PROTESTS

Police officers of Kazakhstan’s Nur-Sultan city inspect every yard and flat, head of the police department of the capital of Kazakhstan Yerzhan Sadenov said, Interfax reports.

Sadenov said that the city is under full operational control, checkpoints continue to operate.

“Law and order” operational and preventive procedure is being carried out to find violators of public order,” head of the police department added. “Every yard and flat are being inspected.”

An online conference of the heads of the member-states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has been tentatively scheduled for January 10 to discuss the situation in Kazakhstan, the press service of the Armenian Prime Minister, CSTO acting chairman Nikol Pashinyan said, reports TASS.

„An online conference of the heads of the CSTO member-states has been tentatively scheduled for Jan. 10”, the press service stressed.

The unrest at the Tengiz oil and gas field has stopped in Kazakhstan, the salaries of rotational workers will be increased up to 50 percent, Trend reports with reference to the Association of Oil Service Companies of Kazakhstan.

“The road to the checkpoint is free,” the message said. “Food delivery has been resumed. The salaries of rotational workers involved in the Tengiz Future Growth Project will be increased by 50 percent”.

The cargo is transported and transited between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan along the Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) transport corridor as usually, Rufat Bayramov, Permanent Representative (National Secretary) of the Permanent Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Commission TRACECA stated.

Bayramov said that cargo is transported both to Azerbaijan and from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan by ferry and railway as usually.

Dozens of Bulgarians attended the first of three protests organized by the Shemeto Initiative Committee for the Protection of Human Rights. It took place in Berlin despite the bad weather. The students' protests are aimed at attracting the attention of the relevant European institutions and the international community, stating that the Bulgarian people will not tolerate the systematic violation of human rights by our neighbor and the desecration of Bulgarian national symbols in the Republic of Northern Macedonia.

According to Amnesty International, at least 106 people have been killed in 21 cities of Iran in a brutal crackdown on the protests, which take place already several days.

Referring to “unofficial news reports from various sources”, the BBC reports that some 200 people have been killed in the country in the last five days and three thousand have been injured.

Iran's supreme leader backed Sunday a government decision to increase fuel prices which sparked deadly protests over the weekend.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed "thugs" for damaging property in protests that left at least two people dead. His comments come as the government shut off internet across Iran in an attempt to quell protests over the raising of government-set gasoline prices by 50%.

Protests broke out throughout Iran Saturday after the government moved to effectively hike the price of gasoline by 50 percent overnight.

Angry protesters parked cars in the streets to block traffic in more than a dozen cities, and crowds numbering in the thousands marched throughout the country, many chanting, “Down with the dictator” and other anti-government slogans.

Some shouted, “The enemy is here!” a reference to the government’s continued vilification of the US.