
Kazakhstan's uprising was a long time coming, and it's an unwelcome distraction for Vladimir Putin
CNN
The government's unfulfilled pledges of a better economic future have turned Kazakhstan into a pressure cooker of discontent. The unrest is also bad news for key ally Russia, which is preoccupied with a high-stakes game of brinkmanship over Ukraine.
Only a few dozen people took to the streets in the city of Zhanaozen to protest, but within three days their anger was echoed by people across the vast resource-rich central Asian state, fed up with everything from unemployment and inflation to corruption.
The security forces had the upper hand to begin with, vastly outnumbering those who braved arrest and sub-zero temperatures to protest. But by January 4, spontaneous unrest had engulfed Almaty, the largest city in this authoritarian former Soviet state. The government's promises to roll back the price increase and offer other economic support were too little and too late.

Pipe bomb suspect told FBI he targeted US political parties because they were ‘in charge,’ memo says
The man accused of placing two pipe bombs in Washington, DC, on the eve of the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol told investigators after his arrest that he believed someone needed to “speak up” for people who believed the 2020 election was stolen and that he wanted to target the country’s political parties because they were “in charge,” prosecutors said Sunday.












