Free Republic

In a rare show of dissent, protests reached the authoritarian country’s biggest city, Almaty, after officials lifted price caps on liquefied petroleum gas. ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted the government’s resignation on Wednesday, his office said, after violent protests set off by a fuel price increase rocked the oil-rich Central Asian country. Police used tear gas and stun grenades late on Tuesday to drive hundreds of protesters out of the main square in Almaty, the former Soviet republic’s biggest city, and clashes went on for hours in nearby areas. The protests shook the former Soviet republic’s image...

Fatih Yuksel is one of thousands of Turks rushing from one pharmacy to another in search of imported drugs that are disappearing as quickly as the lira is losing value.... ...Turks have been rattled by a currency collapse that accelerated when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month launched a self-declared "economic war of independence" that defies conventional market theory... ...Global supply chain bottlenecks caused by the coronavirus pandemic have resulted in jumps in the price of most raw materials, which make domestically produced medicine more expensive. Turkish drug suppliers are also angry with the government over delayed payments....

CAIRO (AP) — Military forces arrested Sudan’s acting prime minister and senior government officials Monday, disrupted internet access and blocked bridges in the capital Khartoum, the country’s information ministry said, describing the actions as a coup. In response, thousands flooded the streets of Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman to protest the apparent military takeover. Footage shared online appeared to show protesters blocking streets and setting fire to tires as security forces used tear gas to disperse them ... ...The United States and the European Union expressed concern over Monday’s developments. Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. special envoy to the...

...Every electricity minister since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein has faced this daunting equation: Iraq should be able to produce over 30,000 megawatts of power, enough to meet current demand, but only about a half of that reaches consumers. Poor infrastructure, inappropriate fuel and theft account for 40%-60% of losses, among the highest rates in the world. In the more impoverished south, heat, urban expansion and illegal dwellings put even more pressure on the aging grid. Revenue collections are abysmal and subsidies astronomical. The ministry collects less than 10% of what it should in billings. In...

The Taliban have thrown in their bid to speak at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, several news outlets reported, creating a dilemma over who the UN will choose to recognize as the government of Afghanistan. Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday requesting that one of its envoys speak at the General Assembly, reported Reuters. At the same time, Ghulam Isaczai, the UN ambassador representing Afghanistan's ousted former government, also sent in his delegation list,,,

NAIROBI — The disappearance of a young intelligence officer in Somalia has led to a rapidly escalating power struggle between the president and prime minister ... Details of what happened to Ikran Tahlil Farah, a 25-year-old cybersecurity analyst, are still murky. But her abduction led President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Thursday to suspend the powers of the prime minister, who has accused him of obstructing justice in Tahlil’s case. The political showdown risks becoming a security crisis, experts say, and has blown up any pretense that Somalia’s federal government is functioning.... ...Rep. Michael McCaul (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the...

Photos emerged Tuesday showing Taliban supporters in Afghanistan holding a mock funeral while hoisting coffins draped with flags from the U.S. and other NATO countries. Reuters obtained some of the photos that were taken in Khost on Tuesday, less than a day after the last U.S. troop left the country after a nearly 20-year engagement.... ...The Reuters report said footage from the mock funeral was shared widely on social media.... ..."The world should have learned its lesson..," Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said in a livestream video.

How would one categorize a nation-state whose army gives a drug baron’s son to cartel members after suffering brutal losses in pitched battles? The country whose firebrand leftist president apologized on television and said the army’s surrender to a drug cartel was the correct thing to do, because “we do not want war”?If the reports are correct, this is precisely what happened in Mexico, around the same time the Democratic presidential primary field was debating whether there should be more trillion-dollar expenditures in the U.S. budget. Instead, a failed state on the southern border of the United States should...

Foreign ministers from 21 countries are meeting in London to discuss ways to co-ordinate their efforts to combat the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). IS controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq and the US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes since August. But UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond insisted much more needed to be done. He told the BBC that the countries wanted to find ways to halt the flow of recruits to IS, cut off its funding and "tackle the underlying narrative". At the start of Thursday's conference at Lancaster House, which he is co-hosting with Mr...

MONTERREY, Mexico—A surge of drug violence in Mexico's business capital and richest city has prompted an outcry from business leaders who on Wednesday took out full-page ads asking President Felipe Calderón to send in more soldiers to stem the violence. The growing violence in Monterrey, long one of Mexico's most modern and safe cities, is a sign that the country's war against drug gangs is spreading ever further from poorer battlegrounds along the border and into the country's wealthiest enclaves.

Yesterday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had a little dust-up with teacher Rita Wilson. Upset over Christie’s education budget, Wilson complained that she wasn’t paid enough and got sharp rebuke from the governor:.... Hmm. Well, based on this PDF from the Rutherford, New Jersey Board of Education — it looks like Ms. Wilson makes a salary of $86,389.

Arriving for work at the U.K. Treasury last week, the incoming chief secretary, David Laws, found a note from his predecessor, Liam Byrne, offering advice on the job. “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left,” Laws cited it as saying. “Which was honest,” Laws, whose position is the No. 2 in the Treasury after the chancellor of the exchequer, told a press conference in London today. “But slightly less than I was expecting.” The note underscores the task facing Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as it seeks to reconcile demand for improved health and education services...

The streets of Athens became a sea of red earlier when the Greek Communist Party staged a huge protest.

When it comes to business climate, California ranks last among the states according to the latest attack on the rules and red tape despised by the respondents to a survey by CEO Magazine.

May 1 -- Most Greeks feel anger and dismay rather than relief over Prime Minister George Papandreou's decision last week to request emergency loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, an opinion poll showed. Just 14.8 percent of the 1,256 people surveyed by Kappa Research for To Vima newspaper felt relief or hope after the decision, compared with 31 percent who answered "anger," 30.6 percent "disappointment or fear" and 22.8 percent who said "shame." Papandreou's government, elected in October on pledges of raising wages for public workers and stepping up stimulus spending, estimated weeks later that the 2009...

Greece Armageddon, Financial Ebola Sweeps Through Global Bond Markets Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis Apr 30, 2010 - 08:37 AM By: Mike Larson What does the end of the bond market world look like? Something like this … The chart above shows the yield on the benchmark 2-year note in Greece. Just a few short months ago, Greek sovereign yields were hovering around 2.1 percent. On Wednesday, they shot up as high as 18.9 percent! Translation? The cost of borrowing for the Greek government — not some subprime mortgage customer or deadbeat credit card holder — shot up almost NINE-FOLD...

April 30, 2010 Greeks face tax, pensions and pay misery in austerity plan Emily Ford An increase in the retirement age from an average ago of 53 to 67, a three-year wage freeze and cuts in public sector pay are understood to be among the austerity measures agreed to by the Greek Government in exchange for a €24 billion (£21 billion) rescue package. The measures include severe cuts in Civil Service wages, with public servants losing their “13th and 14th” months’ salary and pension entitlements, a reduction of state benefits and tax increases on alcohol and tobacco to help cut...

Morgan Stanley has warned that the Greek debt crisis is setting off a chain of events that may prompt German withdrawal from the eurozone, with grim implications for investors caught off-guard. Greeks rush to test their luck in the Joker lottery with its ?19m jackpot as the country's borrowing rate shot up again above 7pc. "The backstop package for Greece and the ECB's climb-down on its collateral rules set a bad precedent for other euro area states and make it more likely that the euro area degenerates into a zone of fiscal profligacy, currency weakness, and higher inflationary pressures over...

From the WSJ: LONDON—The yield on Greek 10-year bonds rose to nearly 7.6% Thursday, a fresh record high, increasing chances that Greece may need a bailout as concerns about Greek banks and the nation's solvency mount. Note that Greece's deficit this year as a percentage of GDP is about equal to ours in the United States. Note also that our Ten Year is trading 3.84% this morning. If it blows wide as Greece's did, it's too late. I know I'm sounding like a broken record on this, but...... Washington, listen up - our debt ratios may look "better", but only...

It’s every parent’s worst spring break nightmare come true: Fun in the sun somehow turned into a south-of-the-border bloodbath for 21-year-old Zeke Rucker. The vacationing Rutgers University graduate was discovered alone outside his resort hotel in the wee hours of the morning of March 16, bleeding and unconscious by a swimming pool. His heartbroken and horrified family has questions. American and Mexican officials don’t have any answers — or any immediate interest in finding out what happened to Zeke. Did he fall? Was he beaten? Did hotel staff witness anything? A resort security guard found Rucker at around 4 a.m....