Are You Driving a Car or a Taxi?...

The guys living in the Republic of Maldives are probably some of the luckiest people in the world when it comes to nice weather, sunny beaches 365 days/year, turquoise water, palm trees, incredibly fine white sand, etcetera. But, as nature always likes to compensate, their tiny capital of Male – having an area of just 5.798 square kilometers (2.238 square miles) – has some of the shortest streets in the world. If you were to find a straight road there with a length of 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) it would be something, though I seriously doubt it...

Even if the tiny city is literally packed with motorcycles, the young Maldivians also own cars. Not a lot of them, but enough for everyone to make a very simple and truthful categorization of the car "breeds" out there. In Male, there are only taxis and cars. Everything is very simple, although apparently, you'd think that since they're driving on the wrong side of the road they're as complicated as the Queen's subjects.

In the Maldives, any car that doesn't have two doors is automatically classified as a "taxi". In other words, these people have rapidly understood what the deal with sports cars is. Moreover, they've simplified everything to the extreme: there are cars (sports ones) and there are taxis. A simple and perfect conclusion!

I find it amazing that a bunch of people living on a tiny island have arrived at this conclusion, are organizing drag races on any small patch of asphalt they find and are fanatical supporters of real sports cars. This is happening while the EU's roads are congested with French econoboxes, Italian crapmobiles and lots and lots of other POS cars from "emerging markets" - like Skoda, Seat, etc.

This is also while BMW is launching another five-meter mammoth with seven seats, dubiously explaining its customers how they're about to drive a very sporty car, while Porsche is revealing a diesel SUV, pressed by the hillbillies who want to plow with a Porsche, and while Audi has began to rival locomotives by building a Q7 as ugly, as stupid and as exaggerated as the twin-turbo diesel V12 underneath one of its versions' hood...

The European Union is choking by polluting diesel piece of crap cars, the United States is still filled with Goliaths sporting V8s that hardly crawl away from the stoplight, the UK is infected with motorized fashion accessories and the Land Rover refrigerators on wheels, while a few tanned people on an exotic island are teaching us what a car actually means. It has to have two doors, it has to be fast and it had to have pleasant seats. It's what they're calling a "car".

If you're now thinking that you're driving a taxi, learn that you can still change that. And if you're driving a diesel, don't tell anyone and quickly change it with a car that sports a refined gasoline engine. If gasoline is expensive or the fuel consumption is too high, just walk. It's healthier both for you and for the future generations...

Now get yourself a real car! Leave taxis in the hands of professionals!

Source: http://www.autoevolution.com

Nation Stands Amongst Top 30 Performers in Ease of Paying Taxes

Ethiopia ranked one of the best 30 nations in making tax payments easier amongst 178 world economies, the World Bank's latest report on ease of paying taxes released last month.

The country ranked at the 29 position out of the 178 economies treated in the freshly released report, beating a number of both developed and developing countries such as the United States, Sweden, Korea, South Africa, Kenya and China in ease of tax payments.

This ease of tax payments refers to the taxes and mandatory contributions that a medium-size company must pay or withhold in a given year, as well as measures of administrative burden in paying taxes.

"Paying Taxes 2008" offers data on total tax rates, payment frequency, and the time needed to comply with tax regulations in 178 economies.

This year the top 10 economies for ease of paying taxes are Maldives, Singapore, Hong Kong (China), United Arab Emirates, Oman, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, New Zealand, and Kiribati respectively. The 10 economies which in contrast were found most difficult are, Panama, Jamaica, Mauritania, Bolivia, the Gambia, Venezuela, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Ukraine, and Belarus ranking from 169 to 178 respectively.

This year, 31 economies improved their business tax systems, and 65 have done so over the past three years, the report indicated. Bulgaria was the top reformer, and Turkey was runner-up while Belarus was the least performer.

Tax reforms that make it easier for firms to pay taxes can increase government revenues by broadening the tax base, according to the report, dubbed Paying Taxes 2008, the second one in an annual series on tax systems. [Read More from all Africa News]

South Asian Transport Ministers Plan Rail Corridor To Link South Asia

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member nations will explore the possibility of setting up a rail corridor between Chennai and Colombo, which will connect Nepal, Bangladesh and the northeastern states of India.

The suggestion was mooted at the first meeting of the transport ministers of SAARC nations held in New Delhi on Friday. The ministers have recommended nine pilot regional and sub-regional projects to connect South Asia by road, railway, water and air corridors.

"Members states would be examining the viability and desirability of these projects for reporting to the third meeting of the inter-governmental group on transport scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in the second of week of March next year," an official press statement said in India's capital, issued after the meeting.

The proposed projects are in line with the 14th SAARC Summit's announcement to interlink the 1.5 billion people living in South Asia. Of the nine projects, India has proposed four including two projects that connect Nepal with India and Bangladesh, while Sri Lanka and Bhutan have proposed three and two projects each.

The other two projects proposed by India include Agartala-Akhaura-Chittagong road link and Male-New Delhi and New Delhi-Islamabad aerial corridor.

The member states will conduct the feasibility study of the proposed pilot projects and submit their reports during the inter-governmental groups meeting slated for the second week of March 2008, the statement adds.

The meeting deliberated on the report of the SAARC Regional Multimodal Transport Study (SRMTS) prepared and funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and recommended extending the study to include Afghanistan.

The participating ministers from Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, also elected India's Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Minister T R Baalu as the chairperson of the SAARC Transport Ministers meeting.

Source: AHN