OPINION: Phillip Adams | July 12, 2008 SINCE this column last reported on Turkmenistan its delightful President for Life, Saparmurat Niyazov, has run out of it. That is, life. The dead despot’s been replaced by Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov, but you can call him Gurby. One of Gurby’s first decisions? To dismantle the biggest of the hundreds of monuments to his deranged predecessor – a golden statue of Sappy that revolves like a restaurant, so that its face always faces the sun. Rather than let this lofty and inspirational work finish up on the scrapheap, I conducted a whip-round of Labor front benchers. Within hours I’d raised the entire $2300. (Ours was the only bid and we were helped by the surge in the Oz dollar.) As soon as the sky-scraping Sappy’s dismantled, he’ll be shipped to Canberra for recycling as the Radiant...
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