Zimbabwe leaders form fragile coalition

After months of resisting intense pressure from leaders across southern Africa, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced Friday that he would do as they have insisted and join a coalition government as prime minister with his nemesis, President Robert Mugabe. [...] Diplomats and opposition officials who have spoken with Tsvangirai said he felt a sense of urgency about joining the government because of the extremity of human suffering in the nation. It worsens by the day. A cholera epidemic is still out of control. More than 60,000 people have contracted the disease and more than 3,100 have died since August. And the economic crisis has worsened so suddenly and sharply that the number of people needing food aid in the next two months has risen to seven million from five million of the country's 12 million people, the United Nations World Food Program said Thursday. The UN agency is cutting its monthly rations - already insufficient - in half to 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds, of corn a person, hoping the hungry can scavenge enough in wild fruits and other foods to survive until the next harvest.

Interview: David Parra, World Food Programme Officer, Colombia

Colombia has suffered through a decades-long conflict between the government and anti-government insurgent groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The anti-government forces are heavily involved in drug trafficking. Children are the hardest hit by the conflict and poverty in the country. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) runs school feeding programs to help the children of Colombia. David Parra, a WFP officer in Colombia, discusses these life-changing programs for children.

Zimbabwe Teachers Can’t Afford to Report for Work

Thousands of Zimbabwean teachers are failing to return for the re-opening of the southern African nation’s schools this month because they can’t afford the commute to work, union leaders said. [...] At least 6.9 million Zimbabweans, or more than half of the population, need emergency food rations, Richard Lee, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme, said today in a telephone interview from Johannesburg, South Africa.

Nearly 7 million Zimbabweans need food aid: UN

Zimbabwe's humanitarian disaster is far worse than anticipated with only six percent of the population formally employed and more than half in need of emergency food aid, a UN report said Thursday. Fewer than half a million Zimbabweans have jobs, while nearly seven million need emergency aid, UN agencies said in the latest stark illustration of the once-vibrant economy's collapse. The new grim estimate by the World Food Programme means that more than half of Zimbabwe's 12 million people do not have enough to eat, WFP regional spokesman Richard Lee told AFP. [...] "The economic situation has worsened more dramatically than we had anticipated," Lee said. The crisis has deteriorated so quickly that the agency is being forced to halve the cereal rations given to hungry Zimbabweans so that all the people in need can receive aid, he added. The WFP now plans to feed 5.1 million people, while other agencies will feed an additional 1.8 million people, Lee said.