Police in Kyrgyzstan opened fire yesterday on thousands of angry protesters who tried to seize the main government building amid rioting in the capital. At least four protesters were shot dead.
Police in Bishkek at first used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and concussion grenades to try to control crowds of young men clad in black who were chasing officers, beating them up and seizing their arms, trucks and armored personnel carriers.
The opposition — galvanized by growing public dissent under increasingly authoritarian Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and anger over huge increases in the cost of utilities — has vowed not to be intimidated by a government crackdown. Almost all opposition leaders were arrested overnight, an opposition lawmaker said.
“We don’t want this rotten power,” protester Makhsat Talbadyev said, as he and others in Bishkek waved opposition party flags and chanted: “Bakiyev out!”
The unrest has threatened the relative stability of this mountainous former Soviet nation seen by both Russia and the US as a strategic neighbor to Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan hosts a US base that supports military operations there.
Anti-government demonstrators tried to use one of the personnel carriers to ram the gates of the government headquarters, known as the White House. About a half dozen young protesters shot Kalashnikovs into the air from the square in front of the building. Several police officers were seen bleeding heavily from the beatings.
About 200 elite police forces tried to push back the crowd but were forced back toward the White House. Then police opened fire.
At least 10 opposition leaders were arrested overnight and were being held at the security headquarters in Bishkek, opposition lawmaker Irina Karamushkina said.
“Authorities chose terror as a response” to popular protests, she said.
The protesters in Bishkek appeared to be leaderless, and some even drunk.
Unrest also broke out for a second day in the western town of Talas and spread to the southern city of Naryn.
About 5,000 protesters seized Naryn’s regional administration building and installed a new governor, opposition activist Adilet Eshenov said. At least four people were wounded in clashes, including the regional police chief, he said.
Another 10,000 protesters stormed police headquarters in Talas, where on Tuesday protesters held the regional governor hostage in his office.
Witnesses said the crowd in Talas, mostly middle-aged men from nearby villages, looted police headquarters yesterday, removing computers and furniture. Dozens of police officers left the building and mingled with protesters.
The prime minister, meanwhile, accused the opposition of provoking the violence in the country of 5 million people.
“What kind of opposition is this? They are just bandits,” Kyrgyz Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov said.
Hundreds of protesters overran the government building on Tuesday on Talas’ main square. They were initially dispersed by baton-wielding police, but then fought through tear gas and flash grenades to regroup, burning police cars and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails.
Usenov said 85 officers were injured in Tuesday’s violence.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS