DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AFP):  A 50-year-old tree planted in the centre of Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe by President Emomali Rakhmon this year as a symbol of the ex-Soviet state’s “eternal independence” has dried up and died. The coniferous sequoia, reportedly imported from the United States and planted by Rakhmon at a ceremony in March outside the foreign ministry, died as a result of dehydration.