================================================= Expat Worlds Bi-Monthly Digest ================================================= 17 May, 2006 Vol. 8, Issue 05 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== -=Around the World with Expat World=- ==== OTHER EZINES ================ ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -=Bye Bye Big Brother=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=Zilla Anonymous surfer=- ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== AROUND THE WORLD with Expat World ZIMBABWE - WHERE A SHEET OF TOILET PAPER COST Z$ 417 How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: At a supermarket near the center of the run down capital, toilet paper costs 417 Zimbabwean dollars. - No, not per roll. This is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs 145,750 dollars, or $1.45 at the official exchange rate. The price of toilet paper, like everything else, soars almost daily, spawning mirthless jokes about an impending better use for the 500 dollar bill, now the smallest in circulation. But what is happening is no laughing matter. For untold numbers of Zimbabweans, toilet paper, bread, margarine, meat or even the once-ubiquitous morning cup of tea - have become unimaginable luxuries. All are casualties of a hyper inflation that is roaring toward 1,000 percent a year, a rate usually seen only in war zones. Zimbabwe has been tormented this decade by a deep recession and high inflation, but in recent months the economy seems to have abandoned whatever moorings it had left. The national budget for 2006 already has been largely spent. Government services have started to crumble. The Harare water supply, siphoned from a lake downstream of its sewer outfall, has not been reliably pure for months, and dysentery and cholera swept the city in December and January. The city suffers rolling electrical blackouts. Mounds of uncollected garbage pile up on the streets of the slums. The inflation in Zimbabwe is hardly history's worst - in Weimar Germany in 1923, prices quadrupled each month, compared to doubling about once every three or four months in Zimbabwe. That said, experts agree that the Zimbabwean inflation is currently the world's highest, and has been for sometime. Public-school fees and other ever-rising government surcharges have begun to exceed the monthly incomes of many urban families lucky enough to find work- The jobless - officially 70 percent of the 4.2 million Zimbabwean workers, but widely placed at 80 percent when idle farmers are included - furtively hawk tomatoes and baggies of ground corn from roadside tables, an occupation banned by the police since last May. Those with spare cash put it not in the banks, which pay a paltry 4 to 10 percent annual interest on savings, but in gilt-edged investments like bags of cornmeal and sugar that are guaranteed not to lose their value. "There's a surrealism here that's hard to get across to people," Mike Davies, the chairman of a civic-watchdog group, the Combined Harare Residents Association, said in an interview. "If you need something and have cash, you buy it. If you have cash you spend it today, because tomorrow it's going to be worth 5 percent less. People live hand to mouth." President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has responded by having the government print trillions of new dollars to keep ministries functioning and to shield the salaries of key supporters - and potential enemies - against further erosion. Supplemental spending proposed early in April would increase the 2006 spending limits approved last November by 40 percent, and more such emergency spending measures are all but certain before the year ends. Recently, the government said it would triple the salaries of 190,000 soldiers and teachers. But even those government workers still badly trail inflation; the best of the raises, to as much as 33 million dollars a month, already are slightly below the poverty line for the average family of five. This will only worsen inflation, as the printing of so many worthless dollars is partly the reason why Zimbabwe got into this mess. Hyper inflation started after the government began seizing commercial farms in about 2000. Foreign investors fled, manufacturing ground to a halt, goods and foreign currency needed to buy imports fell into short supply and prices shot up. Inflation at about 400 percent per year last November, edged over 600 percent in January and began to soar after the government said it had paid the Intentional Monetary Fund US $221 million to cover an arrears that threatened the Zimbabwean membership in the organization. The government said in February that it had printed at least 21 trillion dollars – and probably much more, critics say - to buy US. dollars to pay the IMF debt. By March, inflation had touched 914 percent a year, at which rate prices would rise more than tenfold in 12 months. Experts agree that quadruple-digit inflation is a certainty. ==== OTHER EZINES & BOOKS ======================== ASIAN TIMES ONLINE Asia most trusted source for news, business,commentary and analysis from throughout Asia and our world. (www.atimes.com). ----- SURVIVAL BOOKS Go to and check it out! ----- japan-guide.com Extensive, up to date online guide on Japan living and travel related information. http://www.japan-guide.com/ ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= BYE, BYE, BIG BROTHER - The Report No Government Wanted Printed The new three volume (over 800 pages) blockbuster report, Bye, Bye, Big Brother, a report that no government wanted printed contains the philosophy of "PT", Bureaucrat Busting, Protecting Your Ass and ASSETS and getting Big Brother Out of Your Life in the Post 9-11 World. It is where the answers are. BBBB will educate all those who do not know what a PT is and refresh the memory of the old-timers. Check out the details at: ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ NEWS STORIES This explains a lot... LONDON (Reuters) - More than 60 percent of Britons use items such as screwdrivers, scissors and earrings to remove food from between their teeth, according to a survey published Friday. The National Dental Survey found that, when it came to oral hygiene, people used whatever was close to hand to pick their teeth. More than 60 percent questioned by the British Dental Health Foundation said they used makeshift items, including knives, keys, needles and forks. The survey also found that 23 percent of people chose to leave food stuck between their teeth, increasing the risk of gum disease and bad breath, according to the foundation which promotes oral health. --- Man charged A$1600 for a beer A HONG Kong tourist visiting the eternal city found the dolce vita does not come cheap when he was forced to pay the bar tab for one beer: E990 (A$1600). The man, who is from Hong Kong but lives in Germany and travels on a British passport, said he realised he had been taken for a ride too late. He was travelling alone and had been invited into the bar by a tout who served him a beer and then said it would cost him E990. The tourist said he had bartered the man down to E490, but the management ended up taking E990 off his credit card anyway. "When the bill arrived, I thought it was safer to pay it. I was scared something could happen to me if I didn't," said the man, whose name has been withheld for fear that disclosure would only start a rush of con artists to his door. --- No guests complain over fat fee at hotel BERLIN (Reuters) - A German hotel owner who charges guests according to their weight defended himself Thursday against accusations he was discriminating against fat people. Juergen Heckrodt said the 50 cents ($0.64 cent) per kg rate he charges for his Hotel Ostfriesland is competitive for local three-star hotels and added there is a 74-euro ($94) limit for a double room for those who refuse to get on the scale. "It's not discrimination at all," Heckrodt told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "First of all, there's the upper limit. And besides that I don't force anyone onto the scale. Nevertheless, no one has yet to say 'no, forget that'." He said that some guests strip down to try to save money. The single-room maximum fee is 39 euros -- or 78 kg (172 pounds). Heckrodt got letters complaining he was discriminating against fat people from people who read about his hotel in German newspapers. "Sometimes men strip down when checking but women usually don't go that far," Heckrodt said. "One man stripped all the way down to his underwear to try to push the price down." Heckrodt, 49, got the idea to charge by the kg from one guest who had gained weight every year. He told her jokingly he would soon start charging her an extra fee for being so heavy. A year later, she had lost 35 kg (77 pounds) and asked for a discount. "It seemed like a reasonable demand," he said. --- Oxymoron: Deregulation Law ----- "Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste more like prunes than a rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know." -- Groucho Marx ----- Not all chemicals are bad. For example, without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. ----- Oliver's law of location: No matter where you go, there you are. ----- A man comes home to find his wife packing her bags. "Where are you going?" he asked. "To Las Vegas! I found out that there are men that will pay me $400 to do what I do for you for free!" The man pondered that thought for a moment, and then began packing HIS bags. "What do you think you are doing?" she screamed. "Going to Las Vegas with you... I want to see how you live on $800 a year!" ----- A man calls his wife and says to her, "Honey, I just got the chance of a lifetime to go on a week-long fishing trip with my boss. Could you pack up my things so that they will be ready when I get home?" "Sure, honey," his wife answers."Oh, and could you please pack my blue silk pyjamas?" "Sure, honey," his wife answers again. The man comes home, picks up his things and takes off for the week. He returns a week later, smiling. His wife greets him at the front door. "So honey, how was your fishing trip?" "It was great..." the husband answers. "But you forgot to pack my blue silk pyjamas." "No I didn't," said his wife. "They were in your tacklebox." ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ Zilla Anonymous surfer Zilla Anonymous surfer stands as a personal proxy which allow you to surf the internet without being traced, advertisement and popups free browsing. it has 3 main categories: 1) Masking Your IP Address 2) Blocking Advertisements and Images 3) Killing popups Privacy is currently the greatest concern of Internet users. Zilla Anonymous Surf product is designed to actively protect your privacy, to make sure that other people and organizations on the Internet cannot identify you, see which sites you visit, or even see where in the world you reside. Download it at . ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.18 ISSUE 05) Table of Content: - TOOLS FOR MAINTAINING YOUR PRIVACY AND FREEDOM - SIX YEARS OF EXPAT WORLD & BYE BYE BIG BROTHER - AROUND THE WORLD WITH EXPAT WORLD - ZIMBABWE - WHERE A SHEET OF TOILET PAPER COST Z$ 417 - WIERD, WILD AND WACKY JAPAN -- A COMPOSITE OF TRUE STORIES - SEXLESS MARRIAGES DAWNS A NEW PROFESSION IN JAPAN - IN JAPAN, YOUNGER TEENS DISCOVER SEX - RAW BOTTOMS ON JAPANESE MENU - A NATION OF MOMMIES' BOYS - EXPAT WORLD'S PRIVACY WORLD - UNITED KINGDOM , "THE STATE OF SURVEILLANCE." - EXPAT WORLD'S WORLD OF TRAVEL - SAUDI ARABIA TO LURE TOURISTS WITH "NIGHT LIFE" - WELCOME TO THE NEW TOURIST FRIENDLY SAUDI ARABIA: - GERMANY -- BUDWEISER - THE KING OF JEERS - INTERNATIONAL SNIPS & CLIPS - LETTER FROM AMERICA - KING GEORGE DOESN'T NEED THE VETO - HE JUST IGNORES THE LAW - $ $ $ MONEY MATTERS $ $ $ - THE "PT" CARD - CRAPPER RAPPER - CRAP AND MORE CRAP - BUSH LEAGUE HUMOR - PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS - A FEW WIERD HEALTH TIPS 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 URL - http://www.expatworld.net Email - office@expatworld.net ---------- End of Expat World Digest --------------------------------