Kazakh police clash with protesters over 100% gas price hike

MOSCOW (AP) — Demonstrators denouncing the doubling of prices for liquefied gas have clashed with police in Kazakhstan’s largest city and held protests in about a dozen other cities in the country. Local news reports said police dispersed a demonstration of about a thousand people on Tuesday night in Almaty and that some demonstrators were detained. Reports also showed riot police firing tear gas grenades at a throng of demonstrators in the capital Nur-Sultan. Beginning in the new year, the price of liquefied gas, which is widely used for cooking and heating, doubled to 120 tenge ($0.27) per liter, a significant increase in the country where the minimum wage is 42,500 tenge ($98) a month.