[anarky321]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7279540.stm

Turkmenistan's president has announced incentives to reward women who give birth to eight or more children, according to state media.
Those who qualify for Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's reward will receive a one-off payment of $250 (£125).

They will also get lifetime benefits such as free dental care, utilities and public transport.

There was a large increase in child mortality under the autocratic former President Saparmurat Niyazov.

Under Mr Niyazov's rule, the health system declined dramatically.

Free health care was abolished, all hospitals outside the capital were closed, and thousands of health care personnel were sacked - 15,000 of them in just one day.

President Niyazov did, however, declare 2003 the Year of the Mother - dedicating it to his own late mother, after whom he also renamed the month of April.

The idea of trying to stimulate a baby boom by rewarding mothers is not unprecedented; after World War II the Soviet Union awarded medals to mothers of five or more children.

The scheme approved by President Berdymukhamedov follows the announcement that the government will give $10 (£5) to every woman in the country, to mark International Women's Day on 8 March.

[mos6507]

Malthus is rolling in his grave.

[anarky321]

man people are going to look back on things like this in 10 years and say "what the F*CK were they thinking?"

[gg3]

F---ing idiots of the worst kind

The solution to this one is really simple:

A note from the President (and any other national leaders who feel so moved) saying in effect:

"If you do that, we will cut off all immigration from your country for the next 20 years, and we will cut off all food aid to your country for the next 20 years, and we will obstruct any effort to provide humanitarian relief aid of any kind via the United Nations with the exception of birth control. In other words, if you want to multiply like mice, you're going to have to feed yourselves or you're going to starve like mice too."

And then put up a chain-link fence around the place if needed.

[lys3rg0]

Man, I'm really glad the fun doesn't stop with the death of the great turkmenbashi Nyazov, and his successor is up to the task of providing the world with entertaining news.

Did you hear that one a few weeks back where they sacked all the news department of the national tv because a cockroach was seen crawling on the wall in the background behind the anchor at the evening news?

They went live at 7 PM, then had the same news retransmitted at 9PM and the next morning at 10 AM, and only on the third go someone from some health department noticed it and told the president, who just went apeshit on the tv station employees

[gg3]

This is what happens when you have ethnic "-stans." The culture gets inbred and people go f---ing crazy, starting with their leaders.

OK, I just contradicted myself about not letting anyone out of there until they stop multiplying like mice. Whatever.

What they really need is an influx of randoms from fifty different points on the globe, and as much interethnic/interracial breeding as possible. Over time that might fix their shit. Or not. We'll see.

[mekrob]

If there's anything to be "happy" about in this situation, it's that Turkmenistan is a very tiny nation, only about 5 million persons. They have a growth rate of 1.617% or about 80,000 a year. Increasing that to 4% per year is another 120,000 per year.

Roughly half the country is involved in agriculture, so it's not like they aren't used to substinence farming anyway. Average person lives to 60, so that's a lot less resources over a lifetime compared to many other nations.

Basically, be glad they aren't the leaders of China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, US, etc.

[Oil-Finder]

Don't worry, these things rarely work. It's been tried many times. The gov't says they'll give some financial reward for having babies. So over the next several years or so, you have a smallish uptick in the # of babies born. However, those were mostly women who were planning on having a kid anyway, they just decided to take advantage of the $$ and have the kid now. But after a few years, the # of women willing to take advantage of this is exhausted, and the birth rate crashes.

In other words, programs like this do little more than expedite the birthing of babies who were probably going to be born anyway. In the long run they make little or no difference.