Overwhelming Success.

Bonus Edition!

1. In the final weeks of 2021, Chile and Honduras voted decisively for leftist presidents to replace leaders on the right, extending a significant, multiyear shift across Latin America. This year, leftist politicians are the favorites to win presidential elections in Colombia and Brazil, taking over from right-wing incumbents, which would put the left and center-left in power in the six largest economies in the region, stretching from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego. The left’s gains could buoy China and undermine the United States as they compete for regional influence, analysts say, with a new crop of Latin American leaders who are desperate for economic development and more open to Beijing’s global strategy of offering loans and infrastructure investment. The change could also make it harder for the United States to continue isolating authoritarian leftist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. (via nytimes.com)

2. The revolt began on Sunday in western Kazakhstan as a protest against a surge in fuel prices. Four days later, with government buildings, TV stations, the airport and numerous businesses stormed by thousands of anti-government protesters, the uprising has expanded into a full-throated attack on an entrenched Kazakh elite widely reviled as autocratic and corrupt. Footage posted online on Wednesday showed thousands of people storming the main government building in the country’s largest city, Almaty. Smoke billowed from the building that afternoon as the crowd began to disperse. The regional branch of the governing Nur Otan party was also set on fire, local news outlets reported, as was the former presidential residence. (via nytimes.com)

3. A Russia-led military alliance began deploying paratroopers in Kazakhstan on Thursday as part of a “peacekeeping” operation after a night of protests in the Central Asian country turned violent, with the police reporting that dozens of anti-government demonstrators had been killed and hundreds injured. The peacekeeping effort, organized by a group that is Russia’s version of NATO, will be limited in time and will aim at protecting government buildings and military objects, the body said in a statement. It did not specify how many soldiers would be mobilized. Some troops have already started operating in Kazakhstan, the statement said. (via nytimes.com)