Word: dinars
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Iraq's government has ordered its citizens to exchange all 100 dinar notes at local banks and instructed courts to hand down heavy sentences for circulating or importing fake currency. The plague of counterfeits is worsening the nation's already severe inflation, which has put food and other basic necessities beyond the reach of many Iraqis. Though the official exchange rate is U.S.$3 to the dinar, black-market money changers offer a more realistic 19 dinars to the dollar...
...hovering over cribs hold out a hand when they see a foreign visitor and beg, "Haleeb, haleeb," (Milk, milk). Because the cash-starved government can no longer afford to subsidize the cost of imported baby formula and other staples, prices have skyrocketed. A can of Similac cost half a dinar ($1.50) before the war; now it costs 20 dinars...
Shouts of excitement greet the arrival of two Jordanian entrepreneurs driving a pickup truck loaded with ice. A brick-size chunk goes for one Jordanian dinar (about $1.50), and the sellers profit handsomely -- though not as well as they might. Many of the refugees are penniless, forced to leave their life savings behind in Kuwaiti bank accounts long since looted by Iraqi troops...