'Subsidies won't keep bread on Mozambican tables'

 "When you have riots you need to do some damage control," Fernando Lima, a prominent Mozambican publisher and journalist, told IRIN. "This is a short-term solution as an emergency measure." Mozambicans in the capital, Maputo, and the nearby town of Matola, took to the streets after the government announced on 1 September that the price of bread and other basic goods would rise.

In defence of its decision, the government pointed to external factors like drought and wildfires in Russia - one of the world's major wheat suppliers - to justify the higher prices and quell violent protests and looting that left hundreds injured and at least 10 dead. Antonio Fernando, Minister of Trade and Industry, noted on state-run television that global oil prices had increased, while climate change and "other factors" had brought about a worldwide slump in wheat production. "We have to understand that the financial crisis has still not passed and will take time ... we are still suffering the impact [of it]."