Zimbabwe civil servants go on strike over wages

Strike delays Bennett's trial

HARARE (Reuters) - The trial of Zimbabwe opposition politician Roy Bennett was postponed indefinitely on Monday as court workers joined a wage strike by government employees.

Court officials turned people away from the High Court in Harare, where Bennett, a close ally of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, is on trial charged with illegal possession of arms for "terrorism, banditry and sabotage".

Sanctions debate: should they be lifted?

VIOLET GONDA: Sanctions: Should they be lifted? In this week’s Hot Seat Programme, I ask a number of Zimbabweans from various walks of life, what they think about this issue.

Zanu PF has warned there will be no more GPA concessions until the sanctions imposed by Western countries are removed. Parliament has seen heated discussions on this topic with Zanu PF insisting that the MDC should demand the removal of the restrictive measures.

Private schools sprout in Zimbabwe as public system struggles

HARARE — "No disruption to learning" touts a newspaper ad for a new private Zimbabwean school, one of many springing up in living rooms, backyards and plots across Harare.

It's a big selling point in a country where government schools lost an estimated 20,000 teachers in 2008, a year when students attended class only 50 days. Teachers launched a new strike on Friday, raising worries about the new school year that began just last month.

Zimbabwe's crisis in education eased last year with the creation of a unity government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

HAITI CRISIS – UNFAIR TO LINK IT TO PAPA?

KWAME  Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Keynatta, Milton Obote, Kamuzu Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Patrice |Lumumba, Mobutu Sese Seko, Phllibert Tsviranana, Marien Nguabi, Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela – and others – laid the foundations of their countries’ destinies after colonialism and white oppression in general.

In the Diaspora, Haiti ’s Papa “Doc” Duvalier can be described as one such pioneer in Haiti .

All these countries fared differently in the years immediately after they had thrown off the yoke of colonialism.