport, a $1 billion facility on the Obock peninsula near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Under the agreement, Hong Kong Aerospace would operate the facility for 30 years before releasing it to Djibouti.

“Beijing is rapidly stitching together a network of specialized outposts, positioning itself as a gateway to space for developing countries. Yet the deep integration of China’s space sector with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) means these partnerships carry risks,” researchers Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart and Aidan Powers-Riggs recently wrote for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Nigeria is experiencing firsthand the risk of working with China as the government finds itself embroiled in a financial dispute with China Great Wall Industry Corp. over the cost of operating Nigeria’s NigComSat-1R.


The Chinese-built NigComSat-1R supports broadcasting, internet connectivity and security communications across Nigeria. It was launched in 2011 and is expected to reach the end of its operational life later this year.

The satellite is active and sits in a geostationary orbit above South Sudan, according to tracking data.

The Chinese government-owned company, a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., recently warned Nigeria that it might stop supporting NigComSat-1R due to an outstanding $11.44 million debt.

The company gave Nigeria 30 days to resolve its debt earlier this year under the threat of deactivating the satellite’s transponders.

Nigeria has denied that it owes the Chinese company money. It has approached France and Israel for help in developing future communications satellites.

“Government, commercial, and academic researchers should approach space cooperation with China with rigorous due diligence,” the Rand researchers wrote.

Using Helium, Astronomers Blow Certainty Into Early Big Bang Conditions

September 9, 2026

By Eurasia Review

Key Takeaways:

New Large Binocular Telescope observations of helium in metal-poor galaxies match long-standing Big Bang predictions and tighten estimates of primordial helium abundance.

The improved measurement supports the standard model: the number of neutrino species present seconds after the Big Bang is consistent with known particle physics.

About 90% of cosmic helium formed in the Big Bang; the rest came later from stars. The team cut the uncertainty in helium abundance from about 2% to roughly half a percent.

New observations regarding the composition of distant galaxies reveal insights into the earliest phases of the universe that confirm decades of scientific understanding of the elements and particles produced by the Big Bang, according to a new study.

Researchers used data from The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) to measure the amount of helium — the second-most common element in the cosmos and a vital ingredient for the formation of life — in metal-poor nebulas, clouds of gas and dust in space where stars are sometimes born. Their findings strengthen long-held theories about how ancient elements, such as carbon and nitrogen, may have been dispersed in the period following the Big Bang.

Astronomers did this by analyzing helium signals in optical and infrared light to determine the temperature and density of the gases within faraway systems. After collecting 48 high-quality galactic samples, the team created a dataset aimed at significantly expanding researchers’ ability to infer the universe’s primordial helium abundance.


“Everything that we need to live here on Earth was once fused inside of a star,” said Miqaela Weller, lead author of the study and a PhD student in astronomy at The Ohio State University. “Understanding precisely where those elements come from helps inform us of how our universe evolved and how it will evolve in the future.”

The study was recently published as part of a series of papers in The Astrophysical Journal.

The work was completed as part of the LBT Yp project, a collaboration designed to accurately determine how much primordial helium was created at the universe’s beginning, an amount theorized to be largely dependent on the types of neutrinos, tiny and abundant subatomic particles, that were likely formed when the universe was only a second old.

If, for example, the amount of helium found in metal-poor galaxies is vastly different from astronomers’ current predictions, their results might challenge current theories about the universe’s early conditions as well as open the door to new, undiscovered physics, said Weller, who leads the infrared data reduction for the project

Still, it can be extremely difficult to peer into the universe’s past, as astronomers can only see up to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang, or when the universe became transparent enough to form the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Thus, by comparing their new observations with archival ones of the CMB, they can determine if current models of the universe are accurate.

“The importance of galactic archaeology cannot be understated,” said Weller. “The stars are within us, and learning more about them helps us determine our place within the universe.”

Roughly 90% of the universe’s helium formed during the Big Bang, with 10% originating from stars that have undergone nuclear fusion over the last 13.5 billion years. While researchers had previously only been able to estimate the universe’s helium abundance to a precision of about 2%, this work reduces that error to almost half a percent, a development that amounts to a huge leap in computational astrophysics, said Richard Pogge, a founding member of the project and a professor of astronomy at Ohio State.

“By making this exciting measurement, we’ve learned something fundamental about the universe,” said Pogge.

Scientists have theorized that all the raw materials of the universe emerged in the first few moments after its birth, including neutrinos. Until this paper’s result, it had been unclear whether the many subatomic particles that drive our modern grasp of particle physics appeared simultaneously or arrived later in an alternative, sequential way.

In searching for the answer, the team was challenged to locate extremely rare metal-poor galaxies, such as the tiny Leo P, as well as account for how Earth’s atmosphere could affect their data. Ultimately, their research confirmed that the number of neutrino species present at the Big Bang is, in fact, consistent with the standard model of particle physics, said Pogge.

“Finally having atomic data precise enough to show how the universe worked seconds after it began gives us the ability to make meaningful constraints on the nature of physics itself,” he said.

According to the team, the LBT Yp project plans to continue deciphering cosmic mysteries by constraining less-explored parameters of undiscovered metal-poor galaxies, likely with the aid of vast astronomical archives of collaboration projects like DESI.

“It’s going to take us many years to try to explore new galaxies and turn the techniques we’ve developed onto them,” Pogge said. “So it’s an enormous pleasure to be able to pass these decades-long findings onto those who are going to be the future of this field.”