Turkmenistan's 'iron ruler' dies
Turkmenistan's authoritarian president Saparmurat Niyazov, who ruled the Central Asian country for 21 years, has died aged 66, state TV has reported.
State TV said Nizayov's death was a "great loss" to the TurkmensMr Niyazov, who named cities and airports after himself in a personality cult, left no designated successor.
Turkmenistan, which has large gas reserves, now faces an uncertain future with rival groups and outside powers scrambling for influence, analysts say.
Mr Niyazov died at 0110 local time (2010 GMT Wednesday) of a heart attack.
Last month, the president publicly acknowledged he had heart disease.
His funeral is set to take place on 24 December in the capital, Ashgabat.
BBC correspondents quote witnesses as saying the capital has been quiet since the news broke, with many people staying at home, shocked and unsure of what may happen next.
Seems there is some turmoil about who is actually in charge since Niyazov also held the post that was next in line to the presidency.
Here is what The Plank posted about Niyazov's death:
"Turkmenbashi"--"the leader of all Turkmen," as Turkmenistan's ruthless strongman Saparmurat Niyazov called himself--died suddenly yesterday, which will no doubt come as a relief to the five million people he ruled with what the CIA's World Factbook calls "absolute control." Like a few of Central Asia's other crackpot despots, he was on the daffier side of Kim Jong Il. Hopefully now, if they so choose, the people of Turkmenistan will get back the right to joke about Turkmenbashi (previously forbidden), the month of April (renamed Gurbansoltan eje for Turkmenbashi's mother), and the real history of their people (replaced with the Ruhnama, a new founding myth of the Turkmens contrived by Turkmenbashi himself).Wow, doesn't that perfectly describe someone at the power-god, egocentric stage of development? Sounds almost like a feudal dictator to me.
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