(Yesterday, Tuesday 6 April) BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) - Protesters angry over rising energy prices stormed a government office and held a governor hostage in Kyrgyzstan, sparking fierce clashes with police in unrest that threatens to spread with new demonstrations planned for Wednesday.
Hundreds of protesters overran the government building Tuesday on the main square of Talas, a town of 30,000 people west of the capital, Bishkek.
Baton-wielding police initially dispersed the demonstrators, but protesters fought through tear gas and flash grenades to regroup, burning police cars and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. The ex-Soviet country's main opposition leader, meanwhile, was detained at his home in the capital and Internet access was cut off in some areas.
(Today, Wednesday 7 April) A state of emergency has been declared in Kyrgyzstan following violent clashed between police and anti-government protestors on Wednesday. Kyrgyz troops opened fire on demonstrators in the capital, Bishkek, outside the offices where President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was sheltering. Kyrgyzstan’s health ministry said at least forty people have died and more than 400 wounded. The opposition contends that 100 protestors have been killed.
Reuters reports that there was 'intense gunfire in the center of Bishkek and a series of blasts.'
Now the so-called 'doomers' will love all this angst, and this is probably just the first of thousands of stories of unrest that will erupt in the decades to come on the back of rolling energy crises, but the UK isn't Kyrgystan, and we've always proceeded in the belief that there is a gentler way of transitioning from a cheap oil to a post-oil economy.
The New S&D is very much a building block in this process. If our short-term minded governments, who think that we (the electorate) are all terminally stupid, aren't prepared to do the groundwork then hundreds of New S&D style organisations are more than willing to do it for them!
We are living in interesting times, and they are getting more interesting week by week!
3 comments:
The unrest in Kyrgyzstan is mainly due to a massively corrupt government. Whatever the New S&D offers to the world, this particular news story is about as relevant to it's future as the new compulsory children's education act that's just become law in India. If the S&D really intends to help achieve its aims through lobbying, a sharper degree of focus might be useful. Perhaps an article explaining how and why a New S&D will be beneficial in a post-oil economy might be a start.
The point I was trying to make is that the situation in places like Kyrgystan is NOT relevant to what we're doing, but that it's the sort of thing that people will try to tie in to Peak Oil and energy crunches. The so-called 'doomer' mentality, mainly an American phenomena, is aimed more at people's fears than prospects. My worry is that we'll be painted with the same brush, which would be totally unfair. Of course if the 'doomer' view was ours then we wouldn't exist at all!
Remember the blog is first and foremost entertainment, the website is more focussed. With the blog a post is only relevant for a few days, the website is forever!
Funny, the only person I can remember who was always saying, "We're doomed" was Frazer in Dad's Army!
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