MOSCOW >> Demonstrators denouncing the doubling of prices for liquefied gas clashed with police in Kazakhstan’s largest city and held protests today in about a dozen other cities in the country.

Local news reports said police dispersed a demonstration of about a thousand people 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.

It was the third day of protests, which began in cities in the west and then spread through the sprawling Central Asian country.

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.