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Israel’s Sheba Rises to No. 6 in Global Ranking of World’s Smartest Hospitals 

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Israel’s Sheba Rises to No. 6 in Global Ranking of World’s Smartest Hospitals 


Sheba Medical Center rose from ninth to sixth place in Newsweek and Statista’s World’s Best Smart Hospitals 2027 ranking, marking the sixth consecutive year the Israeli hospital has been recognized among the world’s leading hospitals for innovation. 

Newsweek and Statista highlighted Sheba as a “leader in AI innovation” and cited its work in robotics and automation. The ranking evaluates how hospitals translate technological developments into clinical applications, including artificial intelligence, robotics, telemedicine, digital imaging and electronic medical records. 

“An advanced healthcare system is a strategic foundation for national resilience, economic growth and Israel’s leadership on the international stage,” Sheba Director General Prof. Yitshak Kreiss said. “We have a responsibility to push scientific and technological boundaries, nurture the next generation of medical entrepreneurs, and connect research, medicine and industry.” 

Among Sheba’s applications of artificial intelligence is SmartER, a platform that follows conversations between doctors and patients and generates organized clinical summaries for physician review, reducing time spent on documentation. 

Sheba is also the first international rollout site for OpenAI’s clinical AI platform for enterprises. Led by the hospital’s AI Center, the system provides clinical personnel with answers based on peer-reviewed research and clinical guidelines and displays sources for verification. Other AI tools help identify patients who may be eligible to receive ward-level treatment and monitoring at home. 

Research and international partnerships are another part of Sheba’s technology program. Through its ARC Innovation Center, Sheba is working with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and NVIDIA on a three-year project examining artificial intelligence applications in genomics. The research applies large language models to study the roughly 98% of the human genome whose function remains poorly understood, with the aim of connecting genetic variation to disease risk and treatment response. 

ARC also recently launched ARC Landing Boston, a US hub connecting startups in its network with American healthcare providers, investors and institutions. 

Newsweek and Statista base the smart hospital ranking on peer recommendations from healthcare experts, questionnaires examining hospitals’ implementation of advanced technologies and Joint Commission International accreditation. The 2027 edition also incorporates data from the Smart Hospitals Digital Maturity 

Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse

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Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse

Enterprise-sized businesses spend, on average, 28 percent of their software budgets on unwanted upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes. Often, those firms’ IT heads think those changes are detrimental.

Those results are according to a survey of 2,018 chief information officers and senior IT decision-makers at companies with at least 10,000 employees that Origina commissioned for its report, “The Software Tax.” About half of the respondents (1,011) are from the US, and the rest are from the United Kingdom. All respondents worked at companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue.

Keep in mind that Origina provides maintenance for various enterprise software. Its report points to independent software maintenance as a way for IT leaders to regain control over software budgets, illustrating its potential bias. A third-party research consultancy, Censuswide, conducted the survey.

Among the report’s most concerning findings, enterprises often make software purchases that IT heads believe could hurt the organization. Ninety-five percent of respondents said “their organization has paid for a vendor-driven upgrade, migration, or licensing change in the past three years that it believed at the time would reduce performance, reliability, or business value,” the report says. Fifty-three percent of respondents “have done so more than once,” the report notes.

“Some 76 percent say their organization has very little real leverage in negotiations, and 80 percent say moving away from major vendors would cause significant disruption,” the report says, referring to the share of respondents who selected “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” to those statements.

“When the alternative to an unwanted upgrade is losing support on systems the business runs on, saying yes is often a rational response,” Tomás O’Leary, one of the report’s authors and Origina’s CEO and founder, said in a statement. “That’s exactly the problem. The market has left some of the most experienced technology leaders in the world with little room to refuse, and that cost shows up in budgets, in engineering time, and in innovation that never gets funded.”

The result is less funding for other areas, particularly, per the report, innovation (named by 36 percent of respondents), human resources (32 percent), security (31 percent), and “customer-facing investment” (31 percent).

In a statement accompanying the survey’s announcement, Liberty Mutual’s CIO, James McGlennon, pointed out that an upgrade cycle could occupy top technical workers for “the better part of a year.”

“That’s not a one-off cost, it’s a recurring drag on capacity, and every year it repeats is a year those people aren’t working on the initiatives that actually differentiate the business,” he said.

The majority (91 percent) surveyed would support laws that give enterprises “protections comparable with those available to long-term residential tenants.” Only 1 percent opposed this (with the rest signaling that they neither support nor oppose the idea).

CIOs should “negotiate the exit before the entry” to have more control over software budgets, Marshall Van Alstyne, the report’s co-author and an information sciences professor at Boston University, said in a statement. Origina’s report suggests “settling the terms of a potential exit,” including setting a price for migration assistance and caps on renewal and expansion prices, during initial negotiations with the software vendor.

Origina’s report didn’t call out any specific vendors as forcing enterprises’ hands. However, every survey respondent currently runs “at least one of IBM, HCL, VMware/Broadcom, or SAP at meaningful scale.”

European Parliament Sets Position on Packaging, Battery and Textile Waste Rules

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European Parliament Sets Position on Packaging, Battery and Textile Waste Rules


The European Parliament has backed a narrower suspension of a requirement that companies appoint a local compliance representative in every EU country where they sell products covered by waste rules.

Lawmakers adopted their position ahead of negotiations with EU governments on measures covering packaging, batteries, textiles, footwear, electronics and single-use plastics.

Under existing EU law, producers that place goods on the market pay fees toward the cost of collecting, sorting and recycling those products once they become waste. The system is known as extended producer responsibility, or EPR. Producers must also appoint an authorized representative for EPR compliance in each member state where they sell.

The European Commission proposed suspending the representative requirement in certain sectors to ease barriers in the single market. Parliament would limit the suspension to small and micro enterprises based in the EU, defined as those with fewer than 50 employees and annual turnover or a balance sheet below 10 million euros. It would last until 2035, or until a broader circular economy act is adopted, whichever comes first. Lawmakers said the suspension would not affect other EPR duties, such as waste prevention and fees.

To further cut red tape, Parliament also called for better information sharing among member states, interoperable digital systems and common reporting requirements for companies.

Rapporteur Ingeborg ter Laak, a Dutch member of the European People’s Party, said administrative burdens should be reduced without weakening environmental goals. She said companies must still take responsibility for their waste and that products must be properly collected and recycled, and she argued that environmental duties and economic opportunity can go together.

The position on batteries and packaging waste passed with 616 votes in favor, 9 against and 39 abstentions. The position on textile, footwear, electronic appliance and single-use plastic waste passed with 612 votes in favor, 8 against and 39 abstentions.

Talks on the final laws can begin once the Council, which represents member states, adopts its own position.

The measures, a directive and a regulation, are part of the Environmental Omnibus package. The Commission is expected to propose a comprehensive circular economy act later in 2026.

Bomb Explodes in Apartment Building During Police Investigation

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Bomb Explodes in Apartment Building During Police Investigation


What began as a routine investigation into suspected drugs turned into a terrifying emergency when a mysterious bag suddenly exploded inside an apartment building in Greece, injuring two police officers and two civilians and raising concerns that authorities may have been deliberately lured into a trap.

The frightening incident unfolded Wednesday afternoon, October 21, in the Kolonos neighborhood of Athens, where officers had responded to a report of suspicious items discovered inside a residential building.

According to Greek police, the building’s manager contacted emergency services around 2:30 p.m. after discovering a bag containing what appeared to be illegal drugs and a weighing scale in a shared area of the property.

Two police officers were dispatched to investigate, unaware that the seemingly ordinary call would soon take a dangerous turn.

When the officers arrived, the building manager and another resident directed them toward the suspicious bag. As police began examining its contents, a powerful explosion suddenly ripped through the area, catching the officers and nearby civilians in the blast.

The explosion occurred around 3:30 p.m., sending emergency responders rushing to the building on Platonos Street as authorities scrambled to determine what had happened.

Both officers and the two civilians were injured, including the building manager who had originally reported the suspicious items.

One police officer suffered more serious injuries and was transported to Athens’ 401 Military Hospital, where doctors determined he would require surgery. The second officer and two civilians were taken to Evangelismos Hospital for treatment.

Fortunately, medical officials indicated that none of the four victims was believed to be in life-threatening condition, despite the frightening circumstances.

As investigators examined the damaged area, they discovered evidence that the blast had been caused by an explosive device hidden among the suspicious materials.

That discovery transformed what initially appeared to be a drug-related police call into a potentially much more serious criminal investigation.

Authorities are now examining whether the device was deliberately planted to injure whoever approached it, with particular attention on the possibility that police officers were the intended targets.

According to Reuters, a police official said investigators were also considering whether the explosive had been activated remotely. However, authorities have not established how the device was triggered, and that possibility remains under investigation.

The timing of the explosion has raised troubling questions because the device detonated while officers were examining the bag, rather than before they arrived at the building.

Greek media outlets have reported that investigators are exploring whether the suspicious package was part of a deliberate ambush, although police have not confirmed that anyone intentionally arranged the incident to target responding officers.

Specialized bomb disposal teams and forensic investigators were called to the scene to collect evidence and examine the remains of the explosive device.

Additional officers secured the surrounding area while investigators worked to determine who placed the suspicious materials inside the apartment building and whether the reported drugs were connected to the explosion.

The case has also drawn attention because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the initial emergency call.

According to the official police account, the building manager had reported finding a bag containing a jar of suspected drugs and a scale. Those items were discovered in a common area, where residents and visitors could potentially have encountered them.

Investigators are examining the contents of the bag and the sequence of events leading up to the blast to determine whether the suspected narcotics were genuine or had been placed there for another purpose.

While some early reports suggested the explosion could have been remotely triggered, other possibilities have not been ruled out, and investigators have not publicly identified a suspect or motive.

Greek authorities have also indicated that the incident is not currently being classified as an act of terrorism.

Instead, the investigation is being handled by the country’s organized crime authorities, who are working to establish whether the device was connected to criminal activity, a targeted attack or another unresolved dispute.

The explosion has understandably raised concerns about the safety of officers responding to seemingly routine calls involving suspicious objects, particularly when the true nature of those objects remains unknown.

In this case, a report about possible illegal drugs quickly escalated into a dangerous emergency that left four people hospitalized and prompted a major police investigation.

Despite the injuries, authorities have reported no fatalities, and the fact that all four victims are expected to survive has offered some relief following the frightening blast.

For now, investigators face several unanswered questions, including who placed the device inside the building, why it was hidden among suspected drugs and whether the explosion was intentionally timed to coincide with the officers’ arrival.

Xbox wants you to pay 24 to 40 cents per hour to stream games you already bought

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Xbox wants you to pay 24 to 40 cents per hour to stream games you already bought

In September, when Microsoft severely limited the game-streaming buffet available to Game Pass subscribers, the company said non-subscribers would soon be able to “purchase cloud playtime hours through the Xbox Store and stream eligible games they own on supported devices.” Today, Microsoft rolled out those a la carte Cloud Playtime purchases to Xbox Insiders, with prices that might be a bit galling for players who have already purchased these streamable games.

The “introductory launch pricing” for Xbox’s Cloud Playtime purchases is as follows:

  • 10 hours for $4 (~$0.40/hour)
  • 25 hours for $8 (~$0.32/hour)
  • 50 hours for $12 (~$0.24/hour)

Purchased playtime “remains available until it’s used,” Microsoft writes, so you don’t have to worry about your 50-hour purchase expiring before you can use it fully.

Paying for playtime directly like this evokes images of old arcades, where players would invest a quarter or two (in 20th century dollars) often for just a few minutes of gameplay. That kind of metered play has fallen heavily out of fashion, though, in favor of one-time purchases for an all-you-can-play experience at home.

On the surface, paying as low as 24 cents for an hour of streaming game time doesn’t sound completely unreasonable. Remember, though, that these streaming costs come on top of whatever you paid to buy the game in the first place. Unlike an Xbox Game Pass subscription—which includes a few hours of monthly streaming access to hundreds of games as part of the subscription price—these Cloud Playtime packs “require cloud playable game purchase or, for select games, free-to-play access,” Microsoft writes.

Say what you will about the old arcade model, but you didn’t have to buy the cabinet and then pay a quarter per play.

Arcade pricing worked, in part, because you didn’t have to buy the game up front. Not so with a la carte Xbox Cloud Streaming.

Credit: Getty Images

Arcade pricing worked, in part, because you didn’t have to buy the game up front. Not so with a la carte Xbox Cloud Streaming. Credit: Getty Images

Keep the meter running

Microsoft’s metered Cloud Playtime packs differ from Google’s failed Stadia streaming experiment, which offered unlimited streaming playtime across devices for games you purchased on the platform. Of course, Stadia game purchases also didn’t let you download games for local play on a PC or console, making the overall value proposition quite different. That was especially true after Stadia’s 2022 shutdown made those purchases unplayable (though Google offered full refunds for any and all Stadia purchases at that point).

In 2014, Sony offered a la carte streaming game access for set rental periods as part of its new PlayStation Now service. While that system didn’t require up-front game purchases, the initial pricing was exorbitant, rising to $30 for 90 days of real-time streaming access, even for games that could be purchased outright on disc for less.

Those early streaming price experiments quickly gave way to an all-you-can-stream PlayStation Now subscription plan, which has now morphed into unlimited streaming of select PlayStation games through the top-tier, $20/month (or $160/year) PlayStation Plus Premium plan.

Microsoft is also reminding cloud-curious gamers that Xbox Insiders can test free, ad-supported streams of games they own without buying any playtime packs. That might be the best option for gamers who want to test out a quick Halo session on their phone, rather than maintaining regular streaming access to their Xbox libraries. But Microsoft also says that paid users will get “shorter wait times [and] high-quality streaming,” meaning a deteriorated experience for those who use the ad-supported tier.

In the end, it’s a question of how much of a mass market there is for Xbox Cloud Streaming on its own, rather than as an outgrowth of Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. Last month, Microsoft said that only 4 percent of Game Pass subscribers would be affected by the subscription’s new limits of five to 15 hours of streaming playtime per month.

That suggests only a small minority of Xbox users want to use cloud streaming for a significant portion of their gaming time, even when it was included as a free perk with their existing subscription. How much less interest will there be among non-subscribers who have to pay by the hour for streaming access to games they already own?

2 killed, 2 injured after Saudi air defenses intercept drone targeting Aramco oil field

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2 killed, 2 injured after Saudi air defenses intercept drone targeting Aramco oil field

This picture shows Aramco tower at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh on April 16, 2023 [FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images]

This picture shows Aramco tower at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh on April 16, 2023 [FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images]

Two foreign nationals were killed and two others injured Wednesday after Saudi air defenses intercepted a drone attempting to target a facility at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oil field in the country’s Eastern Province, the Energy Ministry said, Anadolu reports.

A ministry official said Saudi air defenses intercepted the drone as it attempted to strike one of the facilities at the oil field, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

Debris from the interception sparked a fire in a vehicle belonging to a contractor working at the field, outside the facility’s perimeter, the official said.

The incident did not affect operations at the oil field, the ministry added.

The official identified the two fatalities as Philippine and Nepalese nationals, while the injured were Pakistani and Indian nationals.

Relevant authorities responded to the incident and took the necessary measures, according to the statement.

The incident comes amid escalating hostilities between Yemen’s Houthi group and the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

​​​​​​​The Houthis have recently threatened to target Saudi energy infrastructure, including facilities operated by Saudi Aramco, as fighting intensifies in Yemen.

FCC chair warns media not to run the “fake polls” Trump keeps complaining about

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FCC chair warns media not to run the “fake polls” Trump keeps complaining about

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr today warned broadcasters about airing “fake polls,” amplifying one of the many complaints that President Trump has regularly made about the news media.

Carr’s post on X said, “Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics and without informing the public that those Polls lack a scientific, accurate, or even real basis… Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations.”

Carr urged broadcasters to “provide their viewers with additional context and information about Polls they have covered.” In fact, one small polling outfit was exposed as a hoax this week, and a similar incident occurred in August. News outlets have reported on these hoaxes, providing the very “context” that Carr said is needed.

Carr’s post did not mention any specific fake polls or any specific broadcasters that aired them. The vagueness of Carr’s post may be useful for his and Trump’s ongoing battle against the news media. In August, Trump demanded that the FCC punish or rebuke an NBC journalist for saying he has “mixed results” in election endorsements, and wrote that the FCC must do something about “THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA.”

Ex-FCC chairs: Carr wants “self-censorship”

Carr’s latest warning to broadcasters came as no surprise, given that he has spent much of the past two years threatening broadcast licenses and opening investigations into Trump’s least favorite news companies. Former Republican and Democratic FCC chairs and commissioners recently said Carr is seeking to censor and chill the speech of broadcasters through a proceeding that threatens the licenses of ABC-owned stations.

“FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s threat against broadcasters over their reporting on political polls is yet another truly outrageous attempt to censor and control the information available to Americans as they prepare to vote… Carr is now seizing on reports about fabricated political polling as an excuse to once again try to scare broadcasters into self-censorship,” said a statement today from a group of former FCC chairs and officials.

Today’s statement was attributed to former Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat; former Chairman Mark Fowler, a Republican; and seven former high-ranking FCC officials. “Good-faith reporting on public polls—even ones that turn out to be made up—is not a violation of the FCC’s news distortion or hoax rules. And the FCC has zero authority to dictate editorial decisions,” they said.

Wheeler, Fowler, and others previously signed a letter objecting to the ABC investigation. The letter called it “the latest attack in a sustained campaign by Chairman Carr and the Trump administration of threatening legal sanctions against licensees whose speech President Trump dislikes.”

Anna Gomez, the only Democratic commissioner on the current FCC, wrote today that “Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong. FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”

Pollster admits hoax

An entity called Wedgewood Polls said yesterday that it published fabricated polling data “to test whether media outlets, aggregators, and commentators would report on data without verifying the source, methodology, or underlying firm legitimacy.” It claimed to be running an experiment on the modern political polling industry.

“Despite having no history, formal credentials, or real data behind the vast majority of our releases, Wedgewood Polling was added to major polling aggregators, including The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne, and VoteHub, and repeatedly treated as a legitimate news source,” the statement said.

Notably, the three polling aggregators mentioned in the statement are not broadcast stations or news networks whose programming is carried on local broadcast stations. That’s relevant because Carr has repeatedly said he merely uses the FCC’s regulatory authority over broadcasters with licenses to use public spectrum, and not media outlets that do not have FCC licenses. Carr’s post yesterday warned broadcasters to “comply with their public interest obligations” under “the terms of their federal licenses.”

While Wedgewood Polls claimed that its data faced no scrutiny from news organizations, FiftyPlusOne said it was preparing to publish an article exposing the fraud and had sent a request for comment to Wedgewood. “They did not respond to our request, but instead posted a public statement on social media admitting that they had been fabricating data,” FiftyPlusOne wrote.

FiftyPlusOne, The New York Times, and VoteHub all say they did some vetting of Wedgewood before deciding to use its polls. FiftyPlusOne wrote:

Their statement alleges that FiftyPlusOne, The New York Times, and other poll aggregators did not conduct appropriate vetting of their firm prior to aggregating their polls; this is false. We reached out to them to ask who they were and confirm the methodology statement on their website. We were given two names, Jack Sims and Andrew Prater. We were able to independently confirm that Sims had previous experience in the polling industry and reviewed their methodology statement in detail. It is not atypical for a pollster to leave an existing firm, form their own, and self-fund some surveys to build reputation; we had no reason at the time to believe this case was any different. Wedgewood operated as if it were a legitimate polling firm, including collecting money from donors to conduct crowd-funded polls, and sharing raw survey data (which we now have confirmed was fraudulent) with FiftyPlusOne on Oct. 15, 2026.

NYT and VoteHub explain poll inclusion

VoteHub Head of Data Science Zachary Donnini said that after talking to Wedgewood’s “head pollster,” Votehub “assigned them a D grade and included their polling data on our site.” Meanwhile, the New York Times updated its polling page with a statement about Wedgewood.

The New York Times said it sends all new pollsters “a series of questions regarding the identities of the pollsters; the methods they were using to draw their sample, contact respondents and weight their polls; and the source of their funding.” Wedgewood answered the questions, and the NYT used 15 of its polls for state and congressional-district races.

The Wedgewood “polls were never included in the tracker or average of President Trump’s approval rating or of the national polls tracking overall preference for control of Congress,” the NYT said.

In the previous incident this year, a group called Median Strategies admitted it faked poll results as part of a “social experiment.” The NYT said it never included that group’s results in its trackers “because the group did not respond to our questions about its methodology.”

Nate Silver removed Wedgewood from his polling site today. Wedgewood polls tended to be about 1 percentage point more favorable for Democrats than other polls, according to Silver.

North Korea tells border troops to take ‘resolute action’ if South threatens their safety

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North Korea tells border troops to take ‘resolute action’ if South threatens their safety


North Korea has told its border troops to take “prompt ​and resolute action” if South Korean forces threaten their safety, state media ​said on Wednesday, raising the risk of a clash along the ⁠heavily armed frontier.

The report came a day after Seoul pledged to punish “resolutely” any ​further provocation by Pyongyang if North Korea acted on threats to strengthen its military ​posture along the border.

North Korean Army Marshal Pak Jong Chon inspected fortifications on the border with South Korea on Tuesday, accompanied by Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong ​Un, KCNA reported.

Kim Yo Jong said new firepower units had “taken their firing positions” at ​the border, KCNA reported.

Tensions between North and South Korea have risen since Pyongyang began fortifying its ‌border ⁠in April 2024. The two countries are separated by the Demilitarized Zone that was established when the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953.

Seoul says Pyongyang has sent up to 7,000 workers to the border this year, with about 50 ​crossings of the ​Military Demarcation Line, ⁠which bisects the DMZ, to South Korea’s side of the border.

On Wednesday, North Korea rejected Seoul’s allegations, with Pak dismissing ​the claim as an “absurd assertion” designed to shift blame, KCNA reported.

The ​North Korean ⁠army knew where the border lay “better than any others” and was only doing what it should within its own territory, Pak said, urging soldiers to turn the border ⁠into an “impregnable ​fortress”.

South Korea said North Korean mines caused ​a border blast last month that seriously wounded two of its soldiers, and called on Pyongyang to suspend the ​fortification work.

Source:  Reuters

Rubio’s Central Asia pitch is about more than minerals

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Rubio’s Central Asia pitch is about more than minerals

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Samarkand on October 19 with nearly 300 American business leaders, seeking to deepen US commercial ties with Central Asia.

Washington’s renewed interest will matter less for how many agreements it produces than for whether American investment helps the region move beyond being merely a supplier of raw materials.

At the C5+1 meeting, Rubio promoted critical minerals, trade links and technological cooperation. Reuters reported that the visit produced few immediate public results, though US officials described it as a chance to build long-term relationships.

Washington is increasingly driven to diversify supply chains away from China, especially for industries that depend on strategic minerals.

For Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the prize is potentially bigger than supplying American manufacturers. Investment could build domestic processing, create skilled jobs and strengthen their negotiating positions.

Russia remains tied to Central Asian economies through trade, labor migration, energy infrastructure and security arrangements. China has financed transport networks and built substantial commercial partnerships. The arrival of American companies will end neither.

And Rubio wisely acknowledged as much. Speaking in Samarkand, America’s top diplomat rejected the idea that Uzbekistan should stop working with Moscow or Beijing. Washington, he said, wanted American companies to compete, not to dictate whom its partners do business with.

Still, more trading partners do not automatically bring more economic independence. A country can sell minerals to several buyers and still remain dependent on foreign companies for processing, technology and market access.

Uzbekistan, for one, has recognized the challenge. At the Samarkand meeting, Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov called for cooperation spanning geological exploration, mineral processing and local industrial clusters. Tellingly, it is a proposal to build industries, not merely to secure supplies.

For American firms, the challenge is to make local processing commercially viable while securing reliable supplies. For Central Asian governments, it is to ensure that investment builds domestic capabilities and not just boosts exports.

To be sure, not every mineral can be processed economically near its source. Electricity prices, technology, infrastructure and scale determine where processing makes most commercial sense.

Washington should prioritize projects in which commercial incentives and regional development goals align. Joint processing ventures, workforce training and technology partnerships could serve both interests.

Central Asia’s five main economies also differ in the opportunities they offer. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have larger markets and more established industrial bases, while Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan face greater infrastructure and financing constraints. American investment strategies should reflect those differences.

The Trans-Caspian corridor could offer another route between Central Asia and Europe, but its competitiveness depends on infrastructure investment and more efficient cross-border transport.

A September 2026 World Bank assessment projected that strategic infrastructure investment could more than triple trade volumes along the corridor and halve travel times by 2040, with larger potential gains if paired with relevant reforms.

The World Bank estimated that the corridor would need more than US$25 billion in physical infrastructure and another $30 billion in supporting investment through 2040.

These projections reflect the scale of the region’s challenge. Alternative trade routes require sustained financing, regulatory cooperation and reliable transport services, not simply diplomatic announcements.

Environmental pressures complicate the investment agenda. Water and electricity are scarce in the region, and mineral processing consumes both at scale. That means projects must weigh energy availability, water efficiency and environmental safeguards carefully alongside commercial returns.

Washington should judge success by productive capacity rather than by the number or value of mineral agreements. The relevant indicators will be whether projects secure financing, build commercially sustainable processing plants, train local workers and improve access to international markets.

Central Asian governments, meanwhile, should negotiate transparent invesstment terms and realistic commitments to local industrial development without creating projects that depend on permanent subsidies.

Rubio’s visit aimed to build on the C5+1 framework established in 2015. But what sets the latest US effort apart is its commercial emphasis and Washington’s growing concern about strategic supply chains.

Central Asian governments do not seek to swap dependence on Russia or China for dependence on the United States. Rather, they want stronger domestic industries and more leverage in dealing with all outside partners and customers.

The real test of Rubio’s initiative is not where Central Asia sells its minerals, but rather how much of their value Central Asians can keep.

Saima Afzal is a researcher specializing in South Asian security, counterterrorism, and broader geopolitical dynamics across the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Indo-Pacific. She is currently a research scholar at Justus Liebig University, Germany.

US Prepares Gulf Embassy Evacuations as Houthi Attacks Intensify 

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US Prepares Gulf Embassy Evacuations as Houthi Attacks Intensify 


The United States is preparing to evacuate some diplomatic personnel and their family members from embassies in the Gulf as Houthi attacks escalate, official sources told Reuters. 

Two US officials said the ordered departures could extend to all personnel and their families at the US Mission to Saudi Arabia. The US Embassy in Riyadh issued a security alert Wednesday warning that further Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia were possible following recent deadly strikes, including an attack on Riyadh’s airport. 

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry said two foreign workers were killed Wednesday in a drone attack targeting facilities belonging to oil company Aramco. The victims were from the Philippines and Nepal. 

A drone attempting to strike a facility at Aramco’s Shaybah oil field was intercepted, according to the ministry. The interception resulted in a fire in a contractor’s vehicle outside the facility’s boundaries. Operations at the oil field continued as usual. 

Separately, the Saudi-led coalition said Wednesday that its forces intercepted five drones launched toward the kingdom over the Medina area and eastern regions. 

Coalition spokesman Turki Al-Maliki said Tuesday that forces intercepted another drone over Riyadh. Several hours earlier, the coalition shot down a Houthi ballistic missile headed toward the Saudi capital. 

Residents heard two loud explosions Tuesday morning and received warnings through mobile phone applications. No injuries or damage were reported. 

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