Even more chit chat fodder

Work is really slow and my job search is even slower. The stress of possible unemployment feels like heart burn...oh wait, that is probably what it is. In the meantime, here's some more interesting tidbits from my former customs broker.

What goes around, comes around
A major Japanese software-services company intends to hire 2,500 people in India in the next two years as demand for its services increases. Meanwhile, the leading Indian software exporter announced it will hire as many as 10,000 people in China in the next three years to make up for shortages in talent in India.

Look like a cheap, tacky tourist
Tourists checking onto hotels in Naples this year are to receive an unusual gift as part of an innovative scheme to protect visitors from watch-snatchers. Each guest will find a cheap plastic watch by their beds emblazoned with a motif of either a pizza or Mount Vesuvius with a request to leave expensive watches in hotel safes.

Your love kills the environment
Imports of cut flowers to Britain produce emissions of at least 110,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide according to new research. This is raising a new issue called "flower miles", the term for carbon dioxide emissions released by planes bringing in thousands of tonnes of cut flowers to the country. Between 2001 and 2005, the volume of cut flowers imported from Kenya, which supplies more than a third of Britain's cut flowers, increased to 18,700 tonnes from 10,000 tonnes.

1.3 billion with jitters
So many of China's middle classes have begun drinking cappuccino and caffe latte that the country's labour ministry has declared an official skills shortage. About 10,000 trained coffee makers and servers are needed in Beijing and Shanghai alone according to a government survey. There is no lack of barmen and waiters looking for good jobs but most of them have never made a cup of coffee in their lives as China has traditionally been a tea-drinking country.

Expensive porn
Kenyan officials have complained that African Internet users pay on average 50 times what U.S. surfers pay which makes it hard for the poorest continent to become competitive in a global economy. U.S. users pay about US$20 for a gigabyte of data a month, but Africans pay about $1,800 for the same amount.

Lots of action in the Philippines & Colombia
The number of children in Japan has been falling for 25 straight years. Children and babies now make up 13.7 per cent of the population. This is even lower than other aging societies, including Italy (14.2 per cent) and Germany and Spain (both 14.5 per cent). Countries with relatively high 14-and-under- ratios include the Philippines with 34.7 per cent and Colombia with 31.7 per cent.

Yoga on a plane... and mountain
A California retiree has been persuaded by her architect to buy a junked jumbo jet and turn it into a mountainside house. The wings of the 747 will be made into a roof, the nose into a meditation temple and the remaining scrap will be turned into six more buildings including a guesthouse, yoga studio and caretaker's cottage.