In strife-torn Sudan — land of the Darfur murder and rape atrocities and a per-capita annual income of $2,200 — an epic, year-long Ponzi scheme engineered by a lowly former police officer has enticed nearly 50,000 victims to invest an estimated $180 million, according to a dispatch on Slate.com.
At the height of the hysteria, even militia fighters in Darfur rushed to invest.
As Bernard Madoff was initially, perpetrator Adam Ismael is lounging comfortably under house arrest.
Let’s
throw some
more money at
this problem
Earlier this year, it was reported that the United States government would soon be asked to bail out yet another bank that dramatically overextended itself with bad loans — and is now $900 million short: the Bank of Kabul in Afghanistan.
If you
got it.
flaunt it   
The essential uniform of super-ambitious Chinese businessmen nowadays includes a leather designer purse, reported the Los Angeles Times in a dispatch from Beijing, and high-end sellers “can’t believe their luck,” now that “both sexes in the world’s most populous country adore purses.”
The Coach company will have 53 stores in China by mid-year, and Hermes and Louis Vuitton are so optimistic that they built stores in less-obviously prosperous reaches of the country.
Apparently, only authentic designer items lend businessmen credibility.
For the export market, China remains a world leader in trademark-pirating knock-offs.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)