A divided island, a divided left: Iceland after the EU referendum

By Matthias Kokorsch

Published 25 September, 2026

First published at Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Brussels Office.

On 29 August 2026, Icelanders voted on whether to resume accession negotiations with the European Union. The result was close but clear: 52.8 percent voted No and 47.2 percent Yes, with a turnout of 82.6 percent. Yet the campaign revealed a country — and a political left — sharply divided on much more than Europe.

The question on the ballot was narrower than much of the debate suggested. Icelanders were not deciding whether to join the EU, but whether to re-open negotiations that began after the financial crisis in 2009 and were suspended in 2013. Even a Yes vote would therefore have marked the beginning of another political process, not accession itself. Any eventual agreement would still have required a further political debate and approval in another referendum.

Yet the campaign became a referendum on much more: sovereignty, the Króna (Iceland´s currency), fisheries, agriculture, prices, inflation, interest rates, political trust, and Iceland’s place in Europe. It exposed a divided country: Reykjavík against much of rural Iceland, university-educated voters against those with shorter formal education, and, most interestingly, a left that had no common answer.

For the left, this makes the result more complicated than either disappointment or celebration. A No vote can reflect democratic scepticism towards the EU, market liberalisation, and distant institutions. But it can also leave unchallenged concentrations of economic power at home. The central question — the one the referendum did not ask — is therefore not simply “Brussels or Reykjavík?”. It is: where does power sit, who controls it, and who benefits from it?

Sovereignty — a sensitive issue

To understand the emotional force of sovereignty in Iceland, one must go further back than 2009. Iceland is a young republic, but its history is inseparable from the struggle to recover political and economic power, first from Norway, then from Denmark. For centuries, political authority in Iceland was exercised from abroad, severely restricting trade, and economic and social mobility. Home rule came only in 1904, and Iceland became a sovereign state in 1918, but remained in personal union with the Danish king. The republic was finally established in 1944.

That history matters. A political culture built around recovering control from Copenhagen will not casually transfer authority to Brussels. In that sense, a No vote is not irrational or simply nationalistic. Independence is part of modern Iceland’s political identity; also reflected in the name of the historically dominant Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn).

But independence has never meant isolation. The financial collapse of 2008 demonstrated the limits of economic self-sufficiency. Iceland’s oversized, newly privatised, banking system imploded, the Króna plunged, and the country turned to the International Monetary Fund and bilateral creditors — particularly among the Nordic states — for assistance. Iceland followed a recovery path that differed from that imposed on several southern EU countries, but the idea that Iceland simply rescued itself is a myth. The IMF-supported programme included capital controls, currency depreciation, debt restructuring, and the protection of important parts of the welfare state, while limiting the socialisation of private banking losses. Recovery combined domestic political choices with international assistance, access to markets, and cooperation.

Closer to the EU — and back again

It was in this context that Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009, under the country’s first majority left-leaning government led by the Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin), in coalition with the Left-Green Movement (Vinstri græn). The coalition itself was divided: the Social Democrats favoured accession, while the Left-Greens remained sceptical. The application was no mere technocratic response to the financial crisis either. Rather, it emerged from a debate within the Icelandic left over whether greater European integration or greater national autonomy offered the better route out of the crisis for rebuilding economic stability.

Negotiations began in 2010. By the time they were put on hold in 2013, 27 negotiating chapters had been opened and 11 provisionally closed. A new centre-right government suspended the process, however, and in 2015 Iceland notified the EU that it should no longer be regarded as a candidate country.

Iceland nevertheless never really left “Europe”. It remains part of the European Economic Area (EEA), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and Schengen. Through the EEA, Iceland participates in the European single market and implements substantial amounts of EU legislation, while remaining outside formal EU decision-making. Agriculture and fisheries, however — both important sectors for Iceland — are excluded from the EEA’s core single-market arrangements.

The road to the 2026 referendum

The paradox of the European question in Icelandic politics was intensified by its more recent return. There was no parliamentary majority committed to EU membership, nor did the three parties of the governing coalition share a common position on it: The Liberal Reform Party (Viðreisn) is pro-European, while the People’s Party (Flokkur fólksins) is opposed, and the Social Democrats took a more nuanced position. Nevertheless, the coalition promised a referendum on resuming negotiations no later than 2027.

In 2026, that timetable was brought forward. Inflation was persistently high (~5.6 percent in August), and the Central Bank of Iceland had raised its key interest rate to 8 percent. Household purchasing power, housing costs, and the price of imported goods kept questions about Iceland’s economic model on the political agenda.

The geopolitical environment had also changed significantly. The Trump administration’s threats towards Greenland (including confusing it with Iceland), and a remark by the new US ambassador joking that Iceland could become the 52nd US state, raised uncomfortable questions about the reliability of Iceland’s traditional security relationships. The search for greater economic stability increasingly became connected to a broader question: in an increasingly uncertain world, which political alliances could a small state rely on?

A divided left

The referendum exposed an unusually complicated political map. As the table shows, Icelandic Euroscepticism cannot simply be mapped onto left and right, nor did party leadership always correspond with party voters.

In addition to the differences within the governing coalition, which spans the political centre, three parties represented in parliament opposed the referendum. No party to the left of SDA is currently represented in parliament, although these parties together received just under 10% of the vote in the 2024 elections. Their absence from parliament does not mean that they were absent from the wider debate. The Left-Green Movement, moreover, had provided the prime minister from 2017 until 2024, with Katrin Jakobsdóttir retaining the premiership even after the party lost ground in the 2021 election. After a second term in government, however, the party’s support collapsed: it lost its parliamentary representation altogether in 2024 and is currently undergoing a process of political and organisational renewal.

The 2024 election result further complicates the picture. The SDA narrowly emerged as the largest party, but its success coincided with the parliamentary disappearance of all parties to its left. The last election therefore produced an apparent success for the centre-left, while at the same time leaving the broader Icelandic left considerably weaker and less plural in parliament. Table 1 List of parties in Iceland, their broad orientation, last election results, position in the negotiation talks, as well as the level of support from possible party voters regarding the referendum (according to last Gallup poll before the referendum).

Party	Broad Orientation	Result in last election Nov. 2024 (in %)​	Position in 2026	Yes in Final Gallup (in %)
Samfylkingin (Social Democratic Alliance)	Social-democratic / centre-left	20.75	Strong Yes	94
Viðreisn (Liberal Reform Party)	Liberal, market-liberal, pro-European	15.82	Strong Yes	95
Miðflokkurinn (Centre Party)	National-conservative / populist right	12.10	Strong No	6
Framsóknarflokkurinn (Progressive Party)	Agrarian / centrist / regionalist	7.80	Predominantly No	14
Flokkur fólksins (People’s Party)	Welfare-populist / conservative/ centre	13.78	Sceptical and internally divided	55
Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (Independence Party)	Liberal-conservative / centre-right	19.36	No	13
Parties without representation in parliament
Píratar (Pirate Party)	Progressive / civil-libertarian/ direct democracy	3.02	Open to negotiations; stressed democratic choice	Not separately reported
Sósíalistaflokkur Íslands (Socialist Party of Iceland)	Socialist	3.96	No	Not separately reported
Vinstri græn (Left Green Movement)	Left-green	2.34	Against membership, but accepted a public decision on negotiations	66

The most revealing division was within the left. The Social Democratic Alliance made the clearest centre-left case for Yes: negotiate first, then judge the actual terms on offer. From this perspective, European integration could provide economic stability and political influence. There was also a democratic argument: Iceland already participates extensively in the European economic order but has no formal role in setting the rules it must follow. In this view, EU membership was not a simple surrender of Icelandic sovereignty, but a recovery of economic decision-making power.

By contrast, the Socialist Party offered the most explicit radical-left argument for No. Its critique sees the EU as fundamentally structured around markets, competition, and capital, while also raising concerns around militarisation, food sovereignty and the space available for independent socialist economic and labour politics. The EU’s democratic deficit, and its broader geopolitical alignment, and its policy towards Gaza, were further sources of mistrust.

The most striking internal division emerged within VG. The formal Left-Green position remained that Iceland’s interests were better served outside the EU, yet the party is divided, not only between party policy and voters, but also between generations of the party leadership. Its newly elected chair, Rósa Björk Brynjólfsdóttir, and vice-chair, Bjarki Hjörleifsson supported reopening negotiations to establish what kind of agreement might be available. This approach found substantial support among the party’s supporters. In Gallup’s final pre-referendum poll, around two thirds of potential Left-Green voters intended to vote Yes.

Several prominent former leaders took the opposite position, including former chair Svandís Svavarsdóttir, founding leader Steingrímur J. Sigfússon, and former prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, with the latter intervening particularly forcefully in the final days of the campaign. Katrín had supported opening negotiations in 2009 but later concluded that this process had demonstrated how little room Iceland had on critical issues such as fisheries and agriculture. She also criticised the EU’s democratic deficit, decision-making process and its treatment of member states during the financial crisis. She therefore rejected the idea that reopening negotiations was simply a neutral exercise to “see what Iceland could get” (reflected in the slogan of the Yes campaign “Já til að sjá”, “Yes, to see”).

The result was an unusual reversal: much of the old Left-Green leadership defended traditional Euroscepticism — rooted in a tradition of national sovereignty, environmental control, peace politics and distrust of centralised European power — while its new leadership and a clear majority of its potential voters were willing to reopen the European question.

Finally, the Pirate Party, which rejects a conventional left-right classification, approached the issue less through a fixed position on integration than through the lens of democracy and transparency.

One country, several political geographies and cleavages

Nationally, the result of the referendum was relatively close. Geographically, it was not. Reykjavík voted Yes, while around six in ten voters outside the capital voted No. However, it would be a mistake to reduce rural opposition to backward-looking nationalism. Rural Iceland has substantial reasons to be cautious. Fisheries and agriculture matter much more outside Reykjavík, and decisions about access to fish, farm support, and resource management can determine whether a village has jobs, and whether younger residents remain.

There is also a long history of decisions being made in Reykjavík about places hundreds of kilometres away. Replacing one distant centre with another, even more distant, one is not an especially attractive proposition for these communities.

This distinction between national sovereignty and local power is crucial, and exposes a central contradiction. Iceland may exercise sovereign control over its fisheries in international law, but individual fishing communities often have very little influence over whether quotas, boats and jobs remain there. Fishing quotas have become increasingly concentrated over decades, with research documenting significant consolidation at a company and vessel level.

This is where the rhetoric of sovereignty becomes complicated. Brussels can be presented as the great threat to Icelandic control over resources, while the concentration of control within Iceland can receive considerably less attention. The core issue is not whether Iceland should surrender control over fisheries — it is whether national control is the same thing as democratic control. Clearly it is not.

Agriculture and the politics of protection

The same tension exists in agriculture. There are strong reasons to support Icelandic farming: food security, difficult production conditions, rural employment, cultural landscapes and the maintenance of settlements outside the capital. Iceland also provides substantial agricultural support, much of it through price support, border measures, and production-linked payments. Yet protection has not solved the underlying problems. Many farms struggle to remain viable, farm numbers have declined, and succession is increasingly difficult.

This produces an uncomfortable contradiction. Consumers pay high prices partly because domestic agriculture is protected, while many farmers still struggle financially. The question is therefore not simply whether Icelandic agriculture should be protected, but whether the existing system distributes its benefits effectively between farmers, consumers, and rural communities.

Nor is EU agricultural policy simply a matter of Brussels imposing farm payments or market rules. The EU’s rural-development framework includes programmes such as LEADER, through which local groups develop and manage their own strategies and budgets. Iceland’s existing system provides regional and rural support of its own, but the possibility that European integration might change the tools available to rural communities received little attention during the referendum. The debate instead frequently presented a binary choice: protect Icelandic agriculture from Brussels or expose it to Brussels.

The unexpected question of age

Perhaps the most striking development concerned young voters. Gallup’s final survey, conducted from 24 to 27 August, found that 60 percent of voters aged 18–29 intended to vote No. Even more strikingly, this appears to have been a very late shift: in June, 63 percent of voters in that age group had intended to vote Yes. For comparison, among 30–39-year-olds the result was almost even, while older age groups leaned slightly towards Yes. University graduates were also substantially more favourable towards negotiations than people with compulsory or secondary education.

We do not yet understand why this dramatic shift occurred among younger voters, but the result complicates the familiar assumption that younger voters are necessarily the most cosmopolitan or pro-European bloc one might expect after experiences like the Brexit referendum.

Sovereignty for whom? The debate Iceland did not have

What was perhaps most revealing is what was not discussed during the campaign. Many of the longer-term social, economic, and regional challenges facing Iceland remained largely untouched. At the same time, the No side was effective in mobilising fears and resentments around Brussels, sovereignty, fisheries, and agriculture, presenting the vote as a choice between Icelandic independence and European control. This framing considerably narrowed the debate.

The central weakness was that the campaign talked extensively about sovereignty but relatively little about the distribution of power inside Iceland. Fisheries provide the clearest example. Icelanders were asked whether they wanted to protect control over fisheries from Brussels, but much less about how that control is already exercised in Iceland; by whom, for whose benefit, and with what consequences for communities. The same applies to agriculture, regional development, housing and financial policy. The larger question not asked is not whether sovereignty should move from Reykjavík to Brussels, but whether Icelanders have sufficient democratic control over the economic decisions that already shape their lives.

Outlook: The question is closed — the problems are not

The immediate result is clear: at least for now, Iceland will not resume EU accession negotiations. But very little else has been resolved. Iceland remains inside the EEA and Schengen, deeply dependent on European trade and labour mobility, outside EU political decision-making, outside the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies, and outside the euro. The EU remains Iceland’s largest trading partner, accounting for more than half its goods trade in 2025.

The No vote is understandable in historical terms. Iceland became a republic only in 1944, after centuries in which important political and economic decisions were made elsewhere. Sovereignty therefore carries a particularly powerful historical meaning, closely linked to national political identity.

But history can become ideology when independence is treated as an answer rather than as a means. Iceland’s recent history illustrates this contradiction. When a financial model built around large, highly deregulated banking sector collapsed in 2008, the country needed international assistance, making the mantra “we are better off alone” increasingly difficult to sustain. Yet Iceland’s recovery was also shaped by domestic choices that differed from approaches taken elsewhere, including capital controls, restructuring, and protection of the welfare state.

The lesson is not that Iceland should join the EU, nor that it should remain outside it — neither of these choices address the deeper challenges around the distribution of economic and political power in Iceland. The referendum answered a narrow question printed on the ballot paper. It did not resolve the larger disagreement within the Icelandic left between social-democratic Europeanism, left-green sovereignty and socialist Euroscepticism, nor did it resolve who governs the country’s resources, institutions, and economic decisions, and in whose interests. Those questions are not going away.

Pope Leo's visit to Paris migrant centre sends message ahead of French election

Pope Leo XIV will on Saturday visit Maison Bakhita, a church-run centre for migrants and other marginalised groups in the north of Paris, bearing a message of charity and acceptance. Part of his four-day state tour of France, the visit comes just months before a presidential election set to be dominated by anti-immigration rhetoric.


Issued on: 25/09/2026 - RFI

Pope Leo XIV is visiting Paris, Lourdes and Metz in France from 26 to 28 September. Among his engagements in Paris is a visit to a migrant community centre. © AP Photo/Pascal Bastien


Maison Bakhita was founded by the Paris diocese following Pope Francis's 2017 call to "welcome, protect, promote and integrate" migrants.

Dedicated to welcoming refugees and other exiles – with or without official paperwork – the centre was named after Josephine Bakhita, an enslaved Sudanese woman who became a nun and was later canonised.

Located in Paris's 18th district, it provides a space for people to find company, learn French or train in carpentry, sewing or cooking. The walls of its corridors bear a verse from the Gospel of Matthew: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

The centre's president, Valérie Moniod, says Pope Leo XIV's visit, at a time of economic strain and social tension in France, is significant.

With the presidential election just seven months away, several candidates have already begun making controlling immigration a central promise of their campaigns.

"The Pope is telling the French people that, whatever our political convictions, we all share a common humanity and a right to dignity," Moniod told French news agency AFP.

"When we speak of migrants, we are dealing with people first and foremost, not problems," Moniod said. Welcoming people from elsewhere is "part of the Church's social doctrine".

Live: Pope Leo XIV arrives in France for first papal state visit in 18 years

A banner reading "So the World may have life" outside the Saint-Augustin church in Paris, two days ahead of Pope Leo XIV's visit, on 23 September 2026. © LOU BENOIST/AFP

In the Pope's footsteps

Saturday morning's visit is expected to last around 30 minutes, with the centre closed to the public.

Six people of different faiths and nationalities – Algerian, Afghan, Belarusian, Iraqi and Ivorian – will meet the Pope personally and relate their stories.

Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich is also expected to attend.

Among the 40 or so people present will be representatives of several charities, including Aux Captifs, la Libération, a group that helps homeless people and victims of prostitution or human trafficking.

The organisation's director-general, Thierry Desjuzeur, told RFI about its approach: "Our values ​​are free access, loyalty, and unconditional support."

For the centre's guests, he said he hoped meeting the Pope would prove "a turning point and a catalyst in their life journey".

The charity "Aux Captifs, la Libération" runs a sewing workshop at Maison Bakhita. Here, five young women are busy making glasses cases out of fabric. © Marie Casadebaig/RFI

The Pope brings a message of "love, simplicity and kindness", said Bernisse Ngoma, a Congolese woman who received help at Maison Bakhita upon her arrival in France and has volunteered there ever since.

Charlotte, originally from Côte d'Ivoire, comes to the centre every week for painting classes.

"Usually we're the ones seeking out the Pope, but now he is coming to us," she told RFI.

"I'll be watching it on television, but it means a lot to me that he'll be here nonetheless. We're going to walk in his footsteps. His blessing will rub off on us."

Abuse survivors set out demands before meeting Pope Leo in France

Defender of migrants

The grandson of immigrants from France and Italy, Leo – the first American pope – has repeatedly championed the cause of migrants since taking office in May 2025.

Following on from his predecessor Pope Francis, who rebuked populist leaders for their anti-migrant rhetoric, Leo has criticised the crackdown on immigration under United States President Donald Trump.

On US Independence Day in July, he visited the Italian island of Lampedusa, a gateway for people attempting to cross from Africa to Europe via the Mediterranean.

Pope Leo visits a memorial on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a key entry point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, on 4 July 2026. © REUTERS - Remo Casilli

Pope Leo urges US and Europe to do more for migrants on 4th July anniversary

He urged both US and European leaders to do more to protect and assist vulnerable migrants.

A month earlier, during a trip to Spain's Canary Islands, the Pope visited a migrant reception centre with the message: "Human dignity has no passport."

While reminding host societies of their "duties" towards new arrivals, he also referred to integration as a "reciprocal journey" – urging migrants to learn the language of their host country, respect its laws, get to know its customs and take part in the community.

(with AFP)

Learning Style Predicts Survival Skills In Young Orangutans


A Sumatran orangutan infant is feeding on a liana fruit in the forests of Suaq.

 Credit: Eric Balke @ SUAQ Project

September 24, 2026

By Eurasia Review

Key Takeaways:

A Science paper led by MPI-AB’s Revathe Thillaikumar and Caroline Schuppli, with Universitas Nasional, follows 21 wild Sumatran orangutan infants at Suaq Balimbing (Gunung Leuser) from birth to independence (~8.5 years). About 4,700 hours and ~7,000 learning records link “peering” (watch mother/others), solo exploration, and foods eaten without help—needed for a diet of ~250 items among thousands, some toxic.

Infants differed a lot in how much they watched vs tried, but all used social learning more (about five times as often). Peering triggered extra exploring for up to 2.5 hours. High social and individual learning produced the widest diets at independence; both low produced the narrowest (about a threefold gap). Extra watching could partly make up for little solo practice.

Authors call this an interplay, not “social vs individual,” and a clue to deep roots of human cultural learning. Next: energy intake, survival, reproduction—only long-term field lives can answer. One site, 21 animals; diet breadth, not yet fitness.

Orangutan infants spend their first eight years with their mothers, and throughout this time, they can draw on her knowledge. After that, however, orangutans are entirely on their own. To fare well as an independent orangutan, infants need to learn many survival skills, and arguably the most important of these are feeding skills. An adult orangutan’s diet constitutes nearly 250 distinct food items, which it chooses from thousands of different options, some of them potentially toxic, in the wide maze of the rainforest. Before they set out on their own, infants must also learn how foods should be processed, and when and where foods can be found in the forest

“How do infants master this complex diet curriculum in those first years?” asks Dr. Revathe Thillaikumar, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

Humans offer clues. Throughout our evolutionary history, humans had to learn an immense set of skills necessary for survival across many years of development. Many of these skills, such as knowledge of new food sources or hunting techniques, are learnt from one’s culture through a complex interplay of different forms of social and individual learning.

“But until now, whether and how wild animals use different forms of learning to develop their survival-relevant skills have remained unknown,” she says.

In a new study, Thillaikumar and colleagues show that wild orangutans build their broad diet profiles through a similarly fascinating interplay of social and individual learning during infancy. The study, published in Science and led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) in Germany in collaboration with Universitas Nasional in Indonesia, is the first to show that multiple forms of learning interact over many years to build broad, survival-relevant ecological skills in a wild great ape.
Learning by watching and doing

Researchers agree that many animals need learning to acquire many of the skills necessary for survival in the wild. However, it is debated to what extent animals learn from others (social learning) or practicing themselves (individual learning).

Answering this is challenging, especially in long-lived species like great apes. “To really understand how these forms of learning translate into actual skills and knowledge, we needed to link learning events to concrete, measurable outcomes like diet. But because orangutans develop so slowly, there is a multi-year lag between learning and measurable behavioral change,” says Dr. Caroline Schuppli, senior author of the study and group leader at MPI-AB.

A detailed dataset

The researchers overcame this challenge by drawing on long-term data from the Suaq Balimbing research station, Gunung Leuser National Park in Indonesia, where an international team of researchers and field assistants follow wild Sumatran orangutans over the course of the animals’ lives. For the study, the team investigated data from 21 immature orangutans recorded from birth to independence at around 8.5 years of age. Across 4,700 hours of observation, they examined three key behaviors: when orangutans closely observed their mother and nearby conspecifics through a behavior called “peering” (a behavioral indicator of social learning); when they explored different items in their habitat (a behavioral indicator of individual learning); and what food items they successfully ate without help from their mothers (a measure of ecological competence).

Thillaikumar worked with theoretical statistician Prof. Paul-Christian Bürkner of TU Dortmund University to analyze just under seven thousand records of social and individual learning, keeping each animal’s history separate to determine how its learning behavior related to its eventual diet breadth. “Analyzing each individual on its own was a linchpin for our study because this allowed us to finally link the two parts that were previously unbridgeable—learning and skill development,” says Thillaikumar.

Two forms of learning

The researchers found that immature orangutans differed substantially in how much they engaged in social versus individual learning. “We were astonished by how different infants were from one another in their tendencies to learn,” adds Thillaikumar. Despite such variation, all immatures engaged in social learning more frequently than individual learning—as much as five times more frequently on average.

“Learning purely through individual exploration can be risky for a naïve orangutan, especially for immatures who are still growing and cannot afford to miss out on feeding opportunities. So the safer option may be to watch and learn from knowledgeable role models, such as their mothers,” explains Schuppli.

Three-fold contribution of social learning

The team found that when infants engaged in social learning, it triggered subsequent exploration for as long as two-and-a-half hours. “Each time an infant peered, it had a prolonged, ripple effect on subsequent explorations,” says Thillaikumar. The authors wanted to pin down the effects of each of the two processes, so they considered only explorations that were independently initiated to test how individual and social learning worked together.


They found that social learning and individual learning worked in tandem over the developmental period. Infants that engaged in high rates of both forms of learning ended up with the broadest diet profiles at independence. Conversely, when both forms of learning were low, individuals ended up with the lowest diet breadth, with a three-fold difference between high and low learning of both forms.

Increased social learning could even partially compensate for low individual learning by improving diet breadth. “Social learning stepped in to do the heavy lifting, which shows us just how significant it is in the lives of great apes,” adds Thillaikumar.

The results prompt a nuanced appreciation of the mechanisms underlying great ape cultures. “It’s about more than just social or individual learning,” says Schuppli. “It’s about the interplay of complex learning mechanisms that has driven the development of a broad, highly survival-relevant cultural competence in one of our closest, living relatives in the wild. This suggests that the sophisticated cultural learning seen in humans may have deep evolutionary roots.”

Linking learning to survival

The results show that heightened learning results in broader diets, but questions remain about exactly how this advantage arises. “Are they learning about lots of items, or are they getting better at learning?” asks Thillaikumar.


The team now plans to look beyond diet breadth to determine whether greater learning also improves energy intake, and ultimately, if this actually translates into survival and reproduction.

“Questions like these can only be answered by watching animals in their natural environment from birth to death,” says co-author Dr. Sri Suci Utami-Atmoko from Universitas Nasional in Indonesia. “Long-term field studies provide the time and space to follow long-lived animals over their whole histories. For orangutans, these studies provide us with window into how culture and survival have become intertwined over evolutionary time.”

Building A Stronger Global Minerals Economy Through Competitive Supply Chains – OpEd


Korea Zinc’s Onsan Smelter. Photo Credit: Korea Zinc

September 25, 2026

By Gia Kim

Key Takeaways:

The author says the West’s problem is not mines but midstream: Western firms control ~71–81% of critical-mineral extraction (much DRC ore still in the ground) while China processes 19 of 20 minerals used in EVs, AI chips, and defense. Zinc is the exhibit: mine output down 2.6% this year, Chinese-led refining up ~6%.

Cases: Korea Zinc’s Onsan smelter and U.S.-backed Project Crucible (Tennessee, 11 minerals) sit beside a 2024 Young Poong–MBK fight; MBK’s China-linked funds raise governance and know-how worries. Anglo American’s Brazil nickel sale to MMG (China Minmetals-controlled) drew a 16 Sept. 2026 EU statement of objections over low-carbon ferronickel. Indonesia: ~66% of nickel mine and ~40% of processing, three-quarters under Chinese control.

REEs: Mountain Pass plus July 2025 DoD money into MP Materials still faces China’s ~70% mine / ~90% process share. Security is competitive mid- and downstream capacity—and who owns it—not ore in the ground

The imbalance that exists between large-scale Western ownership and control of mines alongside the lack of adequate access to processing and refining capabilities, is likely the most significant challenge which policymakers will have to overcome in order to build truly independent supply chains.

Western-based companies control between 71%-81% of critical minerals extraction globally, although countries like the DRC host significant physical reserves, as much as 90% of which remain untapped. Beijing on the other hand, maintains a near-monopoly over global refining, dominating the processing of 19 out of 20 critical minerals essential for electric vehicles, AI chips, and defense systems. Western stakes in global critical mineral processing pales in comparison.

Building the missing infrastructure between the mine and the factory, is proving to be an arduous undertaking. The immense capital required, created a role for public-private partnerships, especially as Western governments are looking to replicate certain parts of China’s state-backed investment model.


South Korea is an example of both the opportunities and risks involved. Seoul is actively seeking to diversify its critical minerals and high-tech supply chains. One of its largest companies, Korea Zinc, is not only a leading supplier to South Korea’s domestic zinc market, but is also consequential globally. Its non-ferrous smelter in the city of Onsan is the largest in the world. The company is also active in the production of zinc, lead, silver and indium as well as sulfuric acid necessary in the semiconductor industry.

This business portfolio has made Korea Zinc an attractive partner for public-private collaboration. South Korea’s government has backed the firm’s construction of a new smelting and refining hub, Project Crucible, in Tennessee, for 11 critical minerals. The U.S. government has supported the joint venture with equity, federal loans and subsidies. Nevertheless, challenges in insulating the project from competing foreign influence emerged early on.

The high-profile corporate battle that Korea Zinc’s largest shareholder, the Young Poong Group, launched in 2024 has raised concerns about whether Beijing can penetrate an emerging Western-allied supply chain through third-party corporate arrangements. Young Poong joined efforts with MBK Partners, a private equity firm with notable business ties to China, to increase its control over Korea Zinc.


With China’s sovereign wealth fund among the investors in one of MBK’s latest buyout funds, and having entered into joint collaborations with Chinese state-owned entities on past projects, MBK’s newly acquired influence over Korea Zinc should be closely examined. MBK can jointly exercise the rights that come with Young Poong’s shares, securing a call option on some 12% of Korea Zinc shares, alongside other governance controls. For Korea Zinc, this could, in practice, translate into greater influence over corporate decision-making alongside insight into sensitive processes and proprietary corporate know-how by investors with links to Chinese state-owned entities. Beijing may thus see this corporate battle as a strategic means of infiltrating Western critical mineral supply chains. However, should Beijing secure further influence in Korea Zinc through private sector proxies, the specialized knowledge required to successfully operate the project would be sorely missing.

Recent reports from the global zinc industry highlight why the creation of independent supply chains is a Western priority. While global mining of zinc fell 2.6% this year, Chinese-led zinc refining increased nearly 6%, showing access to the ore does not translate into independence from foreign processing.

The recent sale of Anglo American’s Brazilian nickel businesses introduces a different problem: a mismatch between corporate and government priorities. The proposed sale of projects in Brazil which produced approximately 40 thousand tons of nickel to MMG Singapore Resources, has attracted significant government scrutiny, especially in Europe. From Anglo American’s perspective, the transaction represents the simplification of its portfolio. From the perspective of Western governments, however, when strategic mineral assets change hands, especially processing and refining, the deal becomes geopolitically sensitive. The concern stems from the fact that MMG is majority-owned and controlled by the state-owned China Minmetals Corporation.

On September 16, 2026, the European Commission issued a formal statement of objection against MMG’s acquisition, warning that the transaction could leave European stainless-steel manufactures with lower access to low-carbon ferronickel. Europe’s stainless-steel industry might, therefore, be exposed to a supply chain in which Chinese companies maintain substantial control. The global nickel industry is heavily concentrated in Indonesia, accounting for 66% of mining and 40% of processing, three quarters of which operate under Chinese control.


The rare earth elements (REE) industry presents an extreme case of the same problem of incomplete supply chains. Despite the U.S.’s access to ample REEs at Mountain Pass, a rare-earth mine in California, the question remains if Washington can separate these into materials, metals and magnets.

In July 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense made a large investment in MP Materials with the goal of rebuilding the REE supply chain. The deal targeted separation capacity, refining and the production of permanent magnets. Value is further increased by China’s extraordinarily integrated REE supply chain, concentrating 70% of mining and a staggering 90% of processing worldwide. Even with substantial government backing over ten years, rebuilding these links requires commercially viable downstream markets.

The lesson from zinc, nickel and REEs is that mineral security cannot be measured by supply or extraction. It depends on whether countries can process those materials at a competitive scale. Western policymakers need to focus more on developing mid- and downstream capacity. Alongside capital and policy support, new facilities need to operate at a competitive scale. Importantly, even if processing capabilities are physically located in Western-aligned countries, strategic objectives can suffer if Chinese-controlled shareholders gain access to this new network.

The alternative carries significant national security risks: China spent decades building its advantage across the middle and downstream stages of the critical minerals supply chain. The Korea Zinc battle, the Anglo-MMG deal and the U.S. investment in MP Materials all point to the same conclusion: the critical-minerals race will not be determined by access to upstream resources, but by the ability to develop competitive midstream and downstream capacity.

About Gia Kim
Gia Kim is a European-Korean researcher and policy analyst specializing in international trade and politics. Born to a South Korean mother and German father, she grew up between Seoul and Frankfurt, developing an early interest in how economic interdependence and geopolitical competition shape international relations. She holds a master's degree in international political economy, and her research focused on supply-chain security.
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Drawing The Line: India And Myanmar’s Unfinished Border – Analysis

Myanmar (Burma) on the left and India on the right bank of Tio River. Rihkhawdar is the busy trading broader town on the Chin State of Burma side and Zokhawdar on Mizoram State of India side. Photo Credit: Ericwinny, Wikipedia Commons


September 25, 2026
Observer Research Foundation
By Sreeparna Banerjee

Key Takeaways:

The piece frames a 2 Sept. 2026 Manipur home-minister update—about 55 km of the state’s 398-km Myanmar border fenced, rest aimed at 2028—plus a 26 May 2026 document (The Diplomat, July) on a possible ~1.4 sq mi / 3.5 sq km exchange between pillars 65–68 (Chandel / Kabaw Valley). MEA on 4 Aug. said some sectors remain unsettled and talks continue; it did not confirm a swap.

History: colonial Pemberton Line after Yandabo (1826) and 1834 Kabaw restoration; 1967 India–Myanmar agreement; ~1,472 of 1,643 km pillar-marked, ~171 km still open. After Myanmar’s 2021 coup, New Delhi treats an undemarcated line as a barrier to fencing, patrols, and crime control. FMR (1968/2018, 16 km) was suspended then ended (MHA, 8 Feb. 2024); Dec. 2024 protocol: 10 km with biometric border passes.

A swap, if ever agreed, is compared to the 2015 India–Bangladesh LBA and Berubari (1960): surveys, a treaty, Article 368 amendment, then pillars, records, and residents’ rights. Civil-society worries over villages and farmland.

The India-Myanmar border is back in the spotlight, not because the boundary itself is new, but because questions over how it should be demarcated are once again attracting attention. On 2 September 2026, Manipur’s home minister stated that, of the state’s 398-km border with Myanmar, around 55 km has been fenced, with the entire stretch targeted for completion by 2028.

Meanwhile, a reported government document dated 26 May 2026, cited by The Diplomat in July, has fuelled speculation over a possible territorial exchange. The document refers to the unresolved stretch between Boundary Pillars 65 and 68 in Manipur’s Chandel district and reportedly proposes exchanging around 1.4 square miles (3.5 sq km) of territory with adjoining Myanmar’s Kabaw Valley in the Sagaing Region. The reported proposal has not been confirmed as a decision. On 4 August, a Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson acknowledged that “there are certain areas on the border which are yet to be settled” and that “discussions on those sectors are ongoing,” but stopped short of confirming any territorial adjustment.


The issue cannot be understood without examining how the boundary came into existence. The 1,643-km frontier is largely an inheritance of the colonial era, shaped by the Treaty of Yandabo (1826) and subsequent boundary arrangements. In 1834, the British restored the Kabaw Valley to the Kingdom of Burma and tasked Major F.J. Grant and Captain Robert Boileau Pemberton with defining the Manipur-Burma boundary, giving rise to what became known as the Pemberton Line. These successive boundary-making exercises did not always correspond with pre-existing patterns of social, cultural, and economic interaction, and communities such as the Nagas, Kukis, and Mizos subsequently found themselves living on either side of an international frontier.

After independence, India and Burma sought to regularise the inherited boundary through the 1967 India-Myanmar Boundary Agreement, which established the modern alignment and created a Joint Boundary Commission for its physical demarcation. Around 1,472 km has since been demarcated through boundary pillars, leaving approximately 171 km unresolved. The present debate, therefore, is not about reopening the entire frontier, but about addressing the specific pockets where the boundary has yet to be conclusively demarcated on the ground.

A New Urgency for Demarcation

The renewed push for demarcation needs to be understood against a much wider transformation in India’s approach to its eastern border with Myanmar. For decades, the frontier was managed as a relatively porous border in which security considerations coexisted with considerable cross-border social and economic interaction. The situation has changed considerably since the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021. The intensification of conflict in Myanmar, the movement of armed groups and displaced nationals, and the expansion of transnational criminal networks have heightened India’s concerns about maintaining effective control over the frontier.

Border infrastructure has consequently become a central component of India’s security policy. India has been pursuing fencing in identified stretches of the 1,643-km boundary, alongside efforts to strengthen patrolling and surveillance. An unresolved boundary line creates an obvious practical difficulty: where stretches remain undemarcated, the construction and alignment of permanent border infrastructure becomes more complex. Demarcation is therefore not simply a cartographic exercise; it is increasingly central to the effective planning and implementation of a comprehensive border-management system.

The changing security environment also includes insurgency, narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling, and other forms of transnational crime. The India-Myanmar frontier connects India’s Northeast with Myanmar’s conflict-affected areas and, further east, the wider Golden Triangle. Undemarcated stretches can complicate surveillance and coordination between the two sides. For New Delhi, clearly established boundary coordinates can strengthen the legal and administrative basis for fencing, patrolling, and monitoring movement.

The FMR Question

The debate over demarcation is closely connected to India’s decision to end the Free Movement Regime (FMR). The FMR, which has existed since 1968 and was formalised in 2018, was designed to recognise the distinctive social and ethnic character of the India-Myanmar border, where communities on either side of the international boundary have longstanding familial, cultural, and economic ties. Under the earlier arrangement, eligible residents living close to the border could cross up to 16 km into each other’s territory without following normal visa or passport procedures, subject to specified conditions.

This arrangement reflected a reality the colonial boundary had never erased. Communities such as the Nagas, Kukis, and Mizos have long maintained social, familial, and economic ties across what later became an international border. The border, then, has never been merely a line separating two sovereign states; for many communities, it has also been a shared space of livelihood, education, healthcare, kinship, and marriage.

Security concerns over unrestricted movement have gained greater prominence in New Delhi’s approach to border management in recent years. The Manipur border with Myanmar has faced tighter movement restrictions since 2022, when the FMR was suspended amid Myanmar’s deteriorating security situation and concerns over a growing influx of Myanmar nationals. The porous border has also remained a major route for narcotics trafficking, compounding New Delhi’s border-security concerns.

On 8 February 2024, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced its decision to scrap the FMR, citing internal security and the need to preserve the demographic structure of India’s northeastern states bordering Myanmar. The MHA also recommended its immediate suspension while the Ministry of External Affairs undertook the formal process of ending the arrangement. However, in view of the familial ties on either side of the border, the Centre introduced a stricter replacement protocol in December 2024, allowing movement within 10 km with biometric screening through border passes issued to residents at designated crossing points.

Fencing the border has consequently become a key component of New Delhi’s border-management approach. The shift towards a more regulated movement regime marks a significant departure in India’s handling of a historically porous frontier, and makes physical demarcation considerably more consequential: greater regulation of movement and stronger physical border controls increase the need for clarity and precision in the boundary’s alignment.

At the same time, eliminating the FMR cannot by itself resolve the socio-economic consequences of a hardened border. Communities that have traditionally crossed the frontier for agriculture, trade, religious activities, medical treatment, or family reasons could face higher costs and administrative barriers. A successful border-management policy will therefore have to reconcile security requirements with the legitimate interests of border communities.

Is a Land Swap on the Table?

The possibility of a territorial exchange has attracted particular attention because of the proposed arrangement in the Molcham sector. Reports suggest that a territorial adjustment involving approximately 1.4 square miles has been discussed in connection with the disputed stretch between Boundary Pillars 65 and 68.

It is important, however, to distinguish between a proposal under examination and an agreed territorial settlement. The available reporting indicates that the proposal is being considered as a means of resolving a difficult section of the boundary; it does not establish that India has agreed to any transfer of territory, nor does it suggest that a final land swap has received the necessary governmental approvals.

The rationale for considering an exchange is essentially practical. If the existing boundary alignment produces an awkward or contested configuration on the ground, a mutually negotiated adjustment could, in theory, establish a clearer and more manageable boundary. Any such adjustment would, however, carry wider legal and administrative implications, and would bear directly on local communities and their customary land-use practices. Civil society organisations have already raised concerns on this front, particularly over the potential impact on villages, agricultural land, and established land-use patterns.

What Would a Territorial Swap Require?

India already has a precedent for negotiated territorial adjustment in the 2015 India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA), under which the two countries exchanged enclaves and settled outstanding boundary issues. Its implementation required the Constitution (100th Amendment) Act, 2015, demonstrating that any transfer of sovereign territory involves more than a bilateral administrative decision.

A similar India-Myanmar arrangement would likely require joint surveys and precise demarcation to establish the territory involved, followed by a formal bilateral agreement defining the revised boundary, boundary pillars, and implementation arrangements. Given the principles set out in the Berubari judgment (1960), any proposal to transfer Indian territory would need to proceed through Article 368, the constitutional amendment procedure, rather than through ordinary legislative or executive action.

The final stage would involve ground-level implementation: relocating or installing boundary pillars, updating maps and land records, and determining the status of affected residents, including their residence, land and property rights, documentation, and, where applicable, compensation or rehabilitation.

The process would ultimately have to balance strategic border management with the rights and livelihoods of communities living along the frontier. The broader challenge, therefore, is to clarify and secure the boundary while accounting for the social and economic interests of communities that have long lived across it.

About the author: Sreeparna Banerjee is an Associate Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme.

Source: This article was published by Observer Research Foundation

About Observer Research Foundation
ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.
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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.”