Turkmenbashi the Great dies
Haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere, although it's a cuople of days old at this stage...
Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan, died of a heart attack during the week. Among other things, he named the days and months, in part after himself and his family, banned dogs, ballet, opera and lip synching (can't complain there), wrote a book of morality (Ruhnama) which is required to be studied extensively in schools and forms part of the driving test, closed rural libraries on the grounds that rural Turkmen can't read anyway, banned make up for women as they were pretty enough already and sacked rather a lot of people for no particular reason, spending public money on hige monuments and effigies of himself rather than on the economy.
Still, he'll be missed, especially as I didn't have to live under him..
