Russia’s Response to Unrest in Kazakhstan: Risk Versus Reward

The Russian-led ‘peacekeeping’ operation has helped to restore state order, but how will it respond to an escalation of violence?

The outbreak of unrest across Kazakhstan at the beginning of 2022 took international audiences by surprise. The protests, which were triggered by rising fuel prices, quickly morphed into demonstrations across the country against elite corruption and inequality. In the violence that followed, a dozen members of the security forces were killed and hundreds wounded, while approximately 1,000 people have reportedly been injured and public buildings have been burned.

America, Russia and NATO look for New Frontiers of Influence

Why the Lessons of History are Ignored

America, Russia and NATO’s Geneva diplomatic talks ended in failure without any formal course of action to avoid military confrontation on Ukraine’s border. Other vital issues include how to treat each other in a futuristic imaginary encounter of common interests. The global community is watching the prelude to a staged drama of unwarranted warfare with profligacy, malevolence and unknown miseries of unthinkable multitudes. All the superpowers – the stage actors of the 21st century have fictitious monsters equipped with innovative sophistry and captivating eloquence to talk about peace, security, human rights, global order and justice. They are master of deception playing on the passion of entrenched and exhausted mankind as if they could stop the emerging pains, horrors and devastations of warmongering to ensure a return to normalization of human affairs. To an inner human analytical eye encompassing proactive sense of global peace and harmony, it does not appear rational to articulate fears and misleading intentions to safeguard human peace and dignity while all the actions speak of a different language of obsessed assertions based on their own despotic national interests. There appears to be mythical contradictions in their claims of superiority and perhaps politically looking for an escape from the obsessed invincibility of superpowers. They claim peace but talk about threats of wars – how to rationalize the irony of human wickedness and inherent deception. Was the same stage drama not enacted during the First and 2nd World Wars killings millions and millions of people across this Planet Earth?

As Cryptocurrency Becomes Mainstream, Its Carbon Footprint Can’t Be Ignored

As Bitcoin prices rise, so will the incentive to mine it, creating a feedback loop that spells trouble for the climate.

For advocates of cryptocurrency, the promise of an economic future that is managed by a blockchain (a decentralized database that is shared among the nodes of a computer network, as opposed to being held in a single location, such as a central bank) is compelling. For anyone paying attention, the rapid expansion of cryptocurrency has been stunning. In 2019, the global cryptocurrency market was approximately $793 million. It’s now expected to reach nearly $5.2 billion by 2026, according to a report by the market research organization Facts and Factors. In just one year—between July 2020 and June 2021—the global adoption of cryptocurrency surged by more than 880 percent.

The Western Sahara Issue Is Souring Morocco’s Relations With Europe

Maps have long played a crucial, symbolic role in the dispute over the Western Sahara. For years, because most world maps available elsewhere show the international border that separates Morocco from its coveted territory to the south, those that were sold in Morocco had to be separately manufactured for the domestic market, affecting everything from globes and atlases to toy puzzles and address books.

Putin Has Turned Russia Into Autocracy’s Defender of Last Resort

There’s much that remains unknown about the violent turmoil that has engulfed Kazakhstan in recent days. But one clear fact has emerged from the mayhem: Vladimir Putin’s political doctrine has a new, now openly displayed centerpiece. On Monday, as the Russian president declared Kazakhstan’s crisis essentially resolved following a military intervention by Kremlin-led troops, he also announced the new policy. It amounts to a vow by Russia to protect autocratic rulers in former Soviet Republics when they face popular unrest.

According to Putin, the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization—a security alliance formed by a subset of post-Soviet states in 1992—had helped Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to “normalize the situation” and “restore order.” Putin also repeated claims by Tokayev and the Kremlin that had blamed the violence on nefarious foreign actors, a common Kremlin talking point in response to domestic upheaval. “The events in Kazakhstan aren’t the first and will be far from the last attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of our states,” Putin said.

Nazarbayev’s Fate in Kazakhstan Is a Cautionary Tale for Putin and Xi

More even than most crises, the events unfolding in Kazakhstan in recent days can be read in myriad ways. On one level, it clearly appears to have resulted in yet another opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to claw back control over domains lost by the Kremlin following the demise of the Soviet Union.

Moscow has been able to accomplish this by falsely pretending the unrest that it helped put down in its Central Asian neighbor was yet another example of what it calls a “color revolution,” meaning an insidious destabilization plot supported by the West.

Russia’s New ‘Conservative’ Ideology To Counter Liberalism

Renowned Russian academic Sergey Karaganov describes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the latest October Valdai Forum[1] as the “first major and strong call for reinventing Russian ideology for Russia and the world.”[2] Indeed, Putin’s speech can be viewed as an ideological manifesto that tries to put Russia back in the center of the world’s political map.

Hundreds of migrants detained outside of UN center in Libya

The migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers were camping out near the building in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Libyan security forces dispersed and arrested migrants outside of a community center in Tripoli, rights groups said today.

The migrants had been conducting a sit-in outside of the United Nations-affiliated center when Libyan police dispersed them “with force” and conducted arrests last night, the Belaady Organization for Human Rights, a Libyan nongovernmental organization (NGO), said on Facebook.

UN extends Syria cross-border aid without challenge from Russia

The Biden administration eased restrictions on aid groups working with the Syrian government in November.

The United Nations has extended authorization to deliver aid from Turkey into Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province for another six months.

Bab al-Hawa is the last Syrian border crossing authorized for direct aid deliveries into parts of the country not controlled by the Syrian government. UN authorizations for cross-border aid into other opposition areas have all lapsed amid Russia’s insistence that aid be directed through Damascus.

Iraq’s speaker re-elected with backing of Muqtada al-Sadr

Mohammed al-Halbusi is Iraq’s speaker of parliament for a second term despite opposition from Shiite parties aligned with Iran.

The first session of Iraq’s new parliament was held on Jan. 9. In that session, new parliament members voted that Mohammed al-Halbusi will serve a second term as speaker of the Iraqi parliament.

From the start of the day, different party members showed their strengths via different methods.