Breaking News English

The central bank of Zimbabwe [scrapped / scraped] the country's national currency on Friday and started using the U.S. dollar. The Zimbabwean dollar has for the [passed / past] decade become more and more [worthwhile / worthless] because of spiralling / sprawling] inflation. Hyperinflation peaked at an [incredible / incredibly] 500 billion per cent in 2008. Since then, Zimbabweans began [soaking / seeking] financial security in the U.S. dollar. Economists [estimate / estimation] that today, 90 per cent of the economy is [based / biased] on the U.S. dollar. People have until September to exchange their [remaining / reminding] local currency for the U.S. dollar. The official exchange [ratio / rate] is one U.S. dollar to 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars. That's 35 followed by 15 zeroes.

All is not [last / lost] for the old Zimbabwean dollar. The large number of zeroes that make up each [denomination / delineation] of the bills is making them a [collector's / connector's] item online. On the auction site eBay, a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar note is getting up to US$35 from [baddies / bidders] . This is nearly one hundred times more than the 40 U.S. cents the bill is [officially / officialdom] worth in a bank. One hundred trillion is one [following / followed] by 14 zeroes. The 100 trillion dollar bill used to be [able / ability] to buy a weekly bus ticket. One [comprising / enterprising] Zimbabwean has decided to cash [up / in] on the old currency by selling it to tourists. Shadreck Gutuza, a former currency [tradesman / trader] , said it was a waste of time to cash it in at the banks when tourists will buy the notes for US$20.