================================================= Expat Worlds Monthly Digest ================================================= October, 2003 Vol. 5, Issue 9 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== (Compliment from the Expat World Newsletter) -=Panama Top World Retirement Haven for Year 2003=- ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -=An Opportunity That Doesn't Come Often=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Traveller's Tales=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=WorldTime Free 6.5 Free=- ==== INSIDE THIS MONTH EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== PANAMA TOP WORLD RETIREMENT HAVEN FOR YEAR 2003 Panama is rated the best place in the world to retire in the 2003 Global Retirement Index composed by our friends at International Living newsletter. And this is not the first time for Panama to top the list. It has won the highest honor for the last two years in addition to this year. If you're looking for a place outside U.S. borders to retire, Panama should be given very serious consideration. Panama has a lot going for it. Few places offer spring-like weather year-round, a low cost of living, safety, security, peace of mind, beautiful landscapes. It has mountainsides covered with flowers and planted with coffee and beautiful waterfalls ... not to mention the best pensionado program in the world. We'll tell you more about that later. It's a real benefit for the retired expat, making your buck stretch a long way. And we do mean bucks, for the US dollar is the official currency of Panama. Panama scored highly in every category of the index. It's economy is stable, it has favorable offshore banking laws, good infrastructure, diverse geography, cheap real estate-and still it's a relatively undiscovered paradise. Having been in Panama City on a number of occasions over the years, Expat World rates Panama City in the top three metropolitan cities of the world that one can afford to live in and enjoy a good life in. Panama City has world-class restaurants, five-star hotels, international banks, hundreds of multinational businesses, a Manhattan-type skyline, every imaginable luxury ... all at about half the price you'd pay in Miami. PANAMA'S A BARGAIN Since the U.S. military and Panama Canal personnel pulled out (in 1999), thousands of houses and apartments have flooded the market. Abundant supply ... limited demand. so prices are cheap. You'll find bargains galore --bargains in property, both for sale and for rental, are readily available. You can find a three-bedroom, luxury apartment downtown with a deck, private parking, a pool, the whole ball of wax in the $70-$80,000 range and most properties in this range have an ocean view. EW discovered properties there that were smaller and a little away from the prime areas in the $25,000 to $40,000 range. And if you are the fixer-upper type you can find the proverbial steal And the upside to buying a fixer-upper is that you can make the apartment like YOU want it by using local labor which is cheap and plentiful. Workmanship is adequate to good. If you're interested in a renovation project , it would be helpful to know a little about construction and to speak at least passable Spanish or have a supervisor for the project that does. AWAY FROM THE CITY Let's head to the Pacific coast. Beachfront properties here can be a tremendous bargain. At Gorgona, a Pacific coast resort area, for example, you can purchase beachfront apartments right now for as little as $60,000. At Lagomar you can buy a large house on the lakeshore with a swimming pool for around $150,000. At El Valle, a little town up in the hills about an hour and a half drive from Panama City, you might pay as little as $60,000. Where the famous vacation are some hideaways on some of the least discovered island properties. Though foreigners typically cannot purchase on an island there is an important exception: the island of Contadora. Contrdora --turquoise waters, 13 white-sand beaches, secluded coves, bright red and yellow fishing boats, swaying palm and cashew trees, giant coral reefs, coconuts, mangoes, parrots, pelicans, sea turtles ... this is the place where Panama's rich and famous come to vacation. From the latter half of the 16th century until the latter half of the 20th century, Contadora was sparsely inhabited. Then a Panamanian named Gabriel Lewis Galindo bought the island and established the basic infrastructure - water, electricity, an airstrip, a marina, and a property division. Now habitable, the island attracted the attention of Panama's elite because of its sheer natural beauty and, most importantly, because of the privacy it affords. Even today, few in the world know that this little island, part of the Pearl Island archipelago in the Bay of Panama, just 15 minutes from Panama City, even exists. Although this is changing quickly. Now's the time to act. The property market on Contadora is small and limited. Not a lot of inventory. The spike in values here could be even greater than it was on Ambergris Quay in Belize in the wake of the "Temptation Island." series produced there. When the world knows about Contradora the prices will skyrocket. It's still not too late. ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= AN OPPORTUNITY THAT DOESN'T COME OFTEN Expat World is in a position to offer you assistance in getting a 2nd nationality in a South American country. We have found an ironclad associate in this country that has the highest contacts with the inmmigration authorities who are cooperating under their laws to advance the case for more citizens. This 2nd nationality/pp is so ironclad that you can even live there if you care to. For full details/application contact us immediately for we don't know how long this NEW program will be offered. Email office@expatworld.net with SA2nd in the subject heading. ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ TRIVIA When two women of the Choroti tribe in Paraguay want to marry the same man, how do they settle matters? A: The man is set loose in the forest and both women track him down. The girl who finds him first gets B: They both don tapir skin boxing gloves and fight it out C: Both of them marry him D: They both carve a balabossa nut each with their names and put it in the fire. The one that pops firs (Answer below) ----- NEWS STORY I'm sorry for urinating on President's jet The Philippine Government press undersecretary has apologised for urinating while drunk on President Gloria Arroyo's chartered jet last month. The Philippine Star daily said Heraclio "Rocky" Nazarano relieved himself near the plane's emergency exit, which he apparently mistook for a toilet. The President was on the other side of the plane en route to Manila from a visit to Paris. "I deeply apologise about all the shattered expectations," the Star and Business World daily quoted Mr Nazareno as saying in a mobile phone text message to reporters. "How I wish I could deny it. But it was one moment of weakness I'm really sorry about. "The problem is the situation went beyond everybody's control," he said. Press Secretary Milton Alingod told reporters that Mr Nazareno submitted a request for transfer, but insisted it was done before the plane incident. ----- TRAVELLER'S TALES FISH BRAINS: Fishnappers in Austria targeted imported Japanese carp as their victims. The pair broke into a pet shop in the town of Wels and splashed about in a pond, eventually scooping up four Japanese koi carp worth more than $1,800, the local press reported. But the villains were caught. In a move that proved them worthy of joining the long line of spectacularly dumb criminals celebrated on this page, one of the villains left his wallet in the pond, complete with driving licence and ID card. ----- "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." -- Brooke Shields - I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. -- A. Whitney Brown ----- What happens when a lawyer takes Viagra? He gets taller - 12 SIGNS THAT YOU'VE HAD TOO MUCH OF THE 21ST CENTURY 1. You just tried to enter your password on the microwave. 2. You now think of three espressos as "getting wasted." 3. You haven't played solitaire with a real deck of cards in years. 4. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three. 5. You call your son's beeper to let him know it's time to eat. He emails you back from his bedroom, "What's for dinner?" 6. Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site. 7. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken with your next door neighbor yet this year. 8. You didn't give your valentine a card this year, but you posted one for your e-mail buddies via a web page. 9. Your daughter just bought a CD of all the records your college roommate used to play. 10. You check the ingredients on a can of chicken noodle soup to see if it contains echinacea. 11. You check your blow-dryer to see if it's Y2K compliant. 12. Your grandmother clogs up your e-mail inbox, asking you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screen saver ----- TRIVIA ANSWER When two women of the Choroti tribe in Paraguay want to marry the same man, how do they settle matters? The correct answer: B (They both don tapir skin boxing gloves and fight it out.) ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ WorldTime Free 6.5 Free Big promotion,Complete Full Version Previously sold for 29.95 and now it is absoutly FREE. Accurate Time Around the World Quickly view the time of any location in the world. Automatically set time using Atomic Clocks. Eliminate embarrassing phone calls at inappropriate times. WorldTime is ideal for synchronizing schedules, meetings, events, and communication between time zones. It is a must for businesses that contact associates around the globe, for individuals who contact distant relatives, or the curious who want to know the time surrounding world events. All 24-time zones. Covers Thousands of countries and cities Go to ==== INSIDE THIS MONTH EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.15 ISSUE 8) Table of Content: - PANAMA TOP WORLD RETIREMENT HAVEN FOR YEAR 2003 - BITS AND PIECES - AL QAEDA PASSPORTS - GOOD NEWS - BAD NEWS - 99 POTS OF POT - QUOTE OF THE MONTH - SURPRISING BING - FERTILE MINNEAPOLIS - SOME FACTS - MALE -- FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS - A CLEVER MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME - 2003 GLOBAL RETIREMENT INDEX - RETIRE IN PANAMA AS A PENSIONADO AND SEE WHAT YOU GET - PROPERTY TAX BREAK PHASE-OUT - AROUND THE WORLD WITH EXPAT WORLD - WANT TO BE A SAINT? - WATCH OUT FOR THE LANGUAGE POLICE - SWIMMING IN SHAT! - NEW ZEALAND - EXPAT WORLD'S WIERD WEB WORLD - INTERNATIONAL SNIPS AND CLIPS - RICH HIDE SCOTTISH LAND OWNERSHIP AVOID TAXES - FATF: LATEST ON THE MONEY LAUNDERING RED HERRING - WHAT HAPPENED TO AMERICA? - CRAPPER RAPPER - THE NEW PILOT"S GUIDE - WHAT MAKES THE SEA BLUE? - BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ORGASM YOU MISSING SO MUCH Each week the EXPAT WORLD DIGEST gives you just a smattering of what you can find in the EXPAT WORLD newsletter that we produce once a month. Why not get the whole story and subscribe now to our electronic version for just US $30 per year. Go to our website: www.expatworld.net to sign up. ********************************************************************* EXPAT WORLD - the newsletter of international living FREE Trial Subscription at http://www.expatworld.net/ URL - http://www.expatworld.net Email - office@expatworld.net ---------- End of Expat World Digest -------------------------------- To unsubscribe, write to unsubscribe-digest@expatworld.net