nearly a month. russian central banks shuttered the markets to stave off further collapse as western leaders imposed stiff economic sanctions. meanwhile on friday, the kremlin avoided an historic debt default, coughing up $170 million in foreign interest payments. but russia s interest rate remains at 20%, double the rate before the invasion, as the value of the ruble continues to plunge to record lows. 104 rubles to one u.s. dollar. joining me now is financial journalist benjamin walsh. benjamin, thank you for coming to the sunday show. talk to me about the significance of russia s reopening the moscow exchange for just federal loan trading. right, i think symbolically it is important for the russian government to do that. i think that it is significant as you mentioned that it s just federal bonds. so obviously a lot of people in
at the rate of 1,500 to one, and that remained the case until october 2019. that s the year the country slid into an economic crisis. the currency lost 90% of its worth on the open market. you can see here the value of the currency over the past 20 years. and it is falling quickly. last month, buying one us dollar from a vendor in lebanon would have cost around 15,000 lebanese pounds. now, it s around 20,000 lebanese pounds. and that s meant that the savings and the salaries of ordinary lebanese are almost worthless. this nurse s salary in beirut was once worth $1,100 a month. now it s worth less than 70. let s hearfrom a nurse in beirut. and as we ve just heard, food is becoming prohibitively expensive.
the currency lost 90% of its worth on the open market. you can see here the value of the currency over the past 20 years. and it is falling quickly, last month buying one us dollar from a vendor in lebanon would have cost around 15,000 lebanese pounds. now, it s around 20 thousand lebanese pounds. and that s meant that the savings and the salaries of ordinary lebanese are almost worthless. this nurse s salary in beirut was once worth 1100 dollars a month. now it s worth less than 70.
around 5 percent on tuesday to just over 65 dollars a barrel. we stay in the middle east but in an economically less powerful country 8 years of civil war have crushed the syrian currency back in 2011 you paid 50 syrian pounds for one u.s. dollar today the official exchange rate is somewhere around $215.00 syrian pounds to a dollar but money is scarce pushing up prices on the black market to the crash against major currencies has made doing business in the warren torn country a huge challenge surrounded by the scent of his spices mohammed s arco is growing more desperate by the day he knows when he lies down to sleep in the evening that prices will have changed by the time he wakes up. in the variation of the exchange rate means that when i want to buy 50 kilograms of this or that product i lose 10 kilograms and i m only able to buy 40 kilograms for the
conflict of interest of mr bobbitt at the moment no money at all is flowing from brussels to agra for a time prague it s still quiet on the streets here but soon thousands of people will gather again to demonstrate against the prime minister the motivation might be purely psychological but iran s president hassan rouhani wants to delete 4 zeros from the national currency the reaal and rename it that s all it s part of a plan to curb the rapidly rising cost of living but experts are skeptical. tomatoes lettuce peppers many iranians can hardly afford even basic vegetables the country spiraling inflation means prices are rising faster than incomes the inflation rate is now nearly 40 percent the many zeroes on the banknotes are deceptive the national currency the reality is hardly worth anything one u.s. dollar is worth around $116500.00 reales 4 years ago when the now terminated