By Martin Plaut BBC, London

The government of Zimbabwe is facing a rising tide of discontent.

A strike by teachers is in progress, despite union complaints of government harassment.

They have been joined by health workers, and protests from university lecturers all complaining about their pay and conditions of employment.

The industrial action comes as the government is attempting to grapple with economic decline. And the signs of the country's difficulties are all too evident.

Agriculture

The tobacco crop - once the backbone of economy - has been crippled by the seizure of white owned farms.

With the economy struggling food aid is vital

Just two years ago it was worth $400m.

This year it is predicted to fetch one quarter of that sum.

Driving commercial farmers off their land has not just hit whites.

Some 100,000 black farm workers are now homeless and unemployed.

Economic decline

And the Zimbabwe dollar has fallen through the floor.

Officially there are 55 to the US dollar.

But on the parallel market the American currency fetches 10 times that figure.

The drought that has hit all of Southern Africa has hit the country particularly hard.

Essential goods are now either impossible to obtain, or too expensive for ordinary people.

One leading newspaper in South Africa commented this week: "No one knows when Zimbabwe's economy will collapse, but the end is nigh".