World

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — More than 150 people have died and almost 6,000 have been arrested in Kazakhstan following violent riots in Central Asia's largest country this week, media reported on Sunday citing the health ministry.

The energy-rich nation of 19 million people has been rocked by a week of upheaval, with a number of foreigners detained over the unrest.

At least 164 people were killed in the riots, including 103 in the largest city Almaty, which saw some of the fiercest clashes between protesters and security forces.

The new figures, which have not been independently verified, mark a drastic increase in the death toll.

Officials previously said 26 "armed criminals" had been killed and that 16 security officers had died.

In total, 5,800 people have been detained for questioning, the presidency said in a statement on Sunday.

The figures included "a substantial number of foreign nationals", it said without elaborating.

"The situation has stabilised in all regions of the country," even if security forces were continuing "clean-up" operations, the statement added after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held a crisis meeting.

Fuel price rises sparked the unrest that broke out a week ago in the country's west but quickly spread to large cities, including the economic hub Almaty, where riots erupted and police opened fire using live rounds.

The interior ministry, quoted on Sunday by local media, put property damage at around 175 million euros ($199 million).

More than 100 businesses and banks were attacked and looted and more than 400 vehicles destroyed, the ministry reportedly said.

A relative calm appeared to have returned to Almaty, with police sometimes firing shots into the air to stop people approaching the city’s central square, an AFP correspondent said.

Supermarkets were reopening on Sunday, media reported, amid fears of food shortages.

High treason 

Kazakhstan said Saturday its former security chief had been arrested for suspected treason.

News of the detention of Karim Masimov, a former prime minister and longtime ally of Kazakhstan’s ex-leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, came amid speculation of a power struggle in the ex-Soviet nation.

The domestic intelligence agency, the National Security Committee, announced Masimov had been detained on Thursday on suspicion of high treason.

The arrest came after protests turned into widespread violence, with government buildings in Almaty stormed and set ablaze.

Masimov, 56, was fired at the height of the unrest on Wednesday, when Tokayev also took over from Nazarbayev as head of the powerful security council.

Nazarbayev’s spokesman Aidos Ukibay on Sunday again denied rumours the ex-president had left the country and said he supported the president.

Ukibay added that Nazarbayev voluntarily ceded control of the security council.

In a hardline address to the nation on Friday, Tokayev said 20,000 “armed bandits” had attacked Almaty and authorised his forces to shoot to kill without warning.

Much of the public anger appeared directed at Nazarbayev, who is 81 and had ruled Kazakhstan since 1989 before handing over power.

Many protesters shouted “old man out!” in reference to Nazarbayev, and a statue of him was torn down in the southern city of Taldykorgan.

Critics accuse him and his family of staying in control behind the scenes and accumulating vast wealth at the expense of ordinary citizens.

Foreign intervention 

The full picture of the chaos has often been unclear, with widespread disruptions to communications including days-long internet shutdowns.

Flights into the country have been repeatedly cancelled and Almaty’s airport will remain closed “until the situation is stabilised”, authorities said on Sunday.

Pope Francis spoke of his “sorrow” and called for dialogue to achieve peace in his Angelus prayer on Sunday.

Tokayev has thanked the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) for sending troops to help deal with the unrest.

The CSTO has been dispatching several thousand troops to Kazakhstan, including Russian paratroopers, who have secured strategic sites.

Tokayev says the deployment will be temporary, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Friday that Kazakhstan may have trouble getting them out.

“I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” Blinken told reporters.

Tensions between Moscow and the West are at post-Cold War highs over fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, with talks between Russia and the US to take place in Geneva on Monday, after a working dinner on Sunday evening.

Russia has ruled out any concessions at the talks.

“We will not agree to any concession. That is completely excluded,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Sunday.

BRUSSELS — Several thousand protesters marched in Brussels on Sunday to oppose anti-coronavirus regulations, as European governments mull tighter rules in the face of the omicron wave.

There was no repeat of the violence that had marred previous, larger demonstrations in the Belgian capital, although police intervened to surround a small group that approached the EU headquarters.

As it marched through the city the crowd — 5,000-strong according to the police — chanted “freedom, freedom!” and brandished banners denouncing what they called a “vaccine dictatorship”.

Belgium requires residents to show a COVID certificate to enter bars, restaurants and cultural events, and there have been several recent protests.

On Sunday, Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke called, in a television interview, for a parliamentary debate on tighter rules as Belgium see COVID cases soar as the omicron variant takes hold.

“People’s minds are changing,” he said. “A year ago, I was saying: Compulsory vaccination is not a good idea, we need to convince people.

“Now, knowing that we really need to vaccinate 100 per cent of the population — which was not our idea a year ago, we thought that 70 was enough — we still need some sort of generalised take up.”

This is not an idea that is likely to find much support among the protesters, who carried the flags of a diverse array of political groups, but were united in opposition to compulsory measures.

“It’s a completely absurd crisis management which affects freedoms enormously and which will lead to a Chinese-style system if we let it happen,” said one, who gave her name as Danielle.

Previous marches developed into running street battles with police, who have deployed tear gas and water cannon in recent weeks, but Sunday’s ended in relatively orderly fashion amid tight security.

Riot police erected barbed wire barricades across roads leading towards the European Union’s headquarters buildings and deployed drones and two water cannon trucks.

Between December 30 and January 5, Belgium recorded and average number of 17,513 new daily coronavirus infections, up 96 per cent on the previous week and 169 hospitalisations per day, up 28 per cent.

ISLAMABAD — At least 21 people died in freezing temperatures when tens of thousands of visitors thronged a Pakistani hill town to see unusually heavy snowfall, sparking a major traffic jam, authorities said on Saturday.

Police reported that at least eight people had frozen to death in their cars, while it was not immediately clear if others may have died from asphyxiation after inhaling exhaust fumes in snow-bound vehicles.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said the military had mobilised to clear roads and rescue thousands still trapped near Murree, around 70 kilometres northeast of the capital, Islamabad.

Video shared on social media showed cars packed bumper-to-bumper, with 1 metre-high piles of snow on their roofs.

“The heavy snowfall caused a traffic jam and the closure of roads,” Babar Khan, a tourist who was stranded for hours, told AFP by phone.

“Roads were also closed due to falling trees in many places.”

The website of Pakistan’s National Weather Forecasting Centre said heavy snowfall was expected in the area until Sunday afternoon, while Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said “decades” of weather records had been broken in the last 48 hours.

For days, Pakistan’s social media has been full of pictures and videos of people playing in the snow around Murree, a picturesque resort town built by the British in the 19th century as a sanatorium for its colonial troops.

The Punjab province chief minister’s office said the surroundings had been declared a “disaster area” and urged people to stay away.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was shocked and upset at the tragedy.

“Unprecedented snowfall & rush of ppl proceeding without checking weather conditions caught district admin unprepared,” he tweeted.

“Have ordered inquiry & putting in place strong regulation to ensure prevention of such tragedies.”

Traffic warning 

Authorities warned last weekend that too many vehicles were trying to enter Murree, but that failed to discourage hordes of daytrippers from the capital.

“It’s not only the tourists, but the local population is also facing severe problems,” Usman Abbasi, another stranded visitor, told AFP.

“Gas cylinders have run out and drinking water is not available in most areas, it’s either frozen or the water pipes have been damaged due to severe cold.”

Pakistan’s armed forces public relations department said people still stranded in Murree would be moved to five army relief camps already established.

Rescue operations were continuing with heavy machinery working “without any pause”, it said, adding: “Where machinery can’t reach, troops have been moved and they are clearing traffic and opening roads.”

The town of around 30,000, at an altitude of 2,300 metres, clings to the sides of steep hills and valleys and is serviced by narrow roads that are frequently clogged even in good weather.

Sheikh Rashid said residents had sheltered people trapped in the town and provided blankets and food to those they could reach on the outskirts.

Authorities said schools and government buildings had taken in those who could make it to the town from the clogged roads.

Rescue 1122, Pakistan’s emergency service, released a list naming 21 people it said had been confirmed dead.

It included a policeman, his wife and their six children.

Hasaan Khawar, a spokesman for the Punjab government, said they had frozen to death inside their snow-covered car.

Rescue 1122 said another family, of five, was also among the dead.

PARIS — The total number of COVID-19 cases registered worldwide passed 300 million on Friday, with the Omicron variant's rapid spread setting new infection records in dozens of countries over the last week.

In the past seven days, 34 countries have recorded their highest number of weekly cases since the start of the pandemic, including 18 nations in Europe and seven in Africa, according to an AFP count based on official figures.

While far more contagious than previous coronavirus variants, Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than its predecessors.

Even as it spurred the world to record 13.5 million cases in the last week alone, 64 per cent higher than the previous seven days, the global average of deaths dropped three percent.

France's public health authority said Friday that the risk of hospitalisation was about 70 per cent lower for Omicron, citing data from the US, the UK, Canada and Israel.

However with a global average of 2 million new cases being detected daily, experts warn the sheer numbers threaten to overwhelm health systems.

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Omicron should not be categorised as mild, as it "is hospitalising people and it is killing people".

"In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick, that it is overwhelming health systems around the world."

'Here to stay' 

Omicron's dizzying spread since being detected six weeks ago has prompted many nations to push harder for more vaccinations and some to clamp down with restrictions.

Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that access to the country's bars and restaurants will be limited to those who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from the virus and can also provide a negative test result.

However, people who have received a booster shot will be exempted from the test requirement.

In neighbouring Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer meanwhile tested positive for COVID.

"No cause for worry, I'm fine," he said. "I continue to plead: Get vaccinated."

In the United States, challenges against vaccine mandates imposed by the administration of President Joseph Biden were heard by the Supreme Court on Friday.

The mandates, requiring COVID jabs at businesses that employ 100 people, have come under attack from some Republican lawmakers and business owners as an infringement on individual rights and an abuse of government power.

But Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan asked: "Why isn't this necessary to abate the grave risk?"

"It is by far the greatest public health danger that this country has faced in the last century," she added.

As cases skyrocket in the US, which also broke its daily caseload record this week, Biden said that COVID "as we are dealing with it now is not here to stay".

"But having COVID in the environment, here and in the world, is probably here to stay."

In France, President Emmanuel Macron stood by controversial comments in which vowed to "piss off" unvaccinated people until they get jabbed.

"People can get upset about a way of speaking that seems colloquial, but I fully stand by it," he said, adding: "I'm upset about the situation we're in.”

Men's tennis world number one Novak Djokovic has been at the centre of his own controversy after being dramatically refused entry to play in Australia due to his vaccine status.

From inside a Melbourne immigration detention facility pending an appeal, Djokovic posted on Instagram his thanks to "people around the world for your continuous support".

'Superspreader' 

In India, Omicron-led rising case numbers have brought fears of a return to the country's darkest pandemic days last year, when thousands were dying of COVID every day.

Gautam Menon, a professor at India's Ashoka University who has worked on COVID infection modelling, told AFP that "this could potentially stress out health care systems to levels comparable to or worse than the second wave".

However Calcutta's High Court rejected a bid to cancel a major Hindu festival, despite fears the virus could spread rapidly among the 500,000 expected attendees.

"People from all states in the country will attend the religious festival and take a holy dip," environmentalist Subhash Dutta told AFP.

"They may carry variant viruses and this religious festival may end up being the biggest superspreader in the coming days."

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kazakhstan said on Saturday its former security chief had been arrested for suspected treason during days of unrest, as Russia hit back at US criticism of its deployment of troops to the crisis-hit country.

News of the detention of Karim Masimov, a former prime minister and longtime ally of Kazakhstan's ex-leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, comes amid speculation of a power struggle in the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation.

The domestic intelligence agency, the National Security Committee (KNB), announced that Masimov had been detained on Thursday on suspicion of high treason.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev sacked Masimov earlier this week. 

Protests over rising fuel prices erupted into widespread violence, with dozens killed and government buildings in the largest city Almaty stormed and set ablaze.

Tokayev told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a “lengthy” phone call that the situation in the country was stabilising, the Kremlin said on Saturday, and thanked the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) for sending troops to help deal with the unrest.

The CSTO has been dispatching several thousand troops to Kazakhstan, including Russian paratroopers, who have been securing strategic sites.

Tokayev says the deployment will be temporary, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Friday that Kazakhstan may have trouble getting them out.

“I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” Blinken told reporters.

Russia slams ‘boorish’ US 

The Russian foreign ministry slammed his comments as a “boorish” attempt “to make a funny joke today about the tragic events in Kazakhstan”.

“When Americans are in your house, it can be difficult to stay alive, not being robbed or raped,” it alleged.

Tensions between Moscow and the West are at post-Cold War highs over fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, with talks between Russia and the US to take place in Geneva on Monday.

Authorities in Kazakhstan said on  Friday that the situation was largely under control, but Tokayev issued a shoot-to-kill order and rejected any negotiations with protesters.

An AFP correspondent in Almaty said the city was quiet but tense on Saturday, with security forces firing warning shots at anyone approaching a central square.

Masimov, 56, twice served as Nazarbayev’s prime minister and had been head of the KNB since 2016.

He was fired at the height of the unrest on Wednesday, when Tokayev also took over from Nazarbayev as head of the powerful security council.

Nazarbayev’s spokesman Aidos Ukibay on Saturday denied rumours the ex-president had left the country and said he was urging Kazakhs to “rally around the president”.

Denouncing those spreading “knowingly false and speculative information”, he said the ex-leader was in the capital Nur-Sultan and in “direct contact” with Tokayev.

In a hardline address to the nation on Friday, Tokayev said 20,000 “armed bandits” had attacked Almaty and authorised his forces to shoot to kill without warning.

The initial cause of the protests was a spike in fuel prices but a government move to lower the prices and the sacking of the cabinet failed to stop demonstrations continuing.

More than 4,000 detained 

The violence erupted when police fired tear gas and stun grenades at thousands protesting in Almaty late on Tuesday.

The next day protesters stormed government buildings including the city administration headquarters and presidential residence, setting them ablaze, and a nationwide state of emergency was declared.

The interior ministry said 26 “armed criminals” had been killed in the unrest.

It said 18 security officers had been killed and more than 740 wounded.

More than 4,000 people have been detained, including some foreigners, the ministry says.

The full picture of the chaos has often been unclear, with widespread disruptions to communications including days-long Internet shutdowns.

Flights into the country have been repeatedly cancelled and Almaty’s airport said it would remain closed to civilian planes until at least Monday.

SEOUL - North Korea has successfully tested a hypersonic missile, state media reported on Thursday, in the first major weapons test by the nuclear-armed nation this year.

This was the second reported test of what Pyongyang claimed were hypersonic gliding missiles, as it pursues the sophisticated technology despite international sanctions and condemnation.

Hypersonic missiles move far faster and are more agile than standard ones, making them much harder for missile defence systems -- on which the United States is spending billions -- to intercept.

The missile fired on Wednesday carried a "hypersonic gliding warhead" that "precisely hit a target 700 km away", the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, without identifying the launcher.

The warhead also demonstrated a "new" capability, moving 120 km laterally after it detached from the launcher to strike the target, it added.

"The successive successes in the test launches in the hypersonic missile sector have strategic significance," KCNA said.

Hypersonic missiles were listed among the "top priority" tasks for strategic weapons in North Korea's current five-year plan, and it announced its first test -- of the Hwasong-8 -- in September last year.

The Wednesday launch also tested the "fuel ampoule system under winter weather conditions", according to KCNA.

An ampoule system involves a propellant canister attached to the missile when it is manufactured, and could eliminate the need for fuelling it at the launch site.

This offers an advantage over ordinary liquid-fuelled missiles, which have to be loaded with propellant on-site just before launch -- a time-consuming process that gives an enemy ample opportunity to locate and destroy them.

Growing arsenal

Depending on their design, hypersonic missiles can carry conventional and nuclear warheads, and have the potential to alter the strategic balance. They are generally defined as travelling more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.

The KCNA report did not mention the speed at which the missile travelled on Wednesday, and assessments of its performance from other nations have yet to be released.

"It looks like the North Koreans identified hypersonic gliders as a military requirement [probably because they perceive this to be effective at dealing with BMD]," tweeted Ankit Panda of the US think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to ballistic missile defence.

"We'd need independent, detailed data to assess how effective these missiles actually are, but taking the two North Korean statements about the Hwasong-8 and this missile at face value, this test appears to have gone better" than the one in September, Panda added.

Some experts caution that hypersonic weapons may have only limited advantages, while others warn that if North Korea fully develops the technology, it would pose a serious threat.

In the decade since Kim Jong Un took power, his country has made rapid progress in its military technology, at the cost of international sanctions.

In 2021, in addition to the hypersonic Hwasong-8, Pyongyang said it successfully tested a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile, a long-range cruise missile, and a train-launched weapon.

Condemnation

The United States, Japan, Canada and Germany condemned Wednesday's test.

"This launch is in violation of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions and poses a threat to... [North Korea's] neighbours and the international community," a US State Department spokesperson said Wednesday.

Berlin on Thursday called on Pyongyang to "accept the offers of talks put forward by the United States and South Korea and to enter into serious negotiations on the dismantling of its nuclear and missile programmes", according to a German foreign office statement.

Dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang remains stalled, following the collapse of talks between Kim and then US president Donald Trump in 2019.

Under Trump's successor Joe Biden, the United States has repeatedly declared its willingness to meet North Korean representatives, while saying it will seek denuclearisation.

But Pyongyang has so far dismissed the offer, accusing Washington of pursuing "hostile" policies. North Korea says it needs its arsenal to defend against a US invasion.

BEIJING — The city of Zhengzhou ordered its nearly 13 million residents to take COVID-19 tests Wednesday after a handful of cases were detected, as China fights to stamp out virus clusters ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Everyone in Zhengzhou, which has been placed under a partial lockdown, must be tested to "thoroughly uncover infections hidden among the public", the city's government said in a statement Wednesday.

The city has detected 11 cases in recent days.

The mass-testing order came as case numbers in the lockeddown city of Xi'an fell to their lowest in weeks, with officials saying that outbreak had been "brought under control".

Xi'an's 13 million residents have been under stay-at-home orders for the last fortnight.

"Although the case number has been high for many days, the rapid rise in COVID spread at community level has been brought under control compared with the early stages of the outbreak," said Ma Guanghui, deputy director of Shaanxi province's health commission, at a press conference.

"The epidemic is showing a downward trend."

China has stuck to a rigid approach of stamping out COVID cases when they appear, with tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first emerged in the country in 2019.

But, with less than a month to go until the Winter Olympics in the capital, a series of small outbreaks across the country has put the strategy under pressure.

Although the number of reported cases in China is very low compared with other nations, infections in recent weeks have reached a high not seen in the country since March 2020.

China recorded 91 cases Wednesday, including 35 in Xi'an, the city's lowest tally since mid-December.

The Zhengzhou outbreak is tiny by comparison, but officials are taking no chances.

State media said about 500 close contacts had been traced from the outbreak's two symptomatic cases, linked through mahjong rooms and family gatherings.

Eight residential communities were locked down.

On Monday, one million people in Yuzhou city, in the same province as Zhengzhou, were put under stay-at-home orders after three asymptomatic cases.

Local authorities deemed to have failed in preventing virus outbreaks have been sacked or punished, including two senior Communist Party officials in Xi'an that were dismissed over their "insufficient rigour in preventing and controlling the outbreak".

Dozens of officials were punished for their handling of Xi'an's outbreak, including the official in charge of the city's health tracking system, who was suspended.

Beijing will host the Winter Olympics from February 4, under some of the strictest rules for a mass sporting event since the pandemic started.

All athletes, officials, staff and volunteers will be within a "closed loop" system that separates them from the public for the duration of the Games.