Author: TSA Press

At this point, everyone in the legal profession knows we’re an unhappy bunch. But for those with law school loans to service, ditching it all and opening up a scuba shop in the Caribbean isn’t really an option. So, is there any way to find a modicum of happiness or satisfaction and still be a top flight attorney?

Well, the American Lawyer’s annual midlevel satisfaction survey may give you a little direction. They’ve asked third through fifth year associates how satisfied they are with their firm on a variety of different questions: compensation and benefits; training and guidance; relations with partners and other associates; interest in and satisfaction level with the work; the firm’s policy on billable hours; and management’s openness about firm strategies and partnership chances. The resulting list gives a little insight into what it’s really like to practice at some of the best firms in the country.

Now, let’s get down to the rankings — we all know that’s why you clicked on this article in the first place. The full list is available here, but these are the firms that make the top 25 in terms of midlevel satisfaction:

1. Schulte
2. Paul Hastings
3. Drinker Biddle
4. O’Melveny
5. Blank Rome
6. Susman Godfrey
7. Proskauer Rose
8. Gibson Dunn
9. Cadwalader
10. Kirkland
11. Morgan Lewis
12. Latham & Watkins
13. Eversheds Sutherland
14. Cahill
15. Akin Gump
16. Williams & Connolly
17. Thompson & Knight
18. Ropes & Gray
19. Dechert
20. Carlton Fields
21. Orrick
22. Kramer Levin
23. Goulston & Storrs
24. Alson & Bird
25. Robins Kaplan

Congratulations to all the firms that made the list! And congratulations to the midlevels who have jobs they don’t hate.

The National Report [The American Lawyer]

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

As my social media presence grows, so too do the number of trolls that seek to engage with me.  It doesn’t matter what I tweet.  It can be about cake.  However, most of the time it’s lawyers who tend to be the most vicious trollers.  Within minutes, someone will jumps out from nowhere (most often someone who doesn’t even follow me) to raise critical issues with my tweet. 

As it happens so frequently, I thought I would save myself and #Lawtwitter time and draft a form letter to respond to trolls.

“Dear Prospective Social Media Monitor:

Thank you for your interest in my tweet.  Sadly, I must reject your gracious offer to be my prospective social media monitor (“Troll”).  As you know, a quality Twitter account such as mine receives hundreds if not thousands of offers to be the exclusive trolling provider.  Unfortunately, your reply does not meet my standards of quality for the following reasons (checking all that apply):

____ 1.  While you are absolutely correct and I was out of line, you raised the issue in such a boorish and rude way, I am forced to both correct my tweet or delete it AND cease contact with you.  No further interaction is required.  Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience I caused you.  If you follow me, you may wish to unfollow me to avoid any further misunderstandings.  I should point out if you had used some tact, I would have thanked you, corrected my error, and not considered you a troll at all. 

____ 2.  You insulted me without raising any arguments.  No further interaction is needed because I’ve been called names since junior high, most way more clever than the one you chose to call me. 

____ 3.  You appear to have misread my tweet.  Please go back and review the tweet carefully for literary devices such as satire.  No further interaction is required, because I have faith you will come to understanding and enlightenment.  I’m optimistic that way.

____ 4.  My tweet was a matter of opinion.  That means if I tweet “I like cake,” you cannot dispute it, unless you somehow think I’m lying about it.  We will be unlikely to make headway.  “There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys, there’s only you and me and we just disagree.”  No further action is needed, except to maybe get that Dave Mason song out of my head.

_____ 5.  You made a moral judgment about something related to my family.  Unfortunately, the position of moral judge of my life is the exclusive dominion of friends and family members.

_____ 6.  You claim facts that are not true in this universe.  Please return to the parallel universe from which you came so that you can live a happy and fulfilling life where you speak the truth.

_____  7.  You merely labeled me something. You did so without discussing the foundation of my argument, presumably so that you could dismiss it out of hand.  No further interaction is needed, except between you and the refills of your label maker.

______ 8.  You pivoted to a discussion beyond the scope of my original tweet.  You should start your own thread about that topic.  No further interaction is required.

______ 9.  SEA LION.  No further interaction is required.  Please visit your local aquarium for support.

_______ 10.  You demanded data knowing full well you were going to reject any data I sent to you.  Thus, after my initial data submission, no further interaction is needed. 

_______ 11.  You appear to be really busy moving goalposts, so I hope you have a wonderful time in your career with the NFL.  However, no further interaction is required, but I really care little or not at all for your goalposts.  It is not my job to convince you of anything.  I am not Sisyphus. 

________12.  I tried to follow you on the slippery slope you embarked us upon, but I injured my leg in the process.  As I seek medical attention, I will not have time to interact with you.  I couldn’t keep up, as the slippery slope you are on is so steep and the coefficient of friction (logic) so little that you’re down the mountain already.

________13.  You ruined Wizard of Oz for me.  I really liked the Tin Man.  (As singer Tracy Chapman sang, “Remember the Tin Man, found what he had what he thought he lacked.”)  But you are a very big fan of the Strawman.  No further interaction is needed.  We can’t get past this.  You are too efficient at making a strawman. 

________ 14.  All right.  You caught me.  I admit it!  My evil plot to destroy lives and take over the planet was foiled by your reply to my tweet.  Were it not for you, the other meddling kids and that one dog (the one who isn’t so Scrappy), I could have conquered the world.  But I’ll be back!  Just wait and see.  And maybe you’ll be defending against people like me somewhere else on Twitter.  Then my plans will come to fruition!  Until then, no further interaction is required. 

Thank you for your interest and obsession with my Twitter feed.  I hope you continue to enjoy #Lawtwitter and realize that your colleagues and clients can see what you post.

Very truly yours,

Lawprofblawg

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LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here. He is way funnier on social media, he claims. Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

So, you’re thinking of being a lawyer — congratulations (or maybe condolences) are in order. But where is actually the best place to start your legal career? While many default to the country’s largest cities because that’s where Biglaw has settled, the best place to be a lawyer may not be so cut and dry.

Enter the latest ranking into the legal space. Everyone knows lawyers love them some rankings and SmartAsset has run with a new ranking that assesses the best states (and the District of Columbia) to practice law. Their methodology balances six factors: the number of lawyers per 1,000 workers, average annual income, five-year earnings, five-year job growth, median home value and the percentage of law offices relative to total businesses. With home values thrown in there, you know some of the bigger legal markets — think New York and California — will take a bit of a hit but lawyers are packed into those jurisdictions so one imagines they’ll still make the cut.

So which states top SmartAsset’s list of the best place to work for lawyers? Here’s the top 10:

1. Illinois
2. Massachusetts
3. District of Columbia
4. California
5. Florida
6. New York
7. Georgia
8. Colorado
9. Texas
10. Connecticut

And way down at the bottom of the list is a tie for last between Idaho and Maine (Delaware and North Dakota were excluded from the ranking due to insufficient data). Other fun data from the ranking is that D.C. has the highest average annual income for a lawyer at $192,530 (California comes in #2 and New York 3).

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Everyone loves a good ending. Doesn’t matter if we are talking about a television show, sporting event, or IP case. Ok, so maybe the latter is more of a niche interest, but for those who care, a good ending to a heated IP dispute is still something to savor. Since the overwhelming majority of IP disputes settle, it is often easy to determine when a dispute has come to a close. While the terms of most disputes remain confidential, the interested public can usually at least glean that an agreement was reached between the former combatants. And for those of us who represent clients, negotiating (hopefully) favorable settlements for our clients is a critical aspect of IP practice, due to the importance of ending disputes in a way that allows clients to move forward with their businesses and interests better off than they were going into the case. 

As everyone recognizes, settling cases brings finality, even when the parties assume ongoing obligations as part of their agreement to settle. The alternative to settlement is usually additional litigation, which in IP cases can drag on interminably, sometimes through multiple rounds of appeal and remand. This phenomenon can lead to interesting circumstances in some cases, where one party is desperate to declare at least part of a case “over,” while the other fights to keep proceedings going so that they can avoid having to pay on a big verdict, for example. The point is that closing out cases that actually go to trial is difficult; in contrast to settlements that tend to end matters immediately, providing some element of closure to the dispute between the parties.

The truth is that getting to final judgment in a patent dispute is a difficult road, navigated successfully by only the most dogged of patentees. It is nearly always far easier to just settle matters, rather than have to deal with the difficulties of enforcing a judgment. But sometimes hands are forced, requiring a patentee to move the trial court for an order allowing it to collect on a judgment. As one would suspect, such maneuvering is usually reserved for the most valuable of cases, where the amount in controversy justifies protracted legal wrangling between parties. It is the rare case indeed where the parties bring as much vigor to the fight four or five years into the case as they did when hostilities commenced. But it happens on occasion, with those circumstances worth studying as both a roadmap laying out how to proceed when trying to enforce a judgment, as well as a caution to those who hold to the belief that fighting to the bitter death is a road worth taking.

Take a recent decision out of the District of Kansas (not a patent hotbed, in case anyone was wondering) that dealt squarely with the issue of when a patent judgment can be enforced. While also reminding everyone just how long big-ticket patent cases can take to resolve — absent settlement, of course. The case — a patent dispute between Sprint and Time-Warner on technology for handling telephone calls over a network, was filed back in 2011. In a split decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed the damages awarded at trial of $140mm (big verdict) and declined to find the patents invalid for lack of written description. That decision was rendered on November 30, 2018, seven years after the case was filed. Since then, Time Warner has brought on leading Supreme Court advocate Paul Clement to file a petition for certiorari (good discussion here) based primarily on the idea that the awarded damages were too high due to a lack of apportionment by Sprint’s damages expert. (Whether or not that petition will be accepted is as of now unclear, though the issues presented are important — particularly the apportionment issue, which has readthrough to many patent cases that are ongoing or that will be filed.)

At the same time as Time Warner waits for the Supreme Court to decide whether it is interested in reviewing the damages award, Sprint filed a motion back in the district court — following the Federal Circuit’s affirmance — seeking to enforce the judgment it had received in March 2017 for about $140mm or so in damages. The trial judge granted the motion, finding that it no longer had the power to extend a stay of judgment pending Supreme Court review, since that power rested in the hands of the Federal Circuit, as the court whose order was being appealed to the Supreme Court. The judge granted the motion, even though he was sympathetic to the fact that it had appeared that Sprint had previously consented to a stay through a Supreme Court review, but no longer wanted to agree to such a stay once the Federal Circuit ruled in its favor. Either way, the judge found that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t extend the stay. Whether or not Time Warner actually has to pay the $140mm before the Supreme Court actually rules in uncertain. What should be clear, however, is that Sprint has been waiting a long time to see their money. And this is with Sprint having a winning patent hand.

Ultimately, the Sprint case confirms that even the most persistent patentees face a long road before they can collect on a judgment from a dogged, well-resourced defendant. While serving as a public service announcement in favor of settlement, cases like Sprint also caution against both patentees and litigation funders getting their hopes too high that a trial win is all that is needed to get a reluctant defendant to pay. Indeed, that trial win is often just one incremental step on the long march to actually getting paid on a final judgment. Want real finality? Settle.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

A court in Oklahoma has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay more than half a billion dollars over allegations that it helped to fuel the opioid crisis.

The Cleveland County District Court in Norman, Oklahoma, issued a civil judgment requiring the drugmaker to pay $572 million. Judge Thad Balkman ruled that J&J had created a “public nuisance” in the state.

The company said it plans to appeal the decision, which it called “flawed.”

“Janssen did not cause the opioid crisis in Oklahoma, and neither the facts or the law support this outcome,” J&J general counsel Michael Ullman said in a statement, referring to the drugmaker’s Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies subsidiary. “We recognize the opioid crisis is a tremendously complex public health issue, and we have deep sympathy for everyone affected.”

J&J went on to say in its statement that the decision was not consistent with the facts or the law. It said the state failed to present evidence that J&J’s products or actions caused a public nuisance in Oklahoma. It also said the state disregarded 100 years of precedent in public nuisance law, adding that it had traditionally been applied to resolve property disputes rather than lawsuits involving the sale of goods.

Shares of J&J were up nearly 2 percent in after-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange following the ruling.

In a note to investors, SVB Leerink analyst Ami Fadia wrote that although the amount is higher than the $270 million that Purdue Pharma had to pay, or the $85 million judgment against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, it is still much lower than the $17.2 billion that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had been seeking. Moreover, citing numbers from IQVIA, Fadia wrote that J&J’s opioid sales historically were lower than those of Purdue and Teva.

The relatively modest size of the penalty against J&J means that the stocks of other companies with opioid exposure – such as Teva, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Mylan and Amneal Pharmaceuticals – may be up in the markets Tuesday, Fadia wrote.

Fadia also wrote that the negative ruling against J&J has little direct read-through to the outcome of the upcoming multidistrict litigation, or MDL. For one, she wrote, J&J’s opioid sales were mainly in branded products, while the sales of the other companies have been primarily or even exclusively generics. Also, Balkman did not grant generic preemption, and the MDL could provide a more comprehensive forum for generic drugmakers to present their arguments.

Photo: fstop123, Getty Images

Both Houses of Parliament Will Resume Sitting on Tuesday 27th August

The Senate’s Special Sitting on 14th August

Recalled from their recess by the President to conduct special business [see Bill Watch 45/2019 of 12th August [link] – Senators assembled on Wednesday 14th August for a single sitting that lasted for just over eight hours, with the adjournment until Tuesday 27th August coming at 10.37 pm.  The special business specified by the President was passing the Appropriation Supplementary (2019) Bill, the Finance (No. 2) Bill and the Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill.

Fast-tracking

Senators began by approving a Government motion to fast-track all three Bills by suspending all Standing Orders that might otherwise prevent them from taking all stages of the Bills the same day.  Asked by the President of the Senate to give reasons for the motion, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs briefly referred to the fact that the Second Session of the present Parliament would be starting in September, that the Government wished Parliament to complete the Bills before the end of the current Session and that the Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill, part of the Government’s “legislative reform agenda which had been outstanding for a long time”, had already been subjected to a long delay by the Parliamentary Legal Committee [PLC].   He did not, however, mention the special need for the Finance (No. 2) Bill to be gazetted as law on or before 21st August – which we explained in Bill Watch 45/2019 [link];  as things turned out, this deadline was met [see below under Acts gazetted].  

Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill

The Senate first tackled the Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill.  The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs piloted the Bill through the Senate instead of the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, who is the responsible Minister.  In his speech commencing the Second Reading stage the Minister explained to Senators the changes that had been made to the Bill by the National Assembly [link] before it reached the Senate.   Discussion of the Bill took until after 9 pm, with a fifteen-minute “re-energisation break” just after 8 pm.  Opposition Senators bombarded the Minister with criticisms of the Bill and suggestions for improvements.  The Minister, however, made only one concession – he accepted an amendment to clause 7(5), which will now read as follows:

‘Any person who knowingly fails to give notice of a gathering in terms of subsection (1) or of the postponement or delay of a gathering in terms of subsection (3) shall be liable to a fine not exceeding level 10 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or to both”.

The MDC-A Chief Whip in the Senate, Senator Lilian Timveos, warned that the Opposition considered the Bill to be so inconsistent with the Constitution that challenges in the Constitutional Court were inevitable.

Eventually, the amended Bill was referred back to the PLC for a report on the amendment’s consistency with the Constitution.

Finance (No. 2) Bill [link] & Appropriation Supplementary (2019) Bill [link]

These two Bills were approved by the Senate as passed by the National Assembly, but not without protests and questions from Opposition Senators.

Protests centred on complaints that some Senators had not had been supplied with copies of the Bills and had, therefore, been unable to study them.

Questioned about the new PAYE tax-free threshold of $700 per month, Minister Ncube said the figure of $700 had been suggested to his Ministry during consultations with all the important National Employment Councils and accepted as fair, but, if it proved to be too low during the next few months, could be raised in the next Budget.  On whether new allocations of funds for provincial and local government bodies were constitutionally compliant he said they were, and pointed out he had ensured that the sum allocated to provinces and local authorities achieved the constitutional minimum of 5% of national revenues for the financial year, as fixed by section 301(3) of the Constitution.  But disbursement of funds allocated to provinces would depend on the enactment of new legislation for Provincial Councils, who would between them be getting one-quarter of that 5%.  Minister Ziyambi added that the constitutional provisions for devolution contained inconsistencies that needed to be corrected; this would be dealt with in the Government’s proposed omnibus Constitution Amendment Bill, which would also attend to “a lot” of other things, such as the timing of delimitation of constituencies and other areas for electoral purposes.

Acts gazetted   On 16th August Parliament sent both these Bills to the President and on 21st August both were gazetted as Acts, having received the President’s assent – Finance (No. 2) Act, 2019 (No. 7 of 2019) [link] and Appropriation Supplementary (2019) Act, 2019 (No. 8 of 2019) [link].  The former Act’s re-enactment of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) (Amendment of (Amendment of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act and Issue of Real Time Gross Settlement Electronic Dollars (RTGS Dollars)) Regulations, 2019, Statutory Instrument 33/2019, became law only hours before the expiry of the statutory instrument.

Coming Up in Parliament This Week

According to the Parliamentary Sitting Calendar, MPs should have been enjoying a recess from 2nd August to 10th September, the day scheduled for the opening of the Second Session.  Instead, both Houses had to sit in the week commencing 5th August, and Senators were recalled for a late night sitting on 14th August, described above.  And Committee members are presently conducting public hearings around the country on the Freedom of Information Bill and Marriages Bill.  This week both Houses face at least three more days’ overtime.

Whether this will be the last week of sittings in the First Session – and whether the next Session will open on 10th September or be postponed – remained uncertain at the time of writing.  But three days are unlikely to make an impressive improvement to this Session’s output of Bills.

In the Senate

Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill  Senators await the PLC’s report on the amendment the Senate made last week to clause 7(5) of the Bill [see above].  If, as expected, it is a non-adverse report, the amended Bill will nevertheless have to go back to the National Assembly for its approval.  So Parliament may not be able to finalise the Bill this week.

Report of the Thematic Committee on Human Rights on Visits to Police Stations and Border Posts  Item 1 on the Order Paper for 27th August is the motion by committee chairperson Senator Sekeramayi for the Senate to take note of this report.

Motions  The Order Paper also lists resumption of adjourned debates on motions on protection of the environment; the need for a legislative framework on pensions and insurance benefits; enforcement of the law on child marriages; perennial shortages of safe, clean and potable water.

Question Time  New questions listed for Thursday afternoon include one seeking an explanation from the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development regardinguniversity students’ loans, including disbursement agency, selection criteria and repayment modalities; and another asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade when the Government will sign the AU’s Malabo Protocol on the Pan-African Parliament.

In the National Assembly

Bills

The first four items on the Order Paper for 27th August concern Bills:

Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Bill – for resumption of the Committee Stage.  There are several pages of proposed amendments to the Bill to be considered.

Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill – for commencement of Second Reading Stage.  There is pressure coming from the international Financial Action Task Force for this Bill to be passed.

Coroner’s Office Bill – for commencement of Second Reading Stage.

Education Amendment Bill – for consideration of the adverse report by the PLC on the amendments to the Bill made during the Committee Stage.  At this stage the contents of the adverse report are not known.

International Agreement for Approval: Beijing Treaty on Audio-Visual Performances

Item 5 on the Order Paper is a lengthy resolution presented by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs seeking approval of the Beijing Treaty on Audio-Visual Performances (2012).  The resolution states that the Treaty recognises the rights of performers against unauthorised use of their performances; facilitates the protection of culture, folklore and cultural diversity by contributing to the protection of traditional cultural expressions and national folklore; and also helps strengthen local audio-visual industries by its international system of protection, thereby creating employment.

Committee Reports on Petitions to Parliament

Several take-note motions are listed regarding Portfolio Committee reports: (1) The Budget, Finance and Economic Development Committee’s report on Mr Ganagana’s Petition on Progress on Implementation of Recommendations of the Smith Commission of Inquiry into the Conversion of Insurance and Pension Values from Zimbabwe Dollars to US Dollars; (2) the Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services Committee’s report on the Petition by the Gwanda Community Youth Development Trust on access to primary documents; (3) the Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Committee’s report on a Petition regarding Delays in Operationalising of SI 125/2013, the Non-Public Service Probation Officers Regulations; and (4) the Local Government Committee’s report on Gwanda Residents’ Petition on violation of rights to human dignity, water and clean environment.

Question Time [Wednesday]

97 questions with notice are listed, some dating from as long ago as November 2018.  Hon Matsikenyere asks the Minister of Youth, Sport and Recreation to state the Government’s position on the dissolution of the Zimbabwe Cricket board by the Sports and Recreation Commission and whether her Ministry has plans to engage the International Cricket Council to rescind its decision to suspend the Zimbabwe cricket team.

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied.

Post published in: Featured

The outgoing UN Resident Coordinator’s brief is given below verbatim:

• UN Assistant Secretary General & Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ms Ursula Mueller;
• Hon Minister July Moyo, Minister of Local Government Zimbabwe;
• Excellencies;
• UN Colleagues;
• Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thank you for this opportunity to update you on the humanitarian situation and challenges ongoing in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is facing a multitude of humanitarian challenges as a result of climate factors such as the droughts and cyclone and economic shocks, sadly, facing almost a perfect storm situation. The impact of 2018/19 drought combined with continuing macro-economic challenges and austerity measures implemented as a part of the necessary economic reform efforts have resulted in high-level of food insecurity and economic hardships among the most vulnerable population.

The 2019 Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) consisting of Govt, UN and dev partners and NGOs have done; Rural Livelihoods Assessment, which estimates that 5.5 million people in the rural areas are food insecure. Of this population, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis points to over 3 million people – or 38% of the rural population – projected to be in need of urgent humanitarian support between the period October to December 2019.

Recognizing that the urban communities are most market reliant and susceptible to affordability issues, the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare estimates that up to 2.2 million people in urban areas are also food insecure. An urban vulnerability assessment is currently ongoing, whose findings and recommendations will further inform urban humanitarian actions.

Cyclone Idai, which struck Mozambique and Malawi also hit eastern part of Zimbabwe in March this year, affected 270,000 people and left 50,000 people displaced. While significant efforts have been undertaken to respond to the impact of the cyclone, some of the affected households still require humanitarian assistance, particularly the internally displaced persons in temporary sites, those living with host families and those who lost everything. The early recovery, recovery and resilience building needs of the cyclone-affected communities have been identified and are being addressed by the Government and partners, including through support from the World Bank and the African Development Bank and the private sectors. These efforts emphasize in restoring livelihoods as well as addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities and strengthening disaster risk management in Zimbabwe.

Recognizing the gravity of the situation, the Government of Zimbabwe declared a state of disaster on 6 August. The same day, the Revised Zimbabwe Humanitarian Appeal was launched in Harare as the international humanitarian partners’ support to the Government’s efforts. The Revised Zimbabwe Humanitarian Appeal covers the period July 2019 to April 2020, i.e. up to the end of the next lean season.

The revised appeal targets the multi-sectoral humanitarian needs of 3.7 million vulnerable people, out of the 5.1 million people, whom we have identified as in need of humanitarian assistance. The total funding requirement to address the humanitarian needs of these 3.7 million people by the international humanitarian community between the period July 2019 to April 2020 amounts to USD 331.5 million.

The revised appeal was developed in close coordination with the Government’s Cabinet Committee on Environment, Disaster Prevention and Management, chaired by Hon. Minister July Moyo, whom you just heard . The Appeal takes into account the Government strategy and plans for addressing the increasing humanitarian needs and building back better. The humanitarian interventions in the revised appeal are meant to address the gaps in the Government efforts, focusing on priority life-saving support targeting the people most in need.

The UN team and humanitarian partners are cognizant that humanitarian assistance is not a long-term solution to the socio-economic challenges in Zimbabwe. Ongoing economic and governance reform efforts will need to be accelerated to tackle the root causes of the rising humanitarian needs. However, while efforts are being undertaken under the Govt Transitional Stabilisation Programme to address these extremely complex set of challenges, there is a moral obligation and an urgency for the international community to support those most in need.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the generous support and the great show of solidarity shown by the humanitarian partners to date. Under the last Flash Appeal that covered the period January to June 2019, the partners have contributed nearly 50 percent of the priority humanitarian needs of both the drought- and cyclone-affected communities, reaching over two million women, men and children with critical and life-saving interventions. Close to 1.2 million people received food assistance; 400,000 people received clean water and safe sanitation; 600,000 people received essential health services; and, 16,000 girls and boys received child protection services, with strong cooperation and partnership among communities, humanitarian donors, UN agencies, NGO partners, private sectors and the Govt playing a crucial role in humanitarian responses.

Since the launch of the revised appeal over two weeks ago, the humanitarian partners have been most forthcoming – USA with support for USD 45 million; EU with support for USD 11 million; and, DFID with support for nearly USD 60 million. China announced bilateral contribution for Cyclone Idai recovery amounting to USD 58 million, and support to construct 500 boreholes. These are most welcoming and generous announcements and the UN team is grateful for the partnership and cooperation.

Much more, however, needs to be done to meet enormous humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable rural and urban population, which could reach up to 50% of the population in terms of food, agriculture, livelihood, health, education and water sanitation support and also to preserve the development gain made. I therefore appeal on behalf of the UN team and the humanitarian partners to all humanitarian and development donors and friends of Zimbabwe for your continued generous support during this difficult time.

Thank you.

Outgoing Bishow Paajuli, UN Resident Coordinator to Zimbabwe

Post published in: Business

Cheap, clean power ran irrigation pumps that kept the community’s wheat, maize and vegetable fields a sea of green even as climate change-fueled droughts parched the surrounding landscape.

But the verdant fields have attracted a new problem to Mashaba: herds of hungry elephants.

As drought makes grass and other fodder harder to find, elephants have begun invading the village’s tempting irrigated fields, destroying crops and irrigation canals and exasperating farmers.

“We have to stand guard in our fields all night from 6:30 pm till 3:30 in the morning. We beat pots, tins, pans, drums or anything that makes noise to chase away elephants,” Daniel Nyathi, a farmer in Mashaba, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

As well, “every night we make bonfires on the edge of our fields, shine torches and rev a tractor all night, hoping that might scare the elephants,” said Nyathi who heads the 42-hectare (104-acre) Rustlers Gorge irrigation project, which serves 2,800 local households.

According to Mashaba residents, up to 60 elephants now appear to see the village’s irrigated fields as one of their main sources of food.

Elephants have been an occasional problem in the village’s fields, especially since 2017, as conditions have grown drier, they said. But the invasions have intensified dramatically as the solar irrigation project has taken off, they said.

Win Sibanda, one of the Mashaba village leaders, said he feared the near-daily elephant invasions into the community’s fields mean farmers won’t get much of a harvest next month if the problem isn’t addressed.

Right now, “the only practical solution is for the farmers to keep guard and chase them out,” he said.

“If the elephants number less than five, villagers can easily deal with them. But the challenge is when the whole herd enters the field. No one dares provoke them because that is more dangerous,” he said.

Less rain, more fights

As worsening droughts lead to more challenging conditions for farmers and wildlife in southern Africa, such confrontations are expected to become more problematic as irrigation projects pop up to help communities adapt to drier conditions.

Sithokozile Nyathi, 36, whose farm with her husband Daniel lies within the Rustlers Gorge irrigation project, said the village had been transformed into a “green belt” with the introduction of the solar mini-grid.

The $3.2 million solar project was funded by the European Union in conjunction with the OPEC Fund for International Development and Global Environment Facility as part of efforts to promote universal access to modern energy in rural areas.

The grid’s 400 solar panels power several irrigation projects, Mashaba’s primary school, a local clinic and a small business center with four shops and an energy kiosk, said Shepherd Masuka, a project officer with Practical Action, a development charity that supervised the project’s construction.

Sithokozile Nyathi said the system has allowed farmers to earn a steady income from their crops, rather than simply depending on increasingly unreliable rainfall.

“Each morning we walk 2 miles from our homesteads to the irrigation scheme to work the whole day in the fields,” she said.

But now farmers are having to work nights as well, just to try to keep elephants away, she said.

Looking for solutions

To try to find a solution, residents are working with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks), which oversees the country’s wildlife.

Kwanele Manungo, who helps manage work by the authority in southern Zimbabwe, said a team of game rangers were dispatched to Mashaba in July to address the elephant problem.

The rangers advised digging one-meter-deep trenches around the irrigated fields and using a traditional technique of putting piles of smoldering cow dung along their perimeter.

Manungo said the team, which was in the area for a month, “ended up leaving the place because elephants did not come back.” Community members were advised to call again if they had further problems.

“In the worst scenario, we shoot down a leader of the menacing elephants or scare them off using firecrackers,” she said.

But Practical  Action officials said more “lasting solutions” to elephant invasions of irrigated farmland needed to be worked out.

Tinashe Farawo, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said the authority sometimes runs short of government funding for its wildlife management programs and is forced to self-fund.

That can mean farmers seeking help have to spend their own money to transport and feed game rangers, he confirmed.

Zimbabwe made $2.7 million selling 90 elephants to China and Dubai between 2012 and 2018, in an effort to reduce the numbers and earn income, Farawo said.

“We believe in sustainable utilization of our resources, and these elephants must pay for their upkeep,” he said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

According to ZimParks data, the country can accommodate about 55,000 elephants but now has about 85,000. The rising numbers are likely one driver of the increasing farm invasions, officials said.

Farawo said conflicts between people and animals had led to 200 people losing their lives in Zimbabwe over the past five years.

At a May elephant summit in Botswana, southern African countries whose land is part of the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier conservation area – which includes parts of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia – said their countries are home to the largest population of African elephants.

Officials at the summit said they would coordinate efforts to survey elephant populations to monitor them.

They noted that as elephant numbers grow in the region, conflicts between the animals and people are increasing as a result of climate change pressures and increasing competition for limited resources.

Amos Chibaya, national organizing secretary for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was an organizer of a street demonstration the party convened in Harare on Aug. 16 to launch a national protest movement.

The MDC accuses President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government of political repression and mismanaging an economy that is mired in its worst crisis in a decade.

Police banned the Harare demonstration as well as similar protests the MDC planned to hold in other cities. Some opposition supporters still turned up in Harare and were dispersed by police using batons, tear gas and water cannon.

Chibaya was released on bail of 400 Zimbabwe dollars (about $39) on condition that he not interfere with witnesses, his lawyer, Obey Shava, told Reuters. He had already surrendered his passport.

Chibaya is due back in court on Sept. 12, and again on Oct. 4 to face a separate charge of subversion over a January protest against a steep fuel price hike.

Fuel prices rose 10 percent on Monday, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority said. They have increased more than 600% since the start of the year.

Mnangagwa replaced longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in a November 2017 coup, winning a national election in July 2018 after pledging political and economic reforms.

Post published in: Featured

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