8:10 pm, Istanbul time

The president of Bashkortostan, Murtaza Rakhimov, resigned from his position on Thursday after the republican legislature voted to grant him a monthly pension of approximately $25,000. His term was not set to expire until October 2011. Rakhimov's interim replacement is Rustem Khamitov, the head of a federal water utility.

No word yet on who the permanent replacement will be.
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Information control: A website in southeastern Turkey has been banned by the governor of the province after a post appeared in which the vice-governor was criticized. 

Of course, this comes in the context of over 1000 websites being locked down in Turkey due to infringements of various laws, the most celebrated case being that of YouTube, which has been technically unavailable in Turkey (it can be reached through various proxy servers) since 2008.

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