Author: TSA Press

A 35-minute documentary published today demonstrates how the 2018 presidential election was rigged through the use of 10,985 purportedly original V11s that were inputted into an Excel spreadsheet at the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) National Command Centre (NCC).

ZEC chairperson Priscilla Chigumba repeatedly claimed that she delayed the announcement of the presidential election result because she was verifying original V11s at the NCC. This now appears untrue.

Chigumba’s claim, made under oath, could not be true under any circumstances because there are no V11s at the NCC – all V11s are sealed into election residue at Ward Collation Centres. This election residue can only be opened through a court order and no such order was issued.

So where did the 10,985 V11s Chigumba claimed to verify at the NCC come from?

That question is the subject of this gripping documentary: Excelgate – Zimbabwe’s Stolen 2018 Presidential Election (video below).

Source: Kukurigo

Post published in: Featured

Ed. note: This post is by Will Meyerhofer, a former Sullivan & Cromwell attorney turned psychotherapist. He holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work, and he blogs at The People’s Therapist. His books — Still Way Worse Than Being A Dentist, Bad Therapist: A Romance, Way Worse Than Being A Dentist, and Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy (affiliate links) — are available on Amazon.

There’s no getting out of it: This is a column discussing a syndrome in which lawyers (I suspect mostly women lawyers) sometimes cry on the job in what are arguably inappropriate situations, and the often negative (and avoidable) fallout that results.

Maybe I shouldn’t post this one.  It’ll only get me into trouble.  But what the heck — I’m here to talk about what I see and hear happening in the world of law, and darn it, this falls under that heading.

So here goes nothing:

My client had done what a lot of lawyers wind up doing at some point in their careers — tried to get herself fired.

That’s a phenomenon I see all the time in Biglaw — the unconscious attempt to get yourself fired thing.  You can’t rationally convince yourself to quit, but the irrational part of you knows it isn’t about to let you stay, either.  So, in therapist speak, you “act out on unexamined feelings.”  That manifests itself in stuff like complaining about your job a bit too loudly in places that are a bit too public.  Or coming in late.  Or not coming in.  Or just acting weird at the office without owning the fact that people are going to notice and some of them aren’t going to like it.

I urge lawyers, if they have reached that point of no return (the place where you really cannot come back and work at your firm for one more day without losing your shit) then please, go ahead and own it, and make the decision to leave in a conscious way.  It’s best to reframe all aspects of your life as conscious choices, including your career, and put your decision process into words someplace safe (like a psychotherapist’s office) so you can take back your autonomy and be the actor in your own life, instead of acting out on unconscious, unexplored emotions.

You’re allowed to quit.  There will be consequences, especially if you don’t have another job lined up, or are saddled with a heap of school debt.  But everything in life involves a cost/benefit calculus; this is just another one of those things.

The person who most needs to know what’s going on with you, so she can deal with it, is your boss.  That way, instead of wondering what the heck is going on with that associate acting like a lunatic, she can process the news that you want out and, maybe even work together with you to find a solution.

My client freely admitted she’d been broadcasting her discontent to a lot of people — other associates, secretaries, paralegals, word processors, librarians, doc reviewers, you name it.  In fact, if you were with her for more than a few moments, you probably heard how miserable she was, along with a stream of complaints and criticism about her firm.

Sure enough, a partner she worked with eventually took her aside and said, “I’ve been hearing you’re unhappy.  Why don’t we set up a time to talk?”  They agreed my client would come by her office the next morning.

And that’s when my client called me.

Continue reading over at The People’s Therapist…

The results for the July 2019 administration of the New York bar exam are out, and following the news that the national average score on the MBE section of the exam saw the largest increase since 2008, they’re looking fantastic.

According to the New York State Board of Law Examiners, 10,071 examinees — an increase of 392 candidates from last year — sat for the test this summer. Of those examinees, 65 percent passed the New York bar exam, an increase of 2 percentage points from the July 2018 exam. The overall pass rate for first-time takers was 76 percent, an increase of 2 percentage points from the July 2018 exam. Compared to last year, this is great news.

Look at these New York bar statistics to see how the July 2019 results compare:

Year	All Candidates	All First-Time Takers	All First-Time ABA Takers
July 2004	67.4 percent passed	76.5 percent passed	83.1 percent passed
July 2005	67 percent passed	75.9 percent passed	82.7 percent passed
July 2006	69.5 percent passed	79.4 percent passed	86.7 percent passed
July 2007	70.6 percent passed	79.1 percent passed	87 percent passed
July 2008	74.7 percent passed	83.2 percent passed	90.5 percent passed
July 2009	72 percent passed	80 percent passed	88.2 percent passed
July 2010	70 percent passed	78 percent passed	86 percent passed
July 2011	69.2 percent passed	78.5 percent passed	86.1 percent passed
July 2012	68 percent passed	76 percent passed	83 percent passed
July 2013	69 percent passed	78 percent passed	86 percent passed
July 2014	65 percent passed	74 percent passed	83 percent passed
July 2015	61 percent passed	70 percent passed	79 percent passed
July 2016	64 percent passed	73 percent passed	83 percent passed
July 2017	68 percent passed	78 percent passed	86 percent passed
July 2018	63 percent passed	74 percent passed	83 percent passed
July 2019	65 percent passed	76 percent passed	86 percent passed

Some may blame the record high number of foreign-educated candidates who took the exam for this past summer’s results, which were pretty good but could have been even better. For the July 2019 exam, a record 3,559 foreign-educated examinees sat for the test, accounting for 35 percent of all candidates who took the exam. The overall pass rate for this group was just 43 percent (an increase of 2 percentage points from the July 2018 exam), and the overall first-time pass rate for this group was only 53 percent (an increase of 3 percentage points from the July 2018 exam) — and while these increases are worthy of kudos, these candidates still dragged down the overall pass rates for all others who sat for the exam this summer.

Let’s get back to the good news. First-time takers from ABA-accredited law schools saw their pass rates increase by 3 percentage points from the July 2018 exam to 86 percent, matching July 2017’s success rate. The pass rate for first-time takers from New York ABA-accredited law schools also rose to 85 percent (an increase of 4 percentage points from July 2018). Since we mentioned ABA schools, now is a good time to remind law schools that just because the UBE may be “easier” to pass than prior state iterations of the test, it is no excuse to admit students whose performance and success on the bar exam may be questionable at best. Admissions standards must remain stable so that those who bet their lives and careers on a legal education don’t wind up in a worse position than what they started with.

Congratulations to you if you were able to pass the bar exam in New York this summer. If you didn’t pass, don’t despair. Many successful people have failed the bar exam (see our list of famous bar exam failures). Focus on February and develop a plan for passing. Believe in yourselves, because you can — eventually — do it!

Press Release: NY Bar Exam Results – July 2019 [New York Board of Law Examiners]

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Senditoo has also signed a guarantee partnership with with leading financial institution, Banc ABC Zimbabwe, securing US dollar cash pick-ups in all Banc ABC branches across Zimbabwe.

Founded by UK based Zimbabwean Takwana Tyaranini and his Guinean business partner Ibrahima Soumano in 2016, Senditoo was an innovative service that solely focused on allowing migrants to send instant mobile phone credit to their loved ones in over 140 countries across the world.

The company’s revenue increased by over 600% globally in approximately 36 months and they have progressively become the favourite airtime transfer platform for Zimbabweans living in the UK, with 30% of their transaction volume coming from them.

The company is looking to become the leading transmittal enterprise, offering customers both the option to send airtime and money synchronously.

“We created an innovative way of sending mobile phone credit almost three years ago and it only seemed fitting to make another ground-breaking move that will make it easier for friends and family to remit money internationally at a very low cost,” Tyaranini said.

“In the last few years, Senditoo has built a sustainable brand based on transparency, and great user experience. As a result, every other week, we received emails from our current clients insisting that we add money transfer.

Our customers are at the centre of everything that we do and everything that we aim to achieve, or have achieved so far. As we continue to grow and revolutionise the way our customers transact, we want them to be part of our next journey,” he added.

Africa as a central hub for international remittance

Africa has one of the world’s most mobile populations, and African nations account for a large part of the expanding global remittance market.

Tyaranini said that with Africa’s infrastructure, the continent has a significant advantage that can drive remittances across the globe and promote financial inclusion, particularly through mobile money.

“Digital transformation is helping the flow of money and connecting more people around the world and that is where Senditoo comes in,” Tyaranini said.

Customers are being offered a number of incentives and signing up with Senditoo to remit money in the next three months will see them receive a £5 discount on their first transfer. They will also get £5 every time they refer a friend to the service and will receive a Senditoo T-shirt when they send £100 or more.

Post published in: Business

Whether you’re carving pumpkins or raking leaves, legal podcasts make your Halloween educational and productive as well as spooky. This month on Legal Talk Network, new episodes featured relevant topics like the impeachment proceedings, lawyer mental health, and criminal justice issues. Or if you’d rather learn about how to run your firm more effectively, episodes also include advice on getting the right clients, writing blogs, and maintaining functional branding. So sit back with your bowl of leftover Halloween candy and enjoy the newest podcasts from Legal Talk Network.

Inside Impeachment

This September, Nancy Pelosi initiated an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Hear about the inquiry and the process from a legal perspective as well as what the proceedings could mean for the presidency, whether they’re successful or not.

Did You Really Read Those Terms of Service?

As brain-numbing as it is, the only way to fully trust your cloud service with your data is by reading their terms of service. This episode dives into what to look for in these documents and how to break down the language used by common vendors.

What Lawyers Need to Know to Succeed in the Marketplace

If you’re getting a lot done but you’re completely stressed out, it might be time to rethink your processes. Tune in for advice on the importance of addressing stress and creating business goals based on your values in order to meet both your personal and professional needs.

Insight, Intake, Discovery: Making Less Equal More

Connecting, not just with clients, but the right clients, is essential to thriving as a lawyer. Here are some key tips to help attorneys filter leads efficiently while maintaining meaningful client relationships throughout the process.

Criminal justice experts hope tech can more easily help people expunge prior convictions and arrests

In the US alone, around 70 million people have a criminal record which means that many people struggle to find employment, housing, and even relationships. This episode addresses these issues by looking into research about the expungement and sealing of criminal records.

The Challenges Facing In-House Counsel In 2019

Diving into the in-house world, this episode exposes the challenges of going in-house including a recent comprehensive survey of corporate legal departments the revealed confusion over privacy requirements and complaints about outside counsel costs.

Did Social Media Kill Blogs?

Are content-heavy blogs a dying breed? Tune in to hear about what factors are affecting blog trends and why blogs continue to be a relevant content medium for tech-savvy lawyers. Keep listening for bonus tips on finding reliable tech reviews.

Branding for Lawyers: What You Should and Shouldn’t Do

Standing out to potential clients is important to a lawyer’s marketing strategy. This episode expands on how to approach legal marketing and what lawyers need to remember in order to ensure their marketing strategies adhere to compliance rules.

Dealing With the Pressures of Law School

How can law students get the most out of their education without getting buried in their workload? Tune in for advice on managing your mental health and wellness while also experiencing the intense expectations of law school.

The Keep Calm and Lawyer On Edition: A Candid Discussion about Mental Health and Addiction in the Legal Profession

Being a lawyer is stressful, to say the least. Tune in for a candid conversation about lawyer mental health and addiction as well as thoughts on how the legal industry, in general, can collectively cultivate a greater sense of wellness.

Conference Coverage:

CLA 2019 Annual Meeting

The California Lawyer’s Association hosted its annual three-day event on October 10th through the 12th. Legal Talk Network attended and captured interviews with different sections of the associations as well as association leaders. Tune in for updates within the sections and other timely topics

Clio Cloud Conference 2019

On October 21st through the 22nd, Legal Talk Network was on the floor of the Clio Cloud Conference 2019, documenting conversations about everything legal with notable attendees. Included are strategies and advice for firms of all sizes and fresh legal perspectives on industry current events.

* Attorneys general from 47 states are now conducting antitrust investigations of Facebook. The other three attorneys general must still have MySpace… [CNN]

* An ex-Manafort attorney has been retained by indicted Giuliani associate Igor Fruman — hope the lawyer has better luck this time. [Politico]

* Amber Guyger, the Dallas police officer convicted of killing her neighbor in his own home, has filed a notice of appeal. [CNN]

* Trump administration lawyers argued before a federal appeals court yesterday that unauthorized immigrants should be detained indefinitely while seeking asylum. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* The Florida Bar is seeking to suspend an attorney with 31 ethics complaints filed against him, but the lawyer is nowhere to be found. Maybe he’s with Saul Goodman… [Tampa Bay Times]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Four years ago, breast cancer claimed the life of her mother. Now, 34-year-old Thembi Bhebhe, a high school teacher by profession, is battling cervical cancer, bed-ridden at her Harare home, the Zimbabwean capital.

In Chitungwiza, a town 25 kilometers (16 miles) southeast of Harare, 46-year-old Megan Saruwaka, a mother of four, is battling breast cancer, which she says doctors have classified as having reached stage four, meaning it has reached its advanced stage.

Breast cancer has become Zimbabwe’s new health headache, and it is not alone, having teamed up with cervical cancer, becoming the poor country’s loathed twin evils in the health sector.

Hammered by one of the two, now Megan’s situation is beyond redemption, she said.

“I’m in pain, dying is better, I wait for my day to rest from this pain,” Megan told Anadolu Agency as she winced in pain, lying in bed in her room as despondent loved ones encircled her.

For any cancer patients like Megan and Thembi, “what decides the treatment depends on the stage of the cancer,” according to oncologist Patrick Hungwe in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.

“Each stage is cured differently, with early breast or cervical cancer detection, one can be saved before cancer cells start spreading throughout the lungs, liver and the brain,” Hungwe said.

For Thembi, even as she hopes for chemotherapy treatment sessions, her hope of survival is slowly fading away as Zimbabwean doctors have remained on strike for over two months now, demanding increased wages.

“There are no doctors at hospitals and I can only afford to be treated at government hospitals. I’m afraid the absence of doctors reduces my hopes to win against cancer,” Thembi told Anadolu Agency.

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the number of annual cancer deaths globally reached at 8.2 million, adding that the numbers were expected to triple by 2030.

With breast and cervical cancers as the country’s twin evils haunting hundreds of women here like Thembi and Megan, the Health and Child Care Ministry says approximately 1,500 women are succumbing to cervical cancer each year.

Not only that, but Zimbabwe’s Cancer Association says breast cancer alone is claiming more than one thousand women every year in the southern African nation.

Even health experts here concur cervical and breast cancer have wreaked havoc in Zimbabwe.

“You would realize that because of poverty and lack of knowledge many women are discovering too late that they have breast or cervical cancer; women are delaying to be screened for these cancers and that is why we are having many of them succumbing to the diseases,” Hillary Goto, a private oncologist based in Harare, told Anadolu Agency.

But women rights activists here have blamed government for the deaths of their colleagues from breast or cervical cancer.

“Government is solely responsible for the lack of service in hospitals and that means cancer patients like women with breast or cervical cancer are at the receiving end of the crisis in hospitals as they die before getting help,” Linet Chaota, a member of the NGO Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), told Anadolu Agency.

Cancer Association of Zimbabwe is currently carrying out a month-long free cancer screening as part of commemorations of the World Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is observed in October across the world.

WOZA is a Zimbabwean civic movement formed in 2003 to provide women from all walks of life with a united voice to speak out on issues affecting their day-to-day lives, according to Amnesty International.

“Some well-to-do women cancer patients are having to cross to neighboring countries like South Africa to seek treatment,” according to women rights defender Chaota.

But, the likes of Thembi and Megan are having to bear the brunt of the disease holed up in their homes, because to Chaota, “many women suffering from either breast or cervical cancer can’t afford to seek medication outside the country”.

“The poor are just dying in their homes with no care or treatment,” said Chaota.

According to Zimbabwe’s Cancer Registry, from 6,548 registered cases of cancer in 2013, figures have shot up to 9,220 in 2018.

For breast cancer, registered cases went up from 246 to 487 in the same period, the same time period that the disease caught up with many like Thembi and Megan.

Out of 2,062 recorded cancer-related deaths so far in Zimbabwe, breast cancer has been responsible for 7% of the fatalities, with cervical cancer being the highest killer accounting for 13% cancer deaths in the country.

Meanwhile, the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe has been on record in the media saying breast cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers today, with the number of cases worldwide having significantly rose since the 1970s.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Photo credit: REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Zimbabwe is pinning its hopes on the mining sector to drive the recovery of an economy grappling with rolling power cuts and shortages of foreign exchange and fuel.

Russia’s Vi Holding, through its JSC Afromet subsidiary, owns half the shares in GDI, which is developing the Darwendale platinum project near Harare, while Zimbabwe’s Landela Mining Venture (Pvt) Ltd owns the rest.

Landela is a subsidiary of commodity trading firm Sotic International Ltd, linked to Zimbabwean fuel tycoon Kudakwashe Tagwireyi, one of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s advisors.

Former Zimplats chief executive David Brown is the new GDI chairman, the company said.

Tagwirei did not respond to calls to his mobile phone. Brown could not be reached for comment.

The Darwendale project is located in the mineral-rich Great Dyke belt and had initially earmarked $400 million for the first phase of the project. It aims for the mine to start production in 2021 and at its peak to produce 860,000 ounces of platinum group metals and gold per year.

Last year, Zimbabwe produced 978,692 ounces of platinum.

Zimbabwe is seeking to exploit its reserves of platinum, which is used in catalytic converters to limit auto emissions, at a time when vehicle manufacturers are boosting production of electric cars powered by lithium batteries.

GDI said in a statement its lead financial arranger African Export-Import Bank was targeting financial closure for the syndicated funding by March 31, 2020.

“Advanced negotiations are currently underway with a number of South African, Russian and Zimbabwean financial institutions to participate in the syndicate providing funds for equipment, machinery and services procurement,” GDI said.

GDI was also finalizing contractual terms with foreign and local contractors, suppliers and service providers.

Brown said in a statement that the Darwendale project had potential to become a significant low-cost PGM producer.

Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum Holdings already mine platinum in Zimbabwe. Impala also owns a joint-venture mine with Sibanye-Stillwater.

Karo Mining Holdings, part-owned by South Africa’s Tharisa Plc, plans a $4.2 billion platinum mining venture, while Bravura, owned by Nigerian billionaire Benedict Peters, was given a concession to explore for platinum in May.

Post published in: Business

 Dr Peter Magombeyi (Photo: Thom Pierce)

Magombeyi, who was abducted a month ago after leading demonstrations against the intolerable conditions that healthcare givers in Zimbabwe are working under, is recuperating in SA after seeking care for a medical condition associated with his abduction. He spoke to Maverick Citizen.

According to Dr Peter Magombeyi, the salaries of doctors in Zimbabwe have been slashed from $1,800 a month to a mere $80. This left doctors unable to sustain themselves and their families. Many of them cannot even afford to pay for transportation. The drastic salary cut was never communicated to doctors officially: the news came via an SMS notification.

The decrease in salaries is speculated to be a consequence of switching from the US dollar to the RTGS dollar, Zimbabwe’s new currency. With the prices of essential commodities soaring by nearly 1,000%, Zimbabwe’s economy is at an all-time low, leaving most of the population unable to afford basic living expenses.

Resources such as fuel are scarce, and the country is in the throes of rolling power cuts, some lasting up to 18 hours. Many patients have been turned away from their surgical appointments because of the power cuts and those on life support are in a precarious position, to say the least.

In the midst of severe economic unrest, the Zimbabwean healthcare system has collapsed. Just under 2,000 doctors serve a population of 14-million, who are largely unemployed.

“This collective job action is not a strike; we are incapacitated,” said Magombeyi.

Magombeyi, who practises as a doctor at the Harare Central Hospital, said the current working conditions of healthcare practitioners were tantamount to slave labour.

“Imagine being in a hospital that accepts all referrals, and then not having things as simple as gloves or bandages. Patients have to buy and bring their own test tubes,” Magombeyi said.

In some instances, patients are forced to buy medication privately. “We don’t even have Paracetamol,” Magombeyi said. Paracetamol is the most basic pain medication. Millions of Zimbabweans who rely on the public healthcare system bear the brunt of the under-resourced facilities as they are unable to access the private healthcare system.

“The private system is for the rich and politicians, and they often have the option of flying out of the country to access healthcare,” said Magombeyi.

He described the situation in Zimbabwean hospitals as a “silent genocide”.

“Our government is averse to truth-telling. When we speak out about what is happening, we are labelled as a third force trying to destabilise the country; if you tell the truth, you become an enemy of the state. We can no longer subsidise the government, our people must know exactly what is happening.

“The government should have policies that enable us to look after the population, and that is not happening. We subscribe to the codes of health practice that outline that we cannot do harm to our patients. If the government does not create policies that allow us to execute our duties in a safe manner, then our patients’ lives are at risk.”

The public healthcare system in Zimbabwe has become dysfunctional even at the lowest level of care. The primary healthcare system is severely incapacitated, forcing their referrals onto even more incapacitated central hospitals, which are supposed to cater to the needs of patients from all over the country.

“There are very high rates of death linked to HIV/AIDS as well as chronic illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Thousands of people have died,” Magombeyi lamented.

On 21 October, doctors in Zimbabwe had been on an “incapacitated” demonstration for 50 days. None of them has received a salary since they embarked on demonstrations against the government. Magombeyi said the government had refused to respond to the healthcare crisis with any degree of urgency. He criticised the state for skirting around the issue of remuneration of healthcare givers.

He further refuted government claims that there were only five doctors who were disgruntled with the state of affairs and influencing other doctors to take part in the demonstrations.

“How can 1,600 doctors be influenced by five people? Our requests are not a matter of greed, we are not being unreasonable either, our patients are dying. Thousands have already died. If we don’t advocate for them, who will?” asked Magombeyi.

Despite the doctors’ continued action of incapacitation, Magombeyi clarified that the collective job action was structured so that emergency cases were still attended to.

“It’s not that we are all on leave at once. We have doctors on call to attend to life-threatening cases. If a patient is identified as baton red, they are attended to. We are an essential service and we honour those ethical engagements.”

Doctors and the government are at a stalemate, as doctors continue their collective job action awaiting a favourable resolution to address their dire situation. MC