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Kazakhstan government’s resignation fails to quell protests

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Protesters stormed public buildings in Kazakhstan‘s biggest city on Wednesday as security forces struggled to impose control after the government resigned in response to popular anger over a fuel price increase.

An Instagram live stream by a Kazakh blogger showed a fire blazing in the mayor’s office in the city of Almaty, with gunshots audible nearby. Videos posted online also showed the nearby prosecutor’s office burning.

Protesters appeared to have broken through security forces’ cordons even though the latter deployed stun grenades whose explosions could be heard throughout the city center.

Kazakhstan is a tightly controlled former Soviet republic that cultivates an image of political stability, helping it attract hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment in its oil and metals industries.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted the government’s resignation on Wednesday, a day after police used tear gas and stun grenades to drive hundreds of protesters out of the main square in Almaty.

On Wednesday a Reuters correspondent saw thousands of protesters pressing ahead towards Almaty city center, some of them on a large truck, after security forces failed to disperse them with tear gas and flashbang grenades.

Atameken, Kazakhstan‘s business lobby group, said its members were reporting cases of attacks on banks, stores, and restaurants.

The city health department said 190 people had sought medical help, including 137 police. City authorities urged residents to stay home.

The interior ministry said that government buildings were also attacked in the southern cities of Shymkent and Taraz overnight, with 95 police wounded in clashes. Police have detained more than 200 people.

A video posted online showed police using a water cannon and stun grenades against protesters in front of the mayor’s office in Aktobe, the capital of another western province

The protests began after the government lifted price controls on liquefied petroleum gas at the start of the year. Many Kazakhs have converted their cars to run on LPG because of its low cost.

The government said the regulated price was causing losses for producers and needed to be liberalized. The president said it had botched the move.

Speaking to acting cabinet members, Tokayev ordered them and provincial governors to reinstate price controls on LPG, and broaden them to gasoline, diesel, and other “socially important” consumer goods.

He also ordered the government to develop a personal bankruptcy law and consider freezing utility prices and subsidizing rent payments for poor families.

He said the situation was improving in protest-hit cities and towns, including Almaty and the surrounding province, where the authorities declared a state of emergency.

In addition to replacing the prime minister, Tokayev also appointed a new first deputy head of the National Security Committee who replaced Samat Abish, a nephew of powerful ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Nazarbayev, 81, a Soviet-era Communist Party boss, ran Kazakhstan for almost 30 years before resigning abruptly in 2019 and backing Tokayev as successor. Nazarbayev retains sweeping powers as the chairman of the security council; he has not convened the council or commented on this week’s violence.

The protests began in the oil-producing western province of Mangistau on Sunday, after LPG prices more than doubled following the lifting of caps.

A source familiar with the situation said some workers at Mangistaumunaigas, a Kazakh-Chinese oil-producing joint venture based in the Mangistau province, were on strike, although this was not affecting output so far.

Tokayev declared the emergency in Almaty and Mangistau and has said that domestic and foreign provocateurs were behind the violence.

Almaty mayor Bakytzhan Sagintayev said the situation in the city was under control and security forces were detaining “provocateurs and extremists”.

Kazakhstan‘s dollar-denominated sovereign bonds suffered sharp falls with the 2045 issue falling around 3 cents in the dollar and many dropping to levels last seen in 2020, Tradeweb data showed.

Like many emerging and developing economies, Kazakhstan has grappled with rising price pressures in recent years. Inflation was closing in on 9% year-on-year late last year – its highest level in more than five years – forcing the central bank to raise interest rates to 9.75%.

Some analysts said the protests – the most serious in the country in at least a decade – pointed to more deep-rooted issues.

“I think there is an underlying undercurrent of frustrations in Kazakhstan over the lack of democracy,” said Tim Ash, emerging market strategist at BlueBay Asset Management.

“Young, internet-savvy Kazakhs, especially in Almaty, likely want similar freedoms as Ukrainians, Georgians, Moldovans, Kyrgyz, and Armenians, who have also vented their frustrations over the years with authoritarian regimes.”

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Trump says Israeli PM Netanyahu will visit US next week

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President Donald Trump said ​on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‌Netanyahu will visit the U.S. next week.

Trump’s comments came in his speech at the White House ​Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Friday, while he was ​falsely casting U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer as ⁠Palestinian, Reuters reported.

“I am going to send him (Schumer) a ​beautiful Palestinian outfit tomorrow, so he can ​greet Bibi Netanyahu when he comes to town next week,” Trump said.

“He turned Palestinian,” Trump said of Schumer, ​who is Jewish, while also joking that ​sharia law was Schumer’s “new founding.”

U.S. Muslim and Jewish advocacy ‌groups ⁠have previously criticized Trump for calling Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, a Palestinian, with the rights groups saying Trump uses the term disrepectfully as ​a slur and ​as an ⁠insult.

Netanyahu’s office said earlier that he will travel to Washington on ​Monday and will meet with Trump ​on ⁠Tuesday. Netanyahu will also attend deceased U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral, his office said.

The Trump-Netanyahu meeting ⁠will ​come as the U.S.-Israeli ​war on Iran completes five months.

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Trump vows to punish Iran for Houthi attacks in Red Sea; oil surges over $100

After the Houthis ​said they had struck the two tankers on Thursday, Trump said he would hold Iran accountable for any further attacks by the fighters.

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U.S. President Donald Trump promised “major military punishment” for Iran and its Houthi allies on Thursday after the Yemeni fighters struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, ​extending the Middle East war to a second major shipping chokepoint.

Fears that disruption could widen further to block another sea route sent global oil prices surging in one of the steepest rises of the ‌war. Brent crude rose more than 6%, breaking through $100 a barrel for the first time since May, Reuters reported.

Two weeks since the effective collapse of an interim truce meant to end the war, the U.S. military launched air strikes on Iran overnight into Thursday, prompting Iran to fire at neighbouring Arab countries that host U.S. bases. The U.S. military fired another round of missiles at Iran late Thursday and early Friday in the 13th consecutive night of attacks.

Iranian state media said on both nights that missiles struck Qeshm Island on the Strait of Hormuz, the virtually closed ​waterway that has become the focal point in a war well into its fifth month that has already killed thousands and raised fears of a global economic downturn.

TRUMP: IRAN HASN’T ‘RECEIVED ENOUGH PAIN YET’

After the Houthis ​said they had struck the two tankers on Thursday, Trump said he would hold Iran accountable for any further attacks by the fighters.

The Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen, said this ⁠week they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, which has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day by pipeline to the Red Sea to get around Iran’s blockade of Gulf oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

“If ​they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on social media.

​He told news outlet Axios he was considering relaunching major combat operations in Iran and was close to a decision. “They haven’t received enough pain yet,” Axios quoted Trump as saying.

On Thursday evening, Trump said on social media that “any and all damages done” to cargo ships would be paid for with “Iranian Money,” referring to frozen Iranian assets held by the U.S., but he did not say how this would work.

Sources in Iran and Yemen told Reuters that Iran had flown Revolutionary Guard commanders, military advisers and missile- and drone-related equipment into Yemen days ​before the Houthis announced their blockade. The Houthis dismissed the report.

The Houthis said their forces had carried out missile and drone strikes on Saudi oil tankers, the Encelia and the Layla.

A maritime security source said the Encelia had transmitted a distress ​call reporting it had been struck by a missile near the Saudi port of Jizan in the Red Sea just north of Yemen late on Wednesday. Saudi state news agency SPA said the strike had caused a fire at the bow.

Reuters could not ‌immediately confirm the ⁠attack on the Layla, or other battlefield accounts, but Trump mentioned two attacks on Saudi tankers.

The insurance cost of shipping goods through the southern Red Sea doubled for some companies on Thursday, after the reported attacks, sources said.

Houthi attacks could close the strait known as the Bab el-Mandeb or “Gate of Tears” which controls access from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, the second most important route for energy shipments after the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.

In the days since they announced their blockade in the Red Sea, several tankers have changed course to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb, heading north instead through the Suez Canal, potentially using a much longer and more expensive route to reach Asian customers by sailing ​around Africa.

IRAN REPORTS STRIKES ON JORDAN, KUWAIT

Iran said it attacked ​U.S. missile systems, weapons and fuel storage sites in ⁠Jordan, as well as U.S. military posts in Kuwait.

Jordan’s army said it engaged four Iranian missiles and six drones in the past day, intercepting all but one missile, which fell in an uninhabited area.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it struck a U.S. electronic warfare unit at Al-Adiri base in Kuwait, causing unspecified casualties, in response to an overnight strike on Iran’s ​Shalamcheh border crossing with Iraq.

Neither the U.S. nor Kuwait has reported casualties at the base.

Iranian military spokesperson Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia said Iran would keep retaliating as long ​as the U.S. continued to attack ⁠its infrastructure and coastal areas, Iranian state TV reported.

Since the U.S. and Israel began the war in February, Iran has demonstrated that it can hit U.S. targets in the region, despite Trump having said early on that the U.S. had wiped out Iranian military capabilities.

Four people familiar with U.S. intelligence said Iranian strikes on CIA targets in the Gulf earlier in the war had prompted U.S. intelligence to investigate whether Russia was assisting Iran with targeting information or drone technology.

CONGRESS

High oil prices are stoking inflation globally, and ⁠have put Trump’s ​Republican allies under pressure ahead of congressional elections in November.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives backed legislation on Thursday directing Trump to halt U.S. ​military action against Iran, the latest rebuke of the Republican president from Congress, which the U.S. Constitution grants the exclusive power to “declare War.”

Lawmakers have passed similar resolutions repeatedly in recent months, but they have not led to cessation of the war. The Senate voted hours later to block a ​separate, similar measure.

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Trump links Saudi nuclear deal to Israel normalization through Abraham Accords

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a newly agreed civilian nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia will only move forward if the kingdom normalizes relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords.

In a post on social media, Trump said the agreement does not permit uranium enrichment and stressed that approval of the deal is contingent on Saudi Arabia signing the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements that established diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states.

“The agreement will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote, adding that the United States supports only civilian nuclear facilities that do not involve uranium enrichment.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stated that it will not normalize relations with Israel without a clear pathway toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Palestinian statehood, arguing it would pose unacceptable security risks to Israel.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.

Netanyahu’s office welcomed the prospect of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, describing it as a “historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” but did not address the nuclear agreement.

The civilian nuclear agreement, announced on Wednesday, is expected to run for 30 years and involve U.S. companies in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear energy sector. According to U.S. officials familiar with the agreement, it could eventually allow for the construction of a uranium

enrichment facility following a joint U.S.-Saudi feasibility study, although Trump has insisted the final arrangement will not include uranium enrichment.

The agreement will be submitted to the U.S. Congress for review.

The Saudi Energy Ministry said the deal would help diversify the kingdom’s energy sources, promote advanced technologies and expand investment opportunities between the two countries.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the agreement during a visit to Manila, saying it would ensure Saudi Arabia partners with American companies rather than competitors such as China, Russia, France or South Korea in developing its civilian nuclear program.

“We’re not the only show in town, but we’re the best show in town,” Rubio told reporters.

The agreement has already drawn scrutiny from members of Congress and nuclear non-proliferation experts, who have raised concerns over reports that it does not include the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol, which provides for expanded inspections and verification measures.

Some lawmakers have also questioned whether Congress should have greater oversight of any nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, reviving debate over legislation first proposed in 2018 that would require congressional approval before such agreements take effect.

The Trump administration has made expanding the Abraham Accords a key foreign policy objective during the president’s second term, viewing Saudi Arabia’s participation as a major step toward broader regional normalization despite ongoing tensions stemming from the conflicts in Gaza and Iran.

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