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On Oct. 12, Teladoc Health Inc., filed a lawsuit against its rival American Well Corp., alleging the company is infringing on its patents for several types of technology. The suit comes as competition between the two telehealth providers is heating up and virtual visits are soaring across the U.S.

The disputed patents 

In July, Teladoc acquired InTouch Technologies, another telehealth company, which brought several new innovations into its fold. The disputed patents cover technology developed by Dr. Yulun Wang and his colleagues while working for InTouch.

The patents in question are for carts that offer video capabilities and enable specialists to participate in care remotely as well as devices used on the carts. The carts include video screens and can be moved around from room to room. A physician or specialist can connect remotely via the video to conduct patient exams, talk to the patient and instruct nurses or other caregivers in the room to gather required health data.

In the suit, Teladoc alleges that AmWell is selling and promoting telemedicine carts and products that infringe on the patents it gained after acquiring InTouch.

AmWell’s response

About a month before the suit, Teladoc sent AmWell a letter outlining the products that infringed patent rights. The letter demanded that the company stop importing, making, selling or using the products.

AmWell amended its Sept. 15 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to reference the letter and Teladoc’s infringement allegations. In the statement, AmWell said that it intends to defend against the claims if brought to court.

The company also said that the products in question approximated 5% of its revenues in 2019.

What Teladoc wants

Teladoc is seeking monetary and injunctive relief and demanding a jury trial. The company is asking to be awarded damages, along with interest, costs and disbursements as determined by the court, “including enhanced damages up to three times the amount of damages found or measured.”

Teladoc is also seeking attorneys’ fees.

What Teladoc and AmWell are saying now

“We are confident that AmWell is infringing on the patents identified in the lawsuit,” Chris Stenrud, vice president of communications at Teladoc said via email.

“Our team is in the process of reviewing the allegations. We believe that these claims lack merit and intend to defend against them vigorously,” an AmWell spokesperson said in an email.

Competition in the telehealth arena

As the Covid-19 pandemic slowed in-person healthcare visits across the country, the demand for virtual care services has exploded. The U.S. telehealth market is expected to increase seven-fold over the next five years, a Frost & Sullivan analysis shows.

In the six months ended July 30, AmWell enabled 2.9 million virtual visits, while Teladoc enabled 2.8 million visits in the third quarter of 2020, spanning the three months ended Sept. 30.

Both companies also made big news over the summer, with AmWell raising $742 million in an upsized IPO, and Teladoc announcing its $18.5 billion acquisition of Livongo.

Photo credit: Teladoc

• Weather outlook favourable, but economic constraints curtail production prospects
• Poor rains reduced cereal production in 2020
• Large quantity of cereal imports needed in 2020/21 marketing year
• Food prices increased sharply throughout 2020
• More than 5 million people food insecure in 2020

Weather outlook favourable, but economic constraints curtail production prospects

Land preparation and planting activities for the main 2020/21 cropping season (October-June) are underway. Early rainfall amounts in October were estimated to be mostly above average, boosting soil moisture levels and supporting crop germination.

The rainfall outlook for the November 2020-January 2021 period points to a slightly higher probability of above-normal rainfall, inferring likely conducive conditions for the 2021 cereal crops, although the risk of excessive rainfall and flood damage also increases.

In spite of the overall favourable rainfall outlook, which could support an upturn in yields compared to the reduced levels of the previous two years, economic challenges, aggravated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, are expected to limit the area planted and could adversely affect yields due to an expected reduction in input use reflecting a decline in incomes.

Household-level assessments conducted in May/June showed that incomes had fallen. According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s (ZIMVAC) evaluation, released in October, it was estimated that the average income of a rural household declined by about 25 percent in April 2020 compared to the corresponding month in 2019 (from USD 44 to USD 33).

The reduced income level, in the context of exceptionally high annual inflation rates that exceeded 800 percent, is expected to hamper farmers’ access to agricultural inputs, including seeds, fertilizers and labour, and could result in a reduction in the planted area compared to the average.

The Government is implementing programmes to support farmers’ access to agricultural inputs, including the Presidential Input Scheme, which is targeting about 1.8 million smallholder farmers, and to promote the adoption of conservation agriculture techniques.

Increased rainfall amounts in the next months are also expected to improve the availability of pasture and water resources for livestock. Mortality rates of cattle were estimated to have increased in 2020 compared to the previous year, largely attributable to the negative impact of dry weather conditions on pasture resources and an increase in the incidences of livestock diseases.

Poor rains reduced cereal production in 2020

Production of cereals in 2020 is estimated at 1.25 million tonnes, about 13 percent below the five-year average. This output includes the winter wheat crop, which is currently being harvested and is expected at an above-average level, mostly on account of an increase in the planted area.

Production of cereals from the main summer season, with crops generally harvested by June, is estimated at a below-average level of 1.1 million tonnes, despite increasing moderately compared to the previous year’s low level. The reduced harvest was primarily the result of low yields, driven by poorly distributed seasonal rains. Increased outputs of sorghum and millet prevented a larger decline in the national cereal output, reflecting area expansions, as farmers, supported by national institutions, opted to increase production of these drought-tolerant cereal crops.

Large quantities of cereal imports needed in 2020/21 marketing year

Due to a second consecutive below-average cereal harvest in 2020 and the low level of domestic stocks, cereal import requirements in the 2020/21 marketing year (April/March) are estimated at about 1.1 million tonnes, more than 50 percent above the five-year average. This quantity is mostly comprised of maize grain, estimated at over 750 000 tonnes, nearly double the average.

Although export availabilities in the region have increased in 2020 compared to the previous year, reflecting large outputs in South Africa and Zambia, the weak currency and the macro-economic challenges that the country faces pose difficulties in terms of the capacity to access sufficient imports.

Despite stabilizing in recent months, the national currency depreciated substantially against the US dollar since the beginning of the year and has consequently inflated import costs.

Moreover, the recently increasing prices in South Africa are likely to raise import prices further; however, prices in Zambia, the second main exporter in the subregion, have been more stable and this could limit overall import costs for the country.

Post published in: Agriculture

The traditional planting method helps crops survive droughts by keeping them hydrated for longer than tilling and watering an entire field, said the mother of eight from Gwangazile village, 40 km (25 miles) south of Bulawayo.

“Whenever the rain comes, that’s when you do the planting and your crops will remain green, even during a dry spell, until the next rainfall comes,” said Ncube, 56.

“I don’t have to worry about buying food (and) I don’t have to sell my livestock to buy food, like some people do during drought.”

As erratic rains and worsening dry spells make it harder to rely on rain to water crops, a government programme aims to get more Zimbabwean farmers to revive the technique known as “potholing”, which fell out of fashion decades ago.

“Some methods using potholes were used by our ancestors to conserve water during droughts (and) now, in the wake of climate change, (they) are being promoted at a larger scale,” said Lawrence Mashungu, a government climate change expert.

Potholing is a form of conservation agriculture, an approach based on three key principles: minimal soil disturbance, crop rotation or inter-cropping – growing two or more crops together – and permanent soil cover using mulch, straw or other crops.

Instead of ploughing and sowing a large area, the “pfumvudza” method involves planting crops in small holes that trap rainwater, explained Rutendo Nhongonhema, the government’s chief agronomist.

“The soil is continuously covered, so the moisture is conserved,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

As well as saving water, climate experts say conservation agriculture produces fewer carbon emissions than more modern surface and flood irrigation.

The planet’s soils contain more carbon than its atmosphere and vegetation combined, and the tilling involved in many conventional farming methods releases that trapped carbon back into the atmosphere, resulting in climate-heating emissions.

With potholing, farmers only disturb the soil exactly where crops are being planted, releasing less carbon, said climate official Mashungu.

“Our low-emission development strategy for Zimbabwe specifically mentions conservation agriculture as a measure which the country must implement to achieve a green economy,” he noted.

FEEDING THE NATION

In August, Zimbabwe’s government started piloting the potholing programme as part of a scheme that aims to reach 1.8 million households by the end of the 2020/2021 farming season with seeds, fertiliser and training.

Farmers started planting with the method this month, agreeing to use it on three small plots, each measuring about 620 sq m (0.06 ha), two dedicated to cereal crops and the third for oil seed or pulse crops, like sunflower, sesame and soybean.

The holes are laid out in 52 rows, one for each week of the year, said agronomist Nhongonhema.

If done to the expected standard, a household should be able to harvest enough maize grain from each row to feed a family of six for a whole week, she added.

The goal is to meet almost 90% of Zimbabwe’s annual national food requirements, said Davison Masendeke, principal agronomist for Matabeleland North in the agricultural extension services department.

Winston Babbage, vice president of the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union, said potholing was “a good farming concept” and had the potential to improve yields for all types of farmers around the country, from subsistence to commercial.

RECORD-LOW RAINFALL

Finding ways to grow food using less water is a major concern for farmers in Zimbabwe, where unpredictable rains have increasingly plagued the agricultural sector, exacerbating the impacts of an ongoing economic crisis.

According to a crop report published by the Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative in February, the 2019 October to December rainy season was one of the driest on record.

That “severely impacted crop prospects”, due to farmers losing crops or deciding not to plant them at all, it said.

In the 2018/2019 season, farming households produced about a third less maize than the year before, according to a report by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, a government-led advisory group.

It attributed that shortfall to a combination of erratic and insufficient rainfall, the struggling economy and lack of access to agricultural resources.

“The pfumvudza concept is key in allowing (small-scale) farmers to secure their livelihoods,” said Innocent Katsande, who coordinates knowledge management for the development organisation Practical Action.

It helps farmers “strengthen their resilience towards the harsh conditions they find themselves in”, he added.

Practical Action launched its own conservation agriculture project two years ago in three eastern districts – Mutare, Makoni and Mutasa – and trained more than 79,000 farmers to use potholing by the time it ended in September, Katsande said.

BACK-BREAKING WORK

For some, the benefits of the method are not worth the work it takes to prepare a plot with precise, evenly spaced holes.

Sikhathele Moyo, a farmer in Esigodini, outside Bulawayo, said he had only used potholing once, during a drought in 1992.

“I remember digging holes when it was hot and this has affected my back until now,” complained Moyo, who is not part of either programme.

But Shuviso Vangisai, a farmer and mother of three in Makoni district, said she had reaped rewards from her hard labour.

Using the training she received through Practical Action’s project, she was able to produce a good yield this season – three tonnes of maize – for the first time in three years.

“The unpredictable weather has been devastating to my family and many others in the village,” she said by phone, adding that she plans to train more than 100 other farmers in the method.

“I am now planning on farming all year round – I have seen how drought-based farming can pay off,” she said. (Reporting by Lungelo Ndhlovu; Editing by Jumana Farouky and Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust.org/climate)

Post published in: Featured

Critics Wednesday said the move “is meant to entrench authoritarianism.”

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Cabinet has approved the proposed amendments to the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act to criminalize “the unauthorized communication or negotiation by private citizens with foreign governments,” Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said.

“Other actions that will become punishable include planned and timed protests deliberately designed to coincide with major international, continental or regional events or visits,” Mutsvangwa said to reporters. “Unsubstantiated claims of torture and abductions that are concocted to tarnish the image of government” would also be criminalized, she said.

Last week, Mnangagwa said plans were underway to amend the law governing non-governmental organizations, which he accused of operating “outside their mandate and out of sync” with his administration.

The proposed changes to the law are expected to be approved by Zimbabwe’s parliament, which is dominated by Mnangagwa’s ruling ZANU-PF party.

Non-governmental organizations accused Mnangagwa of backtracking on his promises to make Zimbabwe more democratic when he took power in 2017 from longtime repressive ruler, and his mentor, the late Robert Mugabe.

“It’s a calculated attempt to silence critical voices and part of a broader agenda to entrench a de-facto one-party state,” charged Blessing Vava, director of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a grouping of more than 80 organizations that includes labor, church and student groups.

“NGOs have been instrumental in exposing human rights abuses and the government’s response is to criminalize their work,” said Vava.

Mnangagwa and his officials recently accused non-governmental organizations of working with Zimbabwe’s political opposition and foreign governments to try to topple his administration. He said anti-government protests and international sanctions are threats to his government.

Zimbabwe, a country of some 15 million people, is troubled by a deepening economic crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19 and marked by inflation of more than 650%, high unemployment that has resulted in more than two-thirds of the population surviving on informal trade, and an economic contraction estimated to be 10% this year, according the International Monetary Fund.

Post published in: Featured

The Zimbabwe government is on record blaming sanctions for its documented economic failures that have forced the majority of citizens into poverty.

Zanu PF attributes the sanctions to MDC, arguing that they are part of the regime change agenda that was birthed because of the land reform exercise.

MDC Alliance on the other hand, is of the view that if the country is under sanctions, then Zanu PF invited them due to its misrule and violation of human rights.

The opposition instead blames rampant corruption by high ranking government for the bringing the country down.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Honourable Chikwinya said it was time to lay the facts bare whether it is corruption or sanctions.

“I rise on a point of privilege in that on the 25th of October, Zimbabwe commemorates what it calls Anti Sanctions Day. These are conditions that are being labeled as making life difficult for the majority of Zimbabweans.
“As a Member of Parliament, various persuasions have been given especially by the government and the ruling party. From an opposition perspective, I think it is now time that we lay bare the facts of what is affecting our economic performance.

“Therefore, I challenge members of the ruling party to come with a motion to deal with what is affecting the economic performance of our country armed with evidence of sanctions and us armed with evidence of corruption,” he said.

Some experts are of the view that sanctions have not affected Zimbabwe in any way, as they came when the country was already not able to borrow money lending institutions due to debt overhang.

Post published in: Featured

A nonlinear narrative in storytelling is a narrative technique where events are portrayed out of chronological order or the logical order presented in the story.

Also known as a disjointed narrative or disrupted narrative, the technique is a great way to tell a wider version of the story as it allows for more freedom of expression.

While it is true that nonlinear narratives in films and television shows are rising in popularity in the 21st century, the concept itself is an ancient one and can be traced back to Homer’s epic poem Iliad in the 8th century BC.

Nonlinear narratives in literature became more widespread in the late 19th century and early 20th century. With the advent of cinema, the nonlinear style of storytelling was introduced in screenplays as well.

While a well-written nonlinear screenplay has great potential, one should remember that formatting an impactful screenplay in this technique can be a challenging task.

Here are six easy tips to get the best out of a nonlinear screenplay:

1. Ask Yourself: Why Use A Nonlinear Narrative?

Generally, nonlinear narratives are used to tell a broader version of the story you want to share. This style of storytelling is extremely popular and is used for various reasons.

What is your reason for choosing this style?

If you want to explore a broader theme in your story, you can use a nonlinear narrative to highlight character growth by drawing a contrast between multiple characters.

You can also use nonlinear storytelling to build tension and keep the viewers guessing the final outcome.

Even though human brains are wired to prefer linear order, we tend to find out-of-order nonlinear stories engaging — a fact affirmed by the success of films like Memento, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Citizen Kane.

Nonlinear storytelling gives the screenwriter ample opportunity to incorporate engaging literary elements like suspense and irony.

2. Effective Use Of Flashbacks

Nonlinear narratives often make use of flashbacks. There are many types of flashbacks that you can use to make your screenplay more interesting to the viewers.

Flashbacks can work equally well in all forms of genres and are particularly useful when something significant has happened in the past that the audiences need to know.

The events in flashbacks provide the viewers with hints about the character’s motivation. But many screenwriters tend to use flashbacks unnecessarily, thereby abusing the technique.

If you plan to use flashbacks, ensure that it fulfills a specific purpose. Flashbacks could be a brief but urgent reminder, a life-changing event, or a flashback narrative voice-over.

To effectively employ flashbacks in your script, make sure that the storyline has points that intersect at key moments in both the past and the present.

3. Choose A Suitable Screenwriting Software

It’s possible to use add-ins and macros for word processors such as Script Wizard for Microsoft Word to write screenplays.

Yet, it is recommended that screenwriters invest in high-quality dedicated screenwriting software to take their work to the next level.

Specialized screenwriting programs are available for all varieties of platforms and environments. They take care of the formatting and ensure that your screenplay adheres to the industry-standard format.

The best thing about investing in good screenwriting software is that it takes care of all your formatting needs and allows you to focus on the creative aspects of writing a nonlinear screenplay.

Writing a compelling nonlinear screenplay for a major television show or film involves tons of revision tracking, rewrites, and collaboration with other writers, producers, and showrunners.

Screenwriting software that comes with handy features and collaborative tools will be a good choice in this case.

You can choose a simpler screenwriting software with just the basic features if you are working on a small-scale solo project.

4. Tandem Narratives And Fractured Tandem

Tandem narratives are common in films with nonlinear storylines. Two or more narratives running in parallel make for an intriguing storyline.

While the narratives are usually related, they may or may not cross paths as the story progresses. Sliding Doors, Lantana, and Traffic are some movies employing this technique.

Also known as ensemble films, movies with tandem narratives have equally-weighted stories running simultaneously.

Fractured tandems, another popular technique used in nonlinear storytelling, involve fractured versions of equally important stories.

Such stories often feature unexpected and often tragic connections between two seemingly unrelated characters.

Owing to its odd nonlinear structure, the fractured tandem technique is suitable for stories with a long setup.

5. Consecutive Storylines

Consecutive storylines with multiple protagonists work well in scripts employing a nonlinear narrative. Parallel storylines have been used by novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters for a long time.

Such stories feature two or more separate narratives linked by a common character, event, or theme. Generally, the separate narratives will overlap throughout the film and integrate into the climax.

Films employing this technique can be split into many categories with different structural rules.

The consecutive stories could simply happen one after the other, present different outcomes from the same events, or present different versions or points of view of the same events.

Pulp Fiction, The Circle, and The Butterfly Effect are good examples of films with consecutive storylines.

6. Multiple Timelines

A common technique employed in science fiction films, multiple timelines make films and television shows exciting. The tale of two timelines is perhaps the oldest technique for nonlinear storytelling.

The technique effectively highlights the differences between the lifestyles or points-of-view of characters living in different time periods.

The multiple timeline narrative is most often used in films on time travel as the storyline of such films split into many alternative timelines, which might or might not interact with each other as the story unfolds.

Primer, About Time, and the Back to the Future film series are great examples of films with multiple timelines.

In Closing

Nonlinear narratives are often used to grab the audience’s eyeballs and can even serve a stylistic function. But for this storytelling style to be effective, it needs to be done well.

To master this technique, consider choosing the best screenwriting software for your needs after weighing the pros and cons of each option.

Post published in: Featured

28.10.2020
14:20

by Staff Reporter

State of Transitional Justice in Zimbabwe 2019

28.10.2020
13:22

by Staff Reporter

Judges Complain to Mnangagwa about Chief Justice Malaba_