Economic collapses

Japan's central bank on March 19 scrapped its negative interest rate as it finally began unwinding one of the world's most aggressive monetary easing programs.

The maverick policy dating back to 2013 was aimed at jump-starting economic growth and inflation after the country's "lost decades" of stagnant activity and prices in the world's number four economy.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a stimulus package worth more than $100 billion yesterday as he tries to ease the squeeze from inflation and rescue his premiership with his poll ratings at a record low.

The price of food in the U.K. rose at the fastest pace in 45 years last month in, keeping inflation above 10 percent for a seventh straight month amid a cost-of-living crisis that has fueled a wave of strikes by government workers.

British annual inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February despite central bank efforts to tame a growing cost-of-living crisis, official data showed yesterday.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 10.4 percent in the 12 months to February 2023, up from 10.1 percent in January, the Office for National Statistics said.

Japan's consumer prices rose 4 percent in December from a year earlier, a level not seen since December 1981, fueled in part by higher energy bills, government data showed on Jan. 20.

The acceleration came after a 3.7 percent increase in prices in November, and the data from the internal affairs ministry showed inflation for the 2022 calendar year stood at 2.3 percent.

London (CNN) - Is the damage caused by the lockdown worse than the virus itself? That's a question raised by some world leaders and commentators who claim that economic and social hardship caused by strict coronavirus restrictions places a heavier burden on society than the death rate caused by the disease.

A major humanitarian crisis threatens Zimbabwe, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which forecasts almost zero growth in the economy of the African country and a prolonged and severe food insecurity warned.

The new minimum wage covers only 1/10 of the cost of basic food products, reported NOVA TV. 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro doubled the minimum wage to the equivalent of about $ 8 per month in a situation of hyperinflation and a strong devaluation of the Bolivar national currency, France's press reported, quoted by BTA.

Amid the financial and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the country is expected to see hyperinflation reach epic proportions: a million percent a year by the end of 2018, the International Monetary Fund said on July 23.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a 40 percent increase to the minimum wage as of January, a move that will foment what many economists already consider hyperinflation in the oil-rich but crisis-stricken nation.