General Ne Win, the former president of Burma (now Myanmar), who died yesterday aged 91, ruled his country with an iron fist for 26 years, dragging it into poverty-stricken isolation.Ne Win, who seized power in a coup in 1962, was xenophobic, capricious, superstitious and fascinated by the occult “science” of numerology. Nine was his lucky number: important events were staged on dates whose numbers, when added together, made nine; and in 1987, after deciding that all banknotes should be divisible by nine, he introduced the 45-kyat and 90-kyat notes. The result was that Burmese who had hoarded 100-kyat notes lost...