And You Thought You Knew….

…What WTO stood for. It's in the papers all the time, right? All these negotiations you thought had to do with trade, right? Hah! Shows how smart you are. Because WTO doesn't stand for World Trade Organization. Nope, it stands for World Toilet Organization!

It is the fifth annual World Toilet Day, organized by the Singapore-based non-profit World Toilet Organization (WTO), which lobbies for better toilet standards in developed and developing countries.

"We started in a small way but it is growing and growing," WTO founder Jack Sim told AFP.

"This year we have discounts from supermarkets."

He said Singapore's NTUC FairPrice and stores in Malaysia would mark the event by selling discounted toilet cleaning items over the following week.

While the sale promotes hygiene of toilets at home, the WTO is also pushing for sparkling public facilities.

"Public toilets should be as clean as your home toilet," Sim said.

As another way of marking World Toilet Day, the WTO has posted on its website short films about toilets at schools in Singapore, Vietnam and the United States.

Sim said World Toilet Day could be celebrated in various ways. (Ed. Note: Celebrated?)

"Some do it by cleaning together," he said from Bangkok, where he was touring a school toilet as part of the World Toilet Expo. The WTO was a key organizer of the event, at which hundreds of delegates discussed how to help the more than 2.6 billion people, including 1.9 billion in Asia, without access to proper sanitation.

Now we really know why those negotiations go on and on and on. It's all because they are trying to solve the really, really big impasse. Should the seat be left up or down?