Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate - already the world's highest - has soared to 231,000,000%, newly released official figures for July show. The rise - from 11,200,000% last month - was largely due to increases in the prices of bread and cereals.
A landmark power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has failed to ease the country's economic crisis.
Meanwhile, the UN says it needs $140m for food aid over the next six months.
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The UN World Food Programme estimates that two million people are in need of food aid, and that the figure will rise to 5.1 million - or 45% of the population - by early 2009. "Millions of Zimbabweans have already run out of food or are surviving on just one meal a day - and the crisis is going to get much worse in the coming months," said WFP official Mustapha Darboe.
The inflation figures are from July - before the power-sharing deal - but reports from Zimbabwe suggest that the prices of many goods has continued to shoot up, while the value of the Zimbabwe dollar is plummeting. |