Bread prices soar in Iran

Iran’s government has slashed subsidies on food, doubling the cost of bread in order to ease pressure on an economy straining under international sanctions.

Mohammad Reza Farzin, the program’s spokesman, told the state news agency Monday that the government is paying 80,000 rials ($8) to each Iranian national for a period of two months to compensate for the increase in bread prices.

Prices for subsidized fuel quadrupled on Sunday as part of a new economic plan to reduce costs.

The government has described the plan as the “biggest surgery” to the nation’s economy in half a century.