Wednesday, 1 July 2026

According to a report by Balkan Insight, Serbian opposition leader Zdravko Ponoš was interrogated by officers. The background is his claim that the Serbian authorities used an acoustic weapon (sound cannon) against demonstrators during the protests in March 2025. The government denies any such deployment; the police summons of the critic feeds the opposition's suspicion that an inconvenient whistleblower is being intimidated here. The case fits into the larger context of the ongoing tensions between the Serbian leadership and a protest movement that accuses the state of authoritarian methods. The available sourcing is presented from a one-sided, pro-opposition angle; an independent clarification of whether and which technology was deployed is still pending.

As Balkan Insight reports, Greece's anti-terror unit is investigating attacks on the homes of officials of the governing party in Thessaloniki. Explosive devices made from gas canisters had been placed outside the houses; five people were injured in the explosions. The authorities are treating the acts as terrorist attacks and are searching for those responsible. A letter claiming responsibility or a clear motive was not initially made public. The incident is part of a longer history of politically motivated violence and militant small groups in Greece. At this point, the account relies on police statements; the perpetrators and the background remain unresolved.

Two reports by Balkan Insight paint the picture of a Western Balkans caught between domestic political stagnation and geopolitical pressure. In North Macedonia, Prime Minister Mickoski announced a modest cabinet reshuffle at the midpoint of his four-year term, one that brings barely any substantive changes; the opposition sees it as mere stagecraft. In Montenegro, meanwhile, the difficulty of balancing between the West and China becomes apparent: at the end of last year, the government promised under US and EU pressure to remove Chinese telecom equipment from its networks, yet to date nothing has happened, as BIRN reveals. Both cases illustrate how slowly reforms and foreign-policy commitments are implemented in the region. Here, the Western push for security and reform steps stands opposed to local governments' effective insistence on the status quo.

According to reports by Daily Sabah, Turkey is making moves on financial policy: Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated that the country is interested in connecting to the EU's payment system and that the responsible financial institutions were working on it. In parallel, the Kazakh financial services provider Freedom Holding announced that it had received approval from the Turkish banking regulator and the competition authority to acquire around 99.3 percent of a Turkish bank. Both announcements point to a stronger integration of Turkey into international financial flows, both toward the EU and into the Central Asian region. Since both reports come from the pro-government Turkish source Daily Sabah, the account is likely to be colored in a government-friendly way; independent assessments or EU reactions are not yet available.

According to Daily Sabah, the Turkish conglomerate IC Holding plans to develop up to 20 small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) as part of a strategic partnership with the US company ARC. Sites are envisaged in Turkey as well as in neighboring countries. The project aligns with the growing international interest in SMRs, which are seen as a more compact, faster-to-build alternative to classic large power plants and are meant to cover rising energy demand. Whether and when the ambitious figure of 20 reactors will be realized is open at this point: permits, financing and the still young SMR technology are considerable uncertainty factors. The report comes from the pro-government source Daily Sabah and mainly reflects the announcement by the companies involved.

As Daily Sabah reports, a Swedish court has ordered the US technology group Google to pay the equivalent of around 1.5 billion dollars (about 14.3 billion Swedish kronor). The damages go to the price-comparison service PriceRunner, which belongs to the Swedish payment provider Klarna. The basis is an antitrust case in which Google was accused of having exploited its dominant market position in product search to the detriment of competitors. The ruling is part of a series of European antitrust decisions against Google that accuse the group of favoring its own services in search. Whether Google will appeal is open; a detailed statement from the group was not initially available. The report is based on a single agency/media report.

Two reports by Daily Sabah show the momentum in the global AI race. Japan announced that it would develop its own homegrown AI model and deploy up to 10 million AI-equipped robots across more than a dozen sectors by 2040, a push for greater technological self-reliance. At the same time, the US company Anthropic announced that it would soon restore worldwide access to its most powerful models (named Fable 5 and Mythos 5), after the US government lifted previously imposed restrictions. Both events illustrate how strongly states now treat access to, and the buildup of, AI capabilities as a strategic question, caught between national sovereignty on one hand and state export control on the other. The information relies on announcements by the respective governments and companies; independent assessments of the ambitious goals are still pending.