In Zimbabwe, labor leaders have launched a two-day general strike to protest the country’s economic crisis. The country’s unemployment rate has reached about 80 percent, and Zimbabwe has the world’s highest rate of inflation. Meanwhile, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Monday he is ready to negotiate with Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, without any preconditions. Tsvangirai spoke in Johannesburg, where he is receiving medical care after being beaten by police in Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai called for free and fair elections next year, but he questioned if that was possible.

Morgan Tsvangirai: “How do you go into an election when the opposition is being battered? How do you go into an election when there is no freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, the media is banned? How do you go into an election when the same machinery of running an election is militarized?”

Robert Mugabe’s government has accused Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders of plotting to violently overthrow the government.