After striking for about a month, nurses in Zambia have decided to go back to work. They had been fighting for a 25 percent raise in pay and allowances, the BBC reports. The government had said they would fire any nurses who did not go back to work Monday, but, in the end it was Church leaders in the nation who mediated talks between union and government officials that ended the strike for now. “I am happy that the health workers considered the plight of members of the community,” Fabian Kabulu, Zambia’s health director for the northern part of the nation, said. But nurses are giving the government one month to come up with an acceptable deal, before they go back on strike again, the news service reports.

Zambia elects and swears in new president. Zambia swore in a new president Sunday. The country’s newly elected leader, Rupiah Banda, 72, already had been serving as interim president after the nation’s popular leader, Levy Mwanawasa, died in August. Banda was sworn in right after the close poll results were announced. “I promise to be an agent of continuity, good governance and will campaign against corruption. I also promise to fight poverty because poverty is demeaning,” Banda said during his inauguration, reports CNN. The vote was not without controversy, however. Opposition leader Michael Sata (who won 38 percent of the vote to Banda’s 40 percent) accused the ruling party of attempting to rig the ballot before the results were released and said he’d challenge the results. But international observers say the poll was legit.  Leaders from Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe (of whom Mwanawasa was very critical) attended the inauguration ceremony. Banda, who will serve out the last three years of Mwanawasa’s five-year term, will keep Zambia’s economy a priority; the nation saw foreign investments skyrocket from $71.7 million in 2001 to $4 billion in 2008 under Mwanawasa’s rule.
South African leader blasts ex-party members. Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), didn’t mince words when talking about ex-party mates. In the past few days, Zuma called former ANC members who plan to launch a breakaway party in December poisonous snakes and even compared them to bigamists, reports CNN. “Even before the divorce has been concluded, they have now announced that they will be getting married to the Democratic Alliance and other opposition parties to form a coalition,” he told rally goers in Soweto. And because they are planning to unite with other opposition groups, he called them “bigamists.” His comments came as members of the breakaway party held a meeting this weekend. The new party, which currently has no name, has lofty goals- including winning next year’s presidential elections, according to Mbahazima Shilowa, who was the premier of Gauteng. But the odds of that happening are slim because ANC has been a dominant force in the country ever since 1994, the year apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became president. But members of the breakaway faction accuse ANC of going against the ideals of Mandela, and if the new party unites with other opposition parties, the coalition could be a force in various local elections.

Zambians cast their ballots for president. Voters in Zambia headed out to the polls Thursday to elect a new president, a successor to late President Levy Mwanawasa, who died of a stroke in August, reports Reuters. Although the campaign season has been generally peaceful, Patriotic Front opposition leader Michael Sata has accused the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy of rigging the vote. “I have never seen this type of panicking and this is because they have rigged the election,” said Sata as he was casting his ballot in the nation’s capital Lusaka. “They have rigged the election in favor of Rupiah Banda. It is the first time that the army commander, who is supposed to protect people, is predicting violence.”  Rupiah Banda, who is currently serving as acting president, has a lot of experience. The nation’s election monitoring group, the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP), has said that there were a few issues with voter identification and verification. But they also said that while an army chief threatened people who misbehaved after voting, it did not amount to a threat to all citizens. “For sure, it was unnecessary for the army commander to issue threats, it does intimidate, it does create fear in some ordinary citizens,” an FODEP official said.

Charity leaves Niger after lack of government response. The charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres) is set to pack up its bags and leave Niger, a region where they say they are desperately needed, reports the BBC. The charity was suspended from working in the country months ago but just recently decided to throw in the towel on charity work in the nation. “As we have not received a response from Niger authorities and in view of government statements, the French section of Medecins sans Frontieres cannot help but leave the country,” the group said in a statement. But Niger’s government says MSF is making the problem of malnourished children in the nation seem bigger than it really is; they also say the charity refuses to work with the government. And the country’s health minister said that the child hunger is something they are equipped to take care of;  a statement that charity officials couldn’t disagree with more. “Maradi is one of the regions in Niger most affected by malnutrition. Since MSF’s activities in southern Maradi were halted, and despite an increase in admissions into other health centers and MSF projects in the surrounding areas, thousands of children are not receiving treatment,” said the president of MSF’s international board, Christophe Fournier. “It is shocking that a government, after having allowed innovative programs to be established, would ignore the needs of thousands of children.”

.Zambia’s president passes away at 59. President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia died Tuesday at a hospital in France, reports CNN. Mwanawasa, who was 59, suffered a stroke about two months earlier. He had originally gotten sick at June’s African Union summit in Egypt. He was taken to a hospital in Egypt, then to an intensive care unit at Percy Military Hospital near Paris. Zambia’s vice president announced Mwanawasa’s death on television. “In order to prepare for the funeral, I suspend business of the house until further notice,” he said. He also announced seven days of national mourning. French President Nicolas Sarkozy described his death as “a great loss for the Zambian people who respected and had great affection for him,” reports the news service. “It’s a great loss for the African continent as a whole, which appreciated his political courage. It’s a big loss for democracy, for which he was an ardent defender his whole life.” Mwanawasa was only Zambia’s third president, and earned worldwide praise for slowing his county’s inflation and controlling spending. “As president of Zambia, President Mwanawasa launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign and dedicated himself to improving the welfare of all Zambians,” President George Bush said in a statement. Mwanawasa was also chairman of the Southern African Development Community and an outspoken critic of Zimbabwe’s controversial longtime leader, Robert Mugabe, reports the AFP. “Sadly he has left us at this most trying time. … His passing on is a sad day [for] the Zimbabwe people,” oppositional leader and Mugabe rival Morgan Tsvangirai said. Mwanawasa, a lawyer before entering politics, was one of the founders of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy, which ousted former leader Kenneth Kaunda in 1991. He was vice president until 1995 when he retired, then was elected president in 2001. Elections for his replacement will be held in 90 days, in accordance with Zambia’s constitution.

Zimbabwe’s inflation shot up to 11.2 million percent. With a rate at a staggering 11.2 million percent in June, Zimbabwe has the highest inflation in the world, reports United Press International. The African nation’s inflation rate was already very high, 2.2 million just in May, but the government’s attempt at price control did not keep it from shooting up. However, Zimbabwe’s government is pointing the finger elsewhere. “While our case has been aggravated by the illegal sanctions imposed by the Western powers, rising food prices are a world phenomenon because of the use of bio-fuel. But we will continue to fight inflation by making sure that prices charged are realistic,” said the country’s finance minister. Many in the nation have resorted to exchanging goods instead of using money, since the value of the money is quickly sinking, reports Bloomberg. Zimbabwe has suffered hard financial times since the government implemented land reforms, which kicked White farmers off of their land. And the problem might be even worse than the government is admitting. Kingdom Bank, one of Zimbabwe’s top institutions, claims that the country’s inflation rate is actually over 20 million percent and predicts the situation will get worse. Zimbabwe’s longtime leader, Robert Mugabe, is in talks with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to form a power-sharing government after a violent and turbulent election season. Some believe the election dispute is directly connected to the nation’s current financial difficulty. “That is the stumbling block. If they resolve the political crisis, there’s no doubt they’ll get the balance of payment funding they need,” economist Victor Munyama, who works at a prominent African lender, told Bloomberg.

African media wrongly reports president’s death
After Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa suffered a stroke last week, reports of his death surfaced at a South African radio station. The station had even quoted a spokesman who claimed he was from Zambia’s High Commission, and South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki called for a moment of silence during a public ceremony, reports the BBC. The problem is Mwanawasa is not dead and Zambian leaders say they are angry that media outlets would come to such an unsubstantiated conclusion. “It’s extremely unfortunate,” said Zambia’s information minister, Mike Mulongoti. “It’s malice.” Mwanawasa, 59, is actually in intensive care at a French hospital; his vice-president says he is in stable condition. “We expect people to be sensitive to issues like that, because the death of the president of a republic is a serious matter, and in so doing they’ve caused a lot of panic and damage in the minds of the Zambian people,” Mulongoti continued. The reports were later retracted and South Africa’s ministry of foreign affairs issued a statement saying that Mbeki was remorseful for the “misunderstanding” and wished Mwanawasa a quick recovery. Mwanawasa suffered a stroke back in 2006 as well, but officials say they are optimistic about his recovery. “The doctors attending to [him] are happy with progress he has made so far and his condition remains stable,” Vice-President Rupiah Banda said in a statement.

The African nation’s election crisis was a hot topic at this year’s summit.

Following last month’s controversial presidential runoff elections in Zimbabwe, U.S. and U.K. leaders are pushing for sanctions against the nation. “I care deeply about the people of Zimbabwe. I am extremely disappointed in the elections, which I labeled a sham election,” President George Bush told other world leaders at the G-8 summit in Japan, reports CNN. Longtime Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe won re-election last month in a runoff against Movement of Democratic Change opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai and many human rights groups in the nation allege that there was widespread violence against his supporters in the weeks ahead of the runoff, so much so that Tsvangirai says he had to drop out of the race out of fear for his and his supporters’ safety. Mugabe ended up being the only candidate in the election. And because many nations are refusing to recognize his government, “there is growing support for sanctions against the Mugabe regime,” said UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking at the summit. The president of Tanzania and head of the African Union, Jakaya Kikwete, has a different approach on how the situation in Zimbabwe should be rectified; he supports a coalition government. “We are saying no party can govern alone in Zimbabwe and, therefore, the parties have to work together in a government and look at the future of their country together,” he told The Associated Press.