Worlds Highest Gasoline Price Prompts Strikes in Zimbabwe

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Ten years after hyperinflation of about 500 billion percent, Zimbabwe has now achieved another unenviable record: the most expensive fuel worldwide. The southern African nation’s government more than doubled the retail price of gasoline and diesel overnight as it seeks to boost fuel supply that’s been curbed by foreign-exchange shortages. 

Police clashed with protesters in the Zimbabwean capital as the main labor-union confederation began a three-day national strike after the government more than doubled fuel prices to the highest in the world. The stay-away comes as a foreign-exchange shortage has sparked scarcities of everything from fuel to bread, caused doctors to stay away from work and companies to cut or cease production because they can’t import raw materials.