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The US Embassy in India announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be leading a business delegation to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in mid-October. Commercial ties will be the focal point of Washington’s diplomatic outreach to the country and the broader Central Asia during the visit.

The announcement first came from Sergio Gor, the US special envoy for South and Central Asia, who described the visit by the delegation as «historic.» 

Gor said that the delegation, led by Rubio, would include executives from more than 100 American companies. The visit to Samarkand, scheduled for mid-October, will revolve around the C...

Kazakhstan observes nationwide mourning on September 25 following the deaths of 14 servicemen during military exercises in the Caspian Sea. The search for the missing personnel continued overnight on Thursday, with hundreds of people, vessels, and aircraft deployed.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared the day of mourning following the September 24 accident off the Mangystau region and expressed condolences to the families.

Kazakhstan’s defence ministry released an update on Friday morning, saying that a rescue party had found the bodies of the two missing, a sergeant and a sailor. It added that the...

Marina Vlady, the French actress whose films won her a massive Soviet following before her marriage to renowned poet and singer Vladimir Vysotsky, has died aged 88. Her family told AFP that she died at home on 24 September, surrounded by loved ones.

Born in France in 1938 to Russian émigré parents, Vlady began acting as a child and appeared in more than 80 films. Her cinematic career took her through popular European cinema and the experimental work of leading directors.

Vlady won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1963 for...

Timur Turlov has proposed a $7 million programme to support chess tournaments, travel, and coaching if he is elected FIDE president. He also wants a two-year competition calendar to reduce the need for last-minute sponsorship decisions.

Turlov, speaking during the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, estimated the proposed support at €6.2 million, or about $7 million, according to Kursiv Uzbekistan.

The president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation stated that the programme would help fund open tournaments, subsidise travel, and provide young players with more coaching opportunities. He stated that national federations should have access to support regardless of their location or...

The United States has imposed new visa restrictions on people who run or facilitate commercial birth-tourism networks just hours before Chinese president Xi Jinping arrived in Washington for a state visit. The policy focuses on organisers and intermediaries rather than on pregnant travellers as a group.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Wednesday that visas may be restricted for people who knowingly participate in or support schemes to arrange US births to secure citizenship for a child. Targets include network owners and managers, visa “fixers” who coach applicants to misrepresent their travel plans, and foreign...

A South Korean Air Force sergeant has gone viral after performing Kendrick Lamar’s songs Not Like Us and TV Off at a military concert. The video has received millions of views, with fans calling the 23-year-old aspiring rapper “Korean Lamar.”

Sergeant Eom June, also known as Kober, is a member of the Military Police Battalion of South Korea’s 19th Fighter Wing. His performance took place on 1 1 June, but it didn’t go viral until recently, when the Korean Forces Network aired it.

As Eom recreates parts of Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl performance, soldiers sing along, throw their hands in...

Pakistan launched fresh air and drone strikes on 10 locations inside Afghanistan on Thursday, saying they were being used to store and launch drones against Pakistani targets, according to AFP. The latest escalation stems from a toxic mix of militant safe-haven accusations, an unresolved frontier and the collapse of Pakistan’s decades-old relationship with the Afghan Taliban.

The dispute revolves around the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban.

It is distinct from the Taliban, which governs Afghanistan, despite their ideological, historical, and personal similarities. The TTP, which was formed in 2007, seeks to...

Almost two dozen servicemen were swept into the Caspian Sea during a naval exercise on Thursday, Kazakhstan’s Defence Ministry confirmed. Military units, first responders and aircraft were dispatched to search for survivors.

The accident occurred on 24 September in Kazakhstan’s Mangystau region, while troops were conducting a training combat mission on the Caspian coast. According to a defence ministry statement, the weather has suddenly deteriorated in the water area, with strong winds sweeping 19 servicemen into the sea.

Three men were rescued, including one who was taken to hospital. Nine deaths had...

The Dog Stars, a Ridley Scott sci-fi thriller, has nearly vanished from US cinemas less than a month after it opened, down from 3,330 screens to just 110. The $110mn post-apocalyptic film has so far grossed only $14.9mn domestically and $38.9mn worldwide.

The collapse in proceeds accelerated significantly after the second weekend. The Dog Stars grossed $2.77 million across 3,330 theatres from 4 to 6 September, before dropping to $257,548 from 1,030 locations a week later. Its fourth weekend grossed only $26,210, or $238 per cinema, according to estimates.

Scott’s first science-fiction film in nearly a...

Footage of US service members on their hands and knees preparing a red carpet moments before Xi Jinping‘s arrival in Washington has gone viral, sparking ridicule and criticism for the Chinese president’s welcome.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, arrived in the US on Wednesday, 23 September. US president Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump personally met them on the tarmac, an unusual protocol gesture for an arrival at Andrews airbase. The ceremony also included military honours, fighter aircraft and a B-1 bomber flyover.

Later in the day, clips made rounds online, showing US troops smoothing...

Motorola’s upcoming Signature 27 features a 200MP periscope camera, 100x AI-assisted zoom, and Qualcomm‘s latest flagship processor, indicating a much more aggressive push into premium smartphones. 

The giant camera island is the obvious attention-grabber, with four rear lenses and a 200MP periscope telephoto backed by a 50MP Sony LYTIA main sensor. Motorola says Super Zoom Pro can reach 100x using generative AI, while Bang & Olufsen is tuning the phone’s audio, according to Digital Reviews.

Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 200 megapixels

Motorola has confirmed the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, replacing the Snapdragon...

Uzbekistan keeps marching towards the home-hosted FIDE Chess Olympiad after beating China 3-1 in Samarkand, opening up a two-point lead at the top of the Open section. Throughout seven rounds, the hosts have won every team match and have yet to lose an individual game.

Earlier on Wednesday, Nodirbek Abdusattorov beat former world champion Ding Liren on the top board, and Nodirbek Yakubboev defeated Yu Yangyi. Javokhir Sindarov had a draw with Wei Yi, and Mukhiddin Madaminov shared the point with Xu Xiangyu.

This is Uzbekistan’s biggest result so far against the team that started the round as one...

Uzbekistan chose human dignity, openness, and dialogue as the organising principles for its message to the UN General Assembly‘s 81st session, with the Uzbek president’s chief of staff Saida Mirziyoyeva arguing that seeking peace should not be interpreted as weakness.

Speaking on behalf of Uzbekistan at the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, Mirziyoyeva called for a UN capable of implementing decisions, backed an expansion of the Security Council and reiterated Tashkent’s bid for a non-permanent seat in 2035–2036.

The speech also put domestic reforms into...

Meta has unveiled the $1,299 Meta VR Glasses, which weigh only 100 grams, as well as its first camera-free Ray-Bans. The two products address some of the most significant barriers to putting computers on people’s faces: weight, battery life, and unauthorised recording.

The VR Glasses, which will be available in spring 2027 for $1,299.99, are five times lighter than the Quest 3. They can be used for VR games, 3D films, and virtual computer displays, with eye tracking, hand gestures, and voice control replacing traditional controllers.

Meta said it achieved the 100-gram weight by combining the battery, computing hardware, and...

Callers who reach the Mobiuz call centre in Uzbek are answered by Moobina, a virtual assistant built on artificial intelligence.

She has taken nearly 9 million calls, closed a third of them without human help, came through a billing system migration, and reached the point where subscribers started thanking her.

Moobina went live in May 2025 at 0890 and at (+998) 97 130 09 09. Instead of the usual press one, press two, callers simply say why they are calling. The system recognises the speech, works out what the person needs, and either answers itself or routes the call to...

Women in Uzbekistan earn 35-40% less than men, even if they have similar qualifications and work in the same field, according to a new World Bank report. Closing the gender-related wage gap will take more than just equal pay: childcare, safer workplaces, better transport, and stronger job skills are all important.

The new Uzbekistan Poverty and Equity Assessment says that expanding women’s participation in the labour market is one of the clearest ways to further reduce poverty. Uzbekistan’s poverty rate fell sharply between 2021 and 2025, but women remain less likely to work and continue to...

Uzbek creators could get a share of advertising income from their YouTube videos in the future after Uzbekistan opened the door to monetisation in negotiations with Google. No launch date has been set, but the matter has been re-raised at a senior level.

Saida Mirziyoyeva, head of Uzbekistan’s presidential administration, met with Google’s vice president Karan Bhatia on Wednesday to discuss the YouTube Partner Programme (YPP). “Recent changes to Uzbekistan’s rules on personal data and digital payments opened up the possibilities for international payment systems to work in the country,” she said.

Lithuania’s Migration Department confirmed that it had stopped accepting new work applications through its external service centres in Central Asia after receiving an overwhelmingly large number of requests, according to LRT.

«We see a sharp increase in arrivals from Central Asia recently,» Migration Department chief Indre Gaspere told LRT. The media outlet reported that the authorities have now suspended the relevant overseas service centres, as they were receiving «very large volumes of employment applications».

Gaspere said applications were no longer being processed through those centres as Lithuania was working to “manage expectations among both employers and...

BLACKPINK star Lisa has designed her own limited-edition PlayStation 5 controller featuring perhaps the most unexpected hardware detail of the year: her signature fringe and eyes across the touchpad.

The Lisa Limited Edition DualSense will be available worldwide on 30 October for $84.99 in the US, £74.99 in the UK and €84.99 in Europe. You can start pre-ordering on 2 October at 10am local time, though Sony has cautioned that stock will be very limited.

Instead of just putting Lisa’s name on a regular controller, Sony said she was involved in the design. Her eyes and famous fringe dominate...

Across US media and foreign-policy think tanks, the dominant expectation for Xi Jinping’s Washington visit is a carefully managed pause in rivalry — with trade, rare earths, AI and Taiwan taking precedence over the state-dinner pageantry.

Xi will be in the United States from 23 to 25 September, with president Donald Trump personally greeting him at Joint Base Andrews before a formal White House state arrival on 24 September.

The Chinese leader’s visit to Washington is his first state visit since 2015 and the second Trump-Xi summit this year, following Trump’s visit to Beijing in May.

Analysts quoted below...

FIDE member federations are slated to elect the next president of the world chess governing body in Samarkand on 26 September, with three approved presidential tickets on the ballot: Jan Henric Buettner with Malcolm Pein, Wadim Rosenstein with Gordon Tang and Timur Turlov with Viswanathan Anand. FIDE’s Electoral Commission confirmed all three candidatures after reviewing the applications submitted before the July deadline.

The vote comes during the FIDE Congress, which is running alongside the Chess Olympiad. The current official programme still lists the General Assembly and elections for 26 September, followed by another Assembly session on 27 September...

Samsung says One UI 9 is officially rolling out. For many Galaxy owners, however, the more useful question is: where is it?

The Android 17-based software was rolled out in South Korea and ships on Samsung’s newest foldables, but the wider Galaxy S26 rollout remains patchy. Regional dates are vague; at least one expected timetable has slipped, and Samsung has yet to explain what is holding things up.

Samsung announced the rollout earlier on 16 September, starting with the Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra. The company also says the update will gradually reach more Galaxy devices.

However, outside South...

Uzbekistan’s presidential administration chief Saida Mirziyoyeva will deliver the national address at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

The appearance will put one of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s most senior officials on the United Nations’ main diplomatic podium a year after the president himself addressed world leaders there. Mirziyoyeva is due to speak at the general debate of the 81st General Assembly on 23 September, US time.

Mirziyoyeva has already arrived in New York, where she met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres ahead of the address. 

Chris Spatola, ESPN college basketball analyst, former Duke staffer and decorated US Army veteran, has suddenly died at 47 on Wednesday. The reason for the death has not been released.

Spatola moved into broadcasting after leaving Duke and joined ESPN in 2015, becoming a regular analyst on college basketball games and studio coverage.

His background gave him an unusual résumé for television: player, soldier, coach and broadcaster. ESPN said that combination gave Spatola a «unique perspective» and remembered him as thoughtful, prepared and passionate about basketball.

ESPN remembers college basketball analyst Chris Spatola...