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The building has fallen into the hands of the demonstrators, local media reported, adding that gunshots were heard outside the compound.Kazakh's President vows to take a "tough" response to the rioting:
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wasn't present, however, as he's currently working from the country's capital, Nur-Sultan.
The building in question is known as the 'old residence', as the head of state was based there before the Kazakh capital was moved to Nur-Sultan (formerly known as Astana) in 1997. However, the compound, located in the government district, maintains its official status.
Earlier on Wednesday, the mob made its way into the mayor's office and several other government buildings in the city, which is home to two million people. Clashes have been taking place in various parts of Almaty, with reports of some protesters using firearms against the military and police.
The authorities have again addressed the public, claiming that Almaty has "come under new attacks by extremists and radicals." They called upon those who had taken to the streets to disperse, insisting that their "main goal was to avoid further escalation of violence."
The dramatic events in the second city prompted authorities in the capital to declare a state of emergency on Wednesday. Tensions have also been running high in other areas of the country.
A standoff between police and demonstrators is ongoing, as of Wednesday afternoon, outside the mayor's office in the western city of Aktobe. There were reports that the building had been taken over by the crowd, but law enforcement has since regained control.
In Aktaum on the Caspian Sea, an angry mob was filmed capturing a military truck that had been transporting servicemen. In the clip, a group of men with large sticks were seen ordering the soldiers out of the vehicle and making them kneel in the sand. Judging by the footage, some of the troops were later beaten up.
Kazakhstan has been engulfed in protests since the New Year after the cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) doubled in the resource-rich country in a matter of just days.
The hike came because of a reform which saw the trade in LPG transitioning to an electronic platform. The Kazakh government had previously said it couldn't maintain the longtime fuel price caps anymore, as the policy forced producers to operate at a deficit.
But the people were not swayed by those arguments, taking to the streets in large numbers in Nur-Sultan, Almaty, and elsewhere.
Tuesday night was especially heated in Almaty, with widespread clashes and dozens of cars being set on fire. The authorities reacted by imposing a state of emergency in the city.
"As the head of state and from now on as the chief of the Security Council, I intend to act as tough as possible," Tokayev stated.Not only was there a nationwide internet shut down by Kazakhstan's government, but RT reports that even power supplies to news stations was cut off. This might be because there were reports of 'protestors' breaking into TV stations, and it's likely that the power was cut in an attempt to prevent any possible TV broadcasts that would incite further rioting:
The post was previously held by former president, and the country's long-time leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The president has placed the blame for the ongoing unrest on unnamed "financially motivated plotters." He claimed that the "hooligans" storming administrative buildings were "highly organized." The violence has already left multiple law enforcement officers injured or dead, Tokayev added.
NetBlocks, a British organization that monitors internet freedom, has described the situation in the country as "a nation-scale internet blackout."By early evening yesterday, Kazakhstan had declared a nationwide emergency:
"The incident is likely to severely limit coverage of escalating anti-government protests," the outfit pointed out.
RT's attempts to access some Kazakhstan's most prominent news websites have been fruitless amid reports of the blackout.
TV broadcasting has also been disrupted in the country. The KTK channel said it went off the air on Wednesday because the electricity to its headquarters had been cut off. NTK and Channel One Eurasia have also gone dark.
The same day, protesters broke into the offices of the Mir 24 TV channel in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty. The staff had been evacuated in time, but the mob remained inside for around an hour, damaging equipment.
In order to arm themselves, the protesters attacked a firearms store in the city, breaking into its warehouse and taking everything that was inside, according to the staff.
The state of emergency vastly expands the powers of the country's police and military, as well as allowing the handing down of heavy penalties, including lengthy prison terms, on those caught breaking the law while it is in place.Soon after, the Kazakh president called on the Russia-led CSTO for help, noting that these "terrorist" groups had begun taking over strategic facilities across the country:
Footage circulating online shows protesters assaulting police officers and military servicemen, and apparently taking their firearms in the process. Clips of the police firing tear gas grenades and water cannons have also surfaced. Numerous stores, including those selling guns, have reportedly been ransacked, and rioters in Almaty have reportedly been breaking into ATMs. The city's international airport has also been overrun by violent protesters, and its operations are currently suspended.
"I believe reaching out to our CSTO partners is appropriate and timely," President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was quoted as saying by local media late on Wednesday.Details of the battles between 'protesters' and the country's security forces emerge:
Moreover, he said an "intense firefight" between an airborne military unit and the "terrorists" had been going on outside the country's largest city, Almaty, at the time of his address. These highly organized "terrorists" have been trained abroad, Tokayev alleged. He did not provide any evidence to back up this assertion.
"These terrorist gangs are international, have undergone serious training abroad, and their attack on Kazakhstan can and should be viewed as an act of aggression."
Tokayev said he had already requested the CSTO nations' help in fighting the "terrorist threat," which he said was aimed at "undermining the territorial integrity" of Kazakhstan.
The CSTO is a security treaty between six former Soviet states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Azerbaijan was originally a member of the organization upon its foundation in 1994, but withdrew in 1999. Kyrgyzstan came close to asking for the deployment of peacekeepers 2010, during clashes between the country's ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek populations, but the bloc did not agree to provide military assistance on that occasion.
Shortly after Tokayev's address, Almaty's authorities said in a statement that a "counter-terrorist" operation has been launched in the city, aiming to "re-establish order" and "stop acts of terrorism and banditry that threaten our wellbeing and our future."
Footage circulating online, purportedly shot in Almaty, shows a large group of servicemen in riot gear walking though the middle of a street, with multiple explosions heard in the background.
Another video shows an empty street with two civilians running for cover amid heavy gunfire.
Meanwhile, the Almaty authorities told the media that while troops have been dispatched to the city, the "active phase" of the operation will not be taking place at night.
"Some 317 police officers and members of the National Guard were injured, eight got killed. Law enforcement agencies are currently taking all the necessary measures to prevent an escalation of the violence," the ministry said in a statement reported by local media.
"In response to the appeal by [President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev] and considering the threat to the national security and sovereignty of Kazakhstan, caused, among other things, by outside interference, the CSTO Collective Security Council decided to send the Collective Peacekeeping Forces to the Republic of Kazakhstan in accordance with Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty," Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan said in a statement on Facebook.
The alliance has yet to announce the scope and details of the deployment, but Pashinyan said the troops will stay in Kazakhstan "for a limited period of time in order to stabilize and normalize the situation."
OneAmerica is a $100 billion insurance company that has had its headquarters in Indianapolis since 1877. The company has approximately 2,400 employees and sells life insurance, including group life insurance to employers in the state.
Davison said the increase in deaths represents "huge, huge numbers," and that's it's not elderly people who are dying, but "primarily working-age people 18 to 64" who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.
"And what we saw just in third quarter, we're seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic," he said.
"Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic," he said. "So 40% is just unheard of."
He said at the same time, the company is seeing an "uptick" in disability claims, saying at first it was short-term disability claims, and now the increase is in long-term disability claims.
"For OneAmerica, we expect the costs of this are going to be well over $100 million, and this is our smallest business. So it's having a huge impact on that," he said.
At the same news conference where Davison spoke, Brian Tabor, the president of the Indiana Hospital Association, said that hospitals across the state are being flooded with patients "with many different conditions," saying "unfortunately, the average Hoosiers' health has declined during the pandemic."
In a follow-up call, he said he did not have a breakdown showing why so many people in the state are being hospitalized - for what conditions or ailments. But he said the extraordinarily high death rate quoted by Davison matched what hospitals in the state are seeing.
"What it confirmed for me is it bore out what we're seeing on the front end,..." he said.
The number of hospitalizations in the state is now higher than before the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced a year ago, and in fact is higher than it's been in the past five years, Dr. Lindsay Weaver, Indiana's chief medical officer, said at a news conference with Gov. Eric Holcomb on Wednesday.
Just 8.9% of ICU beds are available at hospitals in the state, a low for the year, and lower than at any time during the pandemic. But the majority of ICU beds are not taken up by COVID-19 patients - just 37% are, while 54% of the ICU beds are being occupied by people with other illnesses or conditions.
Four things need to exist or need to be in place if you want a large scale mass phenomenon to emerge. The first thing is that there needs to be a lot of socially isolated people, people who experience a lack of social bonds. The second one is that there needs to be a lot of people who experience a lack of sense-making in life. And the third and the fourth conditions are that there needs to be a lot of free-floating anxiety and a lot of free-floating psychological discontent. So: meaning, anxiety, and discontent that is not connected to a specific representation. So it needs to be in the mind without the people being able to connect it to something. If you have these four things โ lack of social bonds, lack of sense-making, free-floating anxiety, and free-floating psychological discontent โ then society is highly at risk for the emergence of mass phenomenon.
"Most observers expect that the share of corporate ownership by index funds will continue to grow over the next decade. It seems only a matter of time until index mutual funds cross the 50% mark. If that were to happen, the "Big Three" might own 30% or more of the U.S. stock market โ effective control. I do not believe that such concentration would serve the national interest."By November 2020, the "Big Three" managed US$15 trillion in combined assets, equivalent to more than three-quarters the size of the US economy and combined, they were the largest owner in 88% of the S&P 500 companies. By January 2021, the "Big Three" had almost US$18 trillion in assets under management.
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