In a twist of irony that only the truly cynical could find funny, two news stories are coming out of debt/war-torn Zimbabwe. The first story is that Zimbabwe has hit yet another world-record inflation mark, this time allowing their ‘currency’ to rise at 1,593.6%. At the same time as the world looks on in horror at the meteoric (and yet somehow sustained) fall of Zimbabwe‚Äôs economy, President Robert Mugabe has set about his own agenda with very little attention to the economic catastrophe in his country. That agenda seems to be solely focused on celebrating his 83rd birthday at an estimated cost of 1.2 million dollars. Of course the government of Zimbabwe doesn’t actually have that kind of money, so President Mugabe has sent out a plea to the people of the country (80% of whom are chronically unemployed) to donate funds for the party.
Don’t believe me? Check out these articles published not 8 minutes apart from each other: “Birthday”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6354337.stm “Inflation.”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6354783.stm