Longtime Turkmenistan dictator Saparmurat Niyazov -- the eccentric, self-styled Turkmenbashi, or father of all the Turkmens -- checked out about a year ago.

Now, energy-rich Turkmenistan is still largely a dictatorship, but a normal one -- one where people look down on Uzbekistan.

Pakistan's government is pointing fingers at al Qaeda-linked militants for the death of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and claims she died by bumping her head following the suicide blast.

Here's a round-up of reaction from a variety of Canadian, U.S. and British publications.

Many people have expressed shock this morning at the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan and opponent of President Pervez Musharraf -- and a target of Islamist extremists.

At the risk of sounding callous, I'm not sure why anyone should be shocked. Given the fanaticism of her enemies and their complete disregard for human life, one should have seen this morning's tragedy in Rawalpindi as entirely predictable. In October, they tried to kill her within hours of her return to Pakistan.

A major question for me is how did her assassin manage to get close enough to shoot her in the neck and chest before detonating his or her bomb?

From The Globe and Mail:

Employers aren't making much progress on the employee (dis)engagement front: 15 per cent of Canadian working stiffs report that their jobs are “extremely boring,” according to a survey released Thursday.

Almost 30 per cent say they are stuck in dead-end jobs, and 38 per cent consider their job as “just a way to make money, rather than a career,” Royal Bank of Canada found in a poll of 2,052 Canadians conducted on its behalf.

Only 36 per cent told the polling firm, Ipsos Reid, that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs – down significantly from the 49 per cent who were very satisfied when RBC tested the mood of Canadian employees a decade ago.

John Barber's column in today's Globe and Mail is about a study that confirms the obvious: Toronto has evolved into three cities: The wealthy, the poor -- and with middle incomers simply disappearing.

From the NYT:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

From the NYT:

In an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the United Nations’ top food and agriculture official warned Monday.

The changes created “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Conservative writer Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine have ticked off the Canadian Islamic Congress.  Maclean's published a screed taken from Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. The excerpt, published in October 2006, was entitled The Future Belongs To Islam.

The group has filed three separate human rights complaints for what they see as an Islamophobic rant -- an injury compounded by Maclean's' refusal to publish a multi-page, unedited rebuttal, according to a Canadian Press article.

B.C. writer Terry Glavin asks if such disputes are really what human rights tribunals should be adjudicating.

From the NYT:

Deeply concerned about the prospect of failure in Afghanistan, the Bush administration and NATO have begun three top-to-bottom reviews of the entire mission, from security and counterterrorism to political consolidation and economic development, according to American and alliance officials.

The reviews are an acknowledgment of the need for greater coordination in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, halting the rising opium production and trafficking that finances the insurgency and helping the Kabul government extend its legitimacy and control.

Taken together, these efforts reflect a growing apprehension that one of the administration’s most important legacies — the routing of Taliban and Qaeda forces in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — may slip away, according to senior administration officials.

Unlike the administration’s sweeping review of Iraq policy a year ago, which was announced with great fanfare and ultimately resulted in a large increase in troops, the American reviews of the Afghan strategy have not been announced and are not expected to result in a similar infusion of combat forces, mostly because there are no American troops readily available.