After the death of the "Turkmanbashi" (meaning leader of all the Turkmen) Saparmurat Niyazov, it seems that the nation of Turkmenistan, one of the former Soviet Republics, is finally joining the modern ages.Two days after his inauguration, the new Turkmenistan President, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, has signaled that he wants to open up his country.  His first decree was to open up Internet café's allowing access to all websites.  Since the previous government had only allowed government officials Internet access, this comes as a great awakening to the average Turkmen citizen.Why should we in the US care about what happens in such a small and seemingly insignificant nation such as Turkmenistan?  Well for starters, Turkmenistan has a very large untapped supply of natural gas, approximately 2 trillion cubic meters according to the CIA. And mostly what Turkmenistan does is sell this natural gas to Gazprom, the Russian oil cartel, for processing so that the...(Read Full Post)