Buzzkill: Turkmenistan Bans Booze During ‘Happiness Week’ | NewsFeed | TIME.com

Buzzkill: Turkmenistan Bans Booze During ‘Happiness Week’ | NewsFeed | TIME.com


 Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” reads a famous misquote attributed to Ben Franklin. While beer lovers merely wish he said something to this effect (in reality, he uttered something similar about wine), the sentiment has seemed true for centuries. So it may seem ironic that during Turkmenistan’s “Happiness Week,” the government has banned alcohol.

Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has declared the first week in April to be a celebration of the “era of power and happiness” across the Central Asian nation, hosting a series of public shows and sporting events to show off the country’s prowess. And with that, shopkeepers have been ordered to remove all beer and liquor from their shelves.


 To be fair, the official name of the celebration is the “Week of Health and Happiness,” and alcohol fits only one of those categories.

The former Soviet republic devotes this week each year to promote personal fitness and well-being. This year, the title has been expanded to include the “happiness” moniker.

It’s an ostentatious celebration that has seen authoritarian president Berdymukhamedov take a front-and-center role, reportedly running three miles (five kilometers) to get to a cabinet meeting.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/07/buzzkill-turkmenistan-bans-booze-during-happiness-week/?xid=newsletter-newsfeed#ixzz1rUbfa1Aa

 Comment:

"The country says it has the world's fifth largest estimated reserves of natural gas."

"With foreign investors keeping away, the Turkmen economy remains underdeveloped."

"Turkmenistan is made up mainly of desert and has the smallest population of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia." 

The population remains poor despite the mineral wealth... asituation that appears to be changing:

"Despite its gas wealth, much of Turkmenistan's population is still impoverished."

"After independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 the country entered a period of isolation that has only recently begun to end."

says,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16094646

This country is likely to be more in the news in the future as the international business world seeks to make deals concerning the untapped energy resources of the country.