Technology Developments in Viral Vector Manufacturing for Cell and Gene Therapies – Yahoo Finance

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The This research service discusses the cell and gene therapy (CGT) market and highlights some key roadblocks in viral vector manufacturing. While many CGT candidates exist in the pipeline, there is a huge capacity deficit that the industry is collaboratively trying to address.

New York, Dec. 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Technology Developments in Viral Vector Manufacturing for Cell and Gene Therapies" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06192548/?utm_source=GNW

Scalability, costs, reproducibility, and overall process efficiency are some of the main pain points at each step of the viral vector manufacturing process.Many industry stakeholders are capitalizing on innovative, sustainable business models and capacity expansion investments to address shortage issues.

Biotechnology companies, such as Merck, Novartis, and Pfizer, and key contract development and manufacturing organizations, such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Catalent, and FUJIFILM Diosynth Technologies, are investing in new capacities, expanding capacities, and developing innovative technologies to stay ahead in the CGT market. The research covers emerging technologies and trends, challenges, and opportunities across the manufacturing workflow, from upstream (viral vector production) to downstream (viral vector purification). Key developments in upstream processes for viral vector production include advanced transfection agents, novel plasmids, suspension-adapted cell culture, and stable producer cell lines. The research also discusses the general industry shift toward adopting automation, digitization, and advanced analytical processes, including on-line and in-line analytics and robust real-time analytics, to highlight the importance of analytical tools throughout the value chain. Smart technologies, such as automation and digital tools, and the adoption of artificial intelligence and big data support progress in process control and optimization while improving overall efficiencies and safety. The CGT industry works through orchestrated collaborations to develop reference standards and build process analytical technologies (PAT) to optimize manufacturing further. The research presents a birds eye view of key stakeholders and their innovative platforms and a snapshot of the collaborative ecosystem to understand the CGT industrys dynamic and fast-paced nature.Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06192548/?utm_source=GNW

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Triangle gene editing firms CEO: There is a revolution occurring in medicine – WRAL TechWire

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK The Triangle continues to emerge as a hotbed of life science and biopharmaceutical technologies, along with a global evolution in medicine,Paul Garofolo, the cofounder and chief executive officer for Locus Biosciences, tells WRAL TechWire.

There is a revolution occurring in medicine. We are evolving from the days where we discovered small molecules that produced a favorable result in a large number of patients, likely with some level of side effects, to precision medicines that directly address the problem for the intended patient, he says. It started with antibodies and other biologic therapies that revolutionized Oncology and Immunological diseases. It is moving towards cell and gene therapies where the technology is proving itself in ultrarare diseases, and much like their predecessor technologies, will move toward more broad-based applications over time.

And Locus expects to be a part of the future of medicine, having grown its workforce to 75 employees since the companys founding in 2015, after Garofolo had the CRISPR-Cas3 technology upon which the companys research is built introduced to him by a student at North Carolina State University.

Theres growth ahead, as well, said Garofolo, as the company expects to reach 100 employees in 2022, and recently landed a $25 million credit facility to expand the companys in-house manufacturing capabilities and drug discovery program.

Paul Garofolo. Locus Biosciences image.

Were unique in biopharma in that we are clinical stage and revenue generating, said Garofolo. We generate revenue from our partnerships with two of the top five global pharmaceutical companies and contracts with BARDA and CARB-X, which together provide a combination of milestone payments, R&D cost reimbursement, and manufacturing revenue.

Those partnerships, the first of which was signed in 2019 with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, also known as Johnson & Johnson, are worth as much as $1 billion.

That partnership with Johnson & Johnson yielded Locus $20 million up front and up to $798 million in potential development and commercial milestones, as well as royalties on product sales, said Garofolo, with the goal of the partnership being the development and manufacturing ofcrPhage products targeting two key bacterial pathogens.

The company signed a contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in September 2020 that enabled the company to advance a $144 million precision medicine program to develop LBP-EC01, a crPhage product, to combat recurrent urinary tract infections caused by E. coli,, and later that year, the company inked a deal worth $15 million to develop a product to combat antibiotic-resistant K. pneumoniae infections through Phase 1 of clinical development with the Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X).

Garofolo told WRAL TechWire that he and his wife provided the initial funding for the company, then raised a seed round of $1.5 million in 2016, a $19 million Series A round in 2017, a convertible note of $20 million in 2020, and then the recent $25 million credit facility earlier this year. That positions the company for the future, Garofolo noted, adding that this access to valuable growth capital supporting the expansion of our discovery platform engine and in-house manufacturing capacity [will be] used to address critical unmet medical needs.

WRAL TechWire spoke with Garofolo about the company, and about the future of life science and biopharma. A lightly edited transcript of the conversation appears below.

Inside Locus Biosciences $25M capital plan: What startup plans to do

TW: Tell us more about Locus Biosciences, its six programs, and the companys position in the marketplace.

Garofolo: Locus is the worlds leading developer of products based on CRISPR-Cas3 systems. Were unique in biopharma in that we are clinical stage and revenue generating. As described above, we generate revenue from our partnerships with two of the top five global pharmaceutical companies and contracts with BARDA and CARB-X, which together provide a combination of milestone payments, R&D cost reimbursement, and manufacturing revenue.

Locus has one clinical program underway, and up to five more in urinary tract, respiratory and bloodstream infections anticipated to enter the clinic by 2023.

Locuscompletedthe worlds firstplacebo-controlled Phase 1bclinical trial of a CRISPR Cas3-enhanced bacteriophage product targetingE. coliin UTIs. The results demonstrated safety and tolerability for LBP-EC01, and the trial met all its primary and secondary endpoints. We are working towards initiating the LBP-EC01 Phase 2 study inearly 2022. In October 2020, Locus announced a contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to support Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials and other activities required to seek FDA approval of LBP-EC01.

In 2019, Locus announced an agreement with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for an exclusive, worldwide research collaboration and license to develop, manufacture and commercialize two products generated using Locuss recombinant CRISPR-Cas3 engineered bacteriophage (crPhage) platform for the treatment of respiratory tract infections which cause significant morbidity and mortality. The collaboration focuses on developing unique bactericidal disease-modifying crPhage products. These products will treat serious respiratory tract infections and infections in other areas of the body.

RTPs Locus Biosciences secures up to $25M in credit, plans expansion

TW: Whats the difference betweenCRISPR-Cas9 and CRISPR-Cas3 in the context of CRISPR technology overall?

Garofolo: CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is the adaptive immune system of bacterial cells, capable of capturing and incorporating an invaders DNA into the bacterias genome to fend off future attacks.

When reprogrammed, as Locus has done, CRISPR enzymes like Cas3 and 9 can be used to edit or destroy DNA, making it a very useful tool for gene therapy, antibacterials, and other applications.

CRISPR-Cas3 is the most common CRISPR-Cas system in nature. Cas3 is a powerful exonuclease that permanently degrades chromosomal DNA beyond repair with high specificity, leading to rapid death of the target bacterial cell. Cas3s DNA degrading effect is distinct from the more widely-known Cas9 which causes a clean break in the DNA that can be repaired by the cell.

While others use CRISPR-Cas9 to edit DNA in human cells and other organisms, Locus is concentrating its efforts on removing deadly pathogens from the human body. CRISPR-Cas3, loaded into a bacteriophage delivery vehicle (other gene therapy companies use AAV), is the ideal system to target DNA to destroy a bacterial cells genome beyond repair.

Simply put, Cas3 acts like a Pacman that gobbles up tens of thousands of DNA base pairs while Cas9 acts like a pair of scissors that make a precise cut in one place.

Genetically enhanced antibiotic from RTP firm advances in first-of-its-kind clinical trial

TW: The company describes on its website and in press statements two product lines, precision bacteriophage products and also engineered bacteriophage therapies. Tell us more about each, and the science behind the product lines.

Bacteria are directly associated with many human diseases. Bacteriophages, or phages, are naturally occurring viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Bacteriophage have been used as antibacterial therapy for more than 100 years. However, natural phages are not typically effective enough on their own to treat serious infections in humans. Locus believes its precision engineered bacteriophage platform has the potential to fundamentally change the way bacteria-related diseases are treated.

Our team of scientists collects natural bacteriophagethe natural predator of bacteriawith the best disease-fighting characteristics. Then, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, Locus Biosciences identifies the best cocktail of bacteriophages to target a particular bacterial species that causes a specific disease. Next, we engineer these bacteriophages with CRISPR-Cas3, which drastically increases their ability to fight bacteria and treat diseases without killing the good bacteria the body needs without applying selective pressure to other bacteria that increases AMR (antimicrobial resistance)

Through its unique bacteriophage discovery, synthetic biology and manufacturing platform, Locus is developing two innovative categories of biotherapeutics to address significant unmet medical needs: precision products to fight deadly infections, including those caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria; and engineered bacteriophage therapies that utilize bacteria resident in the body to deliver therapeutic molecules, while leaving the rest of the microbiome intact. Both categories are engineered bacteriophage. The former, are CRISPR Cas3-enhanced bacteriophage (crPhage) that exquisitely eradicates bacteria. While developing crPhage we became experts in engineering bacteriophage, where we can now deliver any protein or peptide therapeutic we desire.

The incidence of antibiotic-resistant infections is growing rapidly with large-scale use of antibiotics. This is a particular concern with the overuse of antibiotics during a viral pandemic, such as those caused by H1N1 influenza or SARS-CoV-2.

Gene editing success could turn Triangle startup Locus Biosciences into a billion dollar unicorn

The need for new precision antibacterial therapies that selectively kill target bacteria while leaving good bacteria in the body unharmed is widely recognized. The development of non-traditional therapies that possess alternative properties to conventional small-molecule antibiotics represents a unique opportunity to advance the field of medicine and provide new treatment options to patients with antimicrobial-resistant infections which are a growing concern for our nations health security.

Furthermore, the one bug, one drug precision approach our platform employs, has significant implications for bacterial infections in patients receiving novel therapeutics for conditions such as cancer. Lifesaving checkpoint inhibitors, for example, which are used across several cancer types, are negatively impacted by antibiotic use in these fragile patients. By specifically targeting only the pathogen of interest, Locus precision medicines avoid negatively affecting patient responses to these important therapies.

Within immunology and oncology, the association between disease and bacteria is becoming clearer each day. Locus platform enables the company to directly remove bacteria driving/exacerbating disease while delivering biotherapeutics that can ameliorate disease pathogenesis.

Here we leverage the microbiome to manufacture the biotherapeutics inside the human body at the site of the disease, increasing the effective dose at the target site while decreasing systemic exposure. All designed to improve outcomes while decreasing side effects.

Gene editing firm Locus Biosciences adds another $7M to its 2020 cash haul

TW: Whats the current state of the industry and the sector, and what does the future hold, in 2022 and beyond?

Garofolo: There is a revolution occurring in medicine. We are evolving from the days where we discovered small molecules that produced a favorable result in a large number of patients, likely with some level of side effects, to precision medicines that directly address the problem for the intended patient. It started with antibodies and other biologic therapies that revolutionized Oncology and Immunological diseases. It is moving towards cell and gene therapies where the technology is proving itself in ultrarare diseases, and much like their predecessor technologies, will move toward more broad-based applications over time.

2022 will continue to see the explosive advancement of gene therapy and gene editing technologies that results in new companies and investments across the industry. As these technologies advance through the clinic in the years to come, we will see them applied more broadly to address genetic diseases that affect broader patient populations. We are already seeing the move from muscular dystrophy to sickle cell disease and beyond. From Locus, you will see our team take our CRISPR-Cas3 enhanced bacteriophage into a Phase 2 trial targeting urinary tract infections caused by E. coli a disease that affects millions of people each year in the US alone.

Triangle gene editing firm Locus lands $77M to support new antibacterial treatment

TW: What can you tell us about how the companys geographic location in the Triangle means for future opportunity?

The Locus manufacturing platform is the lynchpin of our success in progressing bacteriophage products by enabling internal control over the timing, quality and speed at which we can take drugs to the clinic. We leverage our teams deep manufacturing experience as well as our geography, as NC is an ideal manufacturing location due to the local economics and talent pool.

Our world-class 10,000 square foott modular cGMP biologics manufacturing facility meets the standards of the US (FDA), Europe (EMA), Japan (PMDA), and several other countries and regions, to enable the manufacture of our precision medicines while providing the capability to also manufacture gene therapy vectors and other advanced biologics. Our facility design allows for parallel production of multiple drug substances simultaneously, in isolated production suites, without risk of cross-contamination. It is optimized for viral vector manufacturing, including bacteriophage, adenovirus, AAV, and other vectors. Taken together, our facility and proprietary production processes allow for all viral products manufactured by Locus to meet or exceed US and international regulatory standards for parenterally administered drug products for clinical and commercial use.

The modular design also allows us to change-out or upgrade existing equipment that moves Locus from being able to produce clinical trial material to producing multiple early-stage commercial products in parallel; all while maintaining the same footprint.

Locus Biosciences lands $19M in funding for gene editing technology

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Triangle gene editing firms CEO: There is a revolution occurring in medicine - WRAL TechWire

2021 Research Highlights Human Health Advances – National Institutes of Health

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COVID-19 spread and vaccines

NIH researchers continued to make scientific breakthroughs to help control the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies of spread suggested strategies for controlling infections. Research also revealed who was most at risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19: nearly two-thirds of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. were due to obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure. Wide-spread vaccine rollouts slowed the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, developed with NIH, proved to be 94% effective against symptomatic COVID-19. Six months later, people who had been vaccinated still showed signs of immunity. COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 140,000 lives through May 2021, and hundreds of thousands more have been saved since. As SARS-CoV-2 mutated and new variants became common, scientists conducted studies on booster doses of vaccine. These suggested that COVID-19 boosters not only lengthen immunity but help broaden and strengthen the immune response to protect against a wide variety of variants.

In type 1 diabetes, the immune systems T cells attack the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Those affected need insulin treatment to survive. In a clinical trial of people at risk of developing type 1 diabetes (with a median age of 13), the drug teplizumab delayed disease onset and improved insulin production. The findings support the use of the drug for delaying or preventing type 1 diabetes.

There has been a great deal of debate over what aspects of our diets affect weight control. A carefully controlled study found that people ate fewer calories per day and lost more weight on a plant-based, low-fat diet compared to an animal-based, low-carb diet. However, the low-fat diet led to higher insulin and blood sugar levels, which can be risk factors for heart disease. The findings reveal how restricting dietary carbohydrates or fats may impact health.

The effects of childhood malnutrition can cause lifelong health problems. Researchers found that a supplement designed to repair the gut microbiomethe bacteria, viruses, and fungi in the digestive systemhelped malnourished children. Those given the supplement gained more weight than children on a standard nutritional supplement. The experimental supplement also raised levels of proteins in the blood associated with bone, cartilage, and brain health.

A common blood test for kidney function measures a protein called creatinine. But Black Americans generally have higher amounts of creatinine. As a result, doctors take race into account when testing for kidney disease. A study showed that measuring levels of another protein called cystatin C can accurately estimate kidney function without needing to take race into account. A race-blind method for estimating kidney function could more effectively identify chronic kidney disease.

Malaria is caused by parasites transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Researchers developed a vaccine approach that uses live sporozoites, the infectious form of the malaria parasite, along with a drug that kills the parasite. In a small trial, the approach led to broad, long-lastingprotection against malaria. The strategy is now being tested in real-world conditions in a Phase 2 clinical trial in Mali.

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2021 Research Highlights Human Health Advances - National Institutes of Health

Global Regenerative Medicine Market is Expected to Reach USD 57.08 Billion by 2027, Growing at a CAGR of 11.27% Over the Forecast Period. -…

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Regenerative Medicine Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Product (Cell-based Immunotherapies, Gene Therapies), by Therapeutic Category (Cardiovascular, Oncology), and Segment Forecasts, 2021-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global regenerative medicine market size is expected to reach USD 57.08 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 11.27% over the forecast period.

Recent advancements in biological therapies have resulted in a gradual shift in preference toward personalized medicinal strategies over the conventional treatment approach. This has resulted in rising R&D activities in the regenerative medicine arena for the development of novel regenerative therapies.

Furthermore, advancements in cell biology, genomics research, and gene-editing technology are anticipated to fuel the growth of the industry. Stem cell-based regenerative therapies are in clinical trials, which may help restore damaged specialized cells in many serious and fatal diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer's, neurodegenerative diseases, and spinal cord injuries.

For instance, various research institutes have adopted Human Embryonic Stem Cells (hESCs) to develop a treatment for Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Constant advancements in molecular medicines have led to the development of gene-based therapy, which utilizes targeted delivery of DNA as a medicine to fight against various disorders.

Gene therapy developments are high in oncology due to the rising prevalence and genetically driven pathophysiology of cancer. The steady commercial success of gene therapies is expected to accelerate the growth of the global market over the forecast period.

Regenerative Medicine Market Report Highlights

Key Topics Covered:

Market Variables, Trends, & Scope

Competitive Analysis

Covid-19 Impact Analysis

Regenerative Medicine Market: Product Business Analysis

Regenerative Medicine Market: Therapeutic Category Business Analysis

Regenerative Medicine Market: Regional Business Analysis

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/kovhgl

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Global Regenerative Medicine Market is Expected to Reach USD 57.08 Billion by 2027, Growing at a CAGR of 11.27% Over the Forecast Period. -...

Vaccines are just the beginning for RNA. The technology is being tested on heart and liver diseases. – The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Seven people who underwent heart-bypass surgery recently in Europe volunteered to receive an additional treatment: injections of messenger RNA.

This was not one of the COVID-19 vaccines, in which the RNA code is used to teach the recipients immune system. Instead, the RNA for the surgery patients was designed to heal their hearts by promoting the growth of new blood vessels.

The study, a collaboration between drugmakers AstraZeneca and Moderna, is among dozens underway to harness the potential of RNA. Some of them started before the pandemic, but with the real-world success of the vaccines, they have now picked up steam.

At Duke University Medical Center, researchers are testing a different RNA-based drug from Moderna in patients with propionic acidemia, a rare disorder in which the liver is unable to break down certain amino acids and fats. Others are testing messenger RNA against a variety of cancers.

And, of course, RNA is being used to make more vaccines. Among those being tested are vaccines against Zika virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), cytomegalovirus, and the flu.

All these efforts rely on RNAs ability to carry the recipe for proteins, the building blocks of life. In a vaccine, the protein is a harmless fragment of the virus in question, allowing the recipients immune system to practice in the event of infection. In the other drugs, the RNA can prompt patients cells to make beneficial proteins that they are unable to make themselves.

It is too soon to say how well the various non-vaccine RNA drugs will work, said cardiologist Howard J. Eisen, a medical director at the Penn State Heart and Vascular Institute, who has been following the research. Among other issues: RNA degrades quickly (remember how the COVID vaccines require cold storage?), so it has to be delivered to the right cells in a timely fashion.

Yet the potential, he says, is vast.

Itll revolutionize medicine, I think.

In the heart study, patients experienced no serious side effects as a result of the injections, the drugmakers reported in November. That was little surprise, given that billions have now been injected safely with RNA vaccines, said Eisen, who was not involved with the study.

But with just seven people (and another four who received placebo injections), the study was too small to draw conclusions about the drugs effect on heart function. Larger studies are planned.

The RNA carries the recipe for a protein called VEGF-A, a growth factor involved in forming new blood vessels. The hope is that the patients would experience an improved ejection fraction a measure of how much oxygenated blood is pumped with each heartbeat. Yet previous studies, in which researchers have sought to boost that protein with a different approach called gene therapy, have met with limited success.

Likewise, tests of the RNA-based drug for propionic acidemia are in the early stages, as are studies of RNA treatments for other metabolic diseases.

Whats clear is that new approaches for these liver disorders are sorely needed, said Dwight Koeberl, who is overseeing the Duke University site for Modernas propionic acidemia trial.

For now, patients with that disease must severely limit or avoid intake of meat, dairy, and nuts or else their bodies build up toxic byproducts that lead to neurological and heart damage, among other complications. To compensate for this restricted diet, they must drink a special formula with vitamins and other supplements. And even so, some eventually need a liver transplant.

Koeberl, a professor of pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine, also has studied the use of gene therapy to treat such patients. That approach is a long-term fix, as the instructions for making the corrective proteins are delivered inside the nucleus of the persons cells (whereas RNA is transient, degrading within days meaning that some treatments would need to be administered multiple times).

But as with the gene therapy treatments for heart disease, gene therapy for metabolic disorders remains a work in progress. One hurdle with gene therapy is that it is typically delivered inside the recipients cells with a virus, which can be defeated by the immune system, Koeberl said.

RNA-based therapies, on the other hand, are typically packaged in tiny droplets of oily molecules called lipids, as with the COVID vaccines. These lipid nanoparticles do not enter the cell nucleus. They need to penetrate only the outer cell membrane for the RNA to fulfill its mission, and they do so with ease. Koeberl was attracted by the possibility of a more straightforward solution.

My interest is in trying to help these patients with something sooner rather than later, he said.

Many, if not most, of the RNA drugs being tested are vaccines, to judge from a search of clinicaltrials.gov, a listing of clinical studies maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Compared to traditional vaccines, one advantage of the RNA approach is that the genetic instructions can be quickly updated to match emerging threats. Pfizer and BioNTech, for example, already are developing a vaccine to match the omicron variant of the coronavirus, though widescale production still takes time. The European Union has ordered 180 million doses of this modified vaccine, expected to be available by March.

Next-generation RNA vaccines may also have the advantage of requiring lower doses. Thats the idea behind a flu vaccine in development by Seqirus, which has U.S. operations in Summit, N.J., and is a subsidiary of CSL Limited, based in Melbourne, Australia.

The RNA in that vaccine is self-amplifying, meaning that it consists of two elements: the genetic recipe for making flu proteins that stimulate an immune response, as well as instructions to make multiple copies of that recipe. In theory, that would mean a lower dose of such a vaccine could be just as effective, yet with a lower rate of side effects. Seqirus has been studying this approach in animal models for years, and it plans to test this type of flu vaccine in human volunteers during the second half of 2022.

Patient support groups have been watching the development of messenger RNA with great interest, whether the drug is being used to prevent disease, as with the vaccines, or to treat it.

Many advocates were aware of the potential for RNA treatments long before the COVID vaccines came out. Among them is Kathy Stagni, executive director of the Organic Acidemia Association, which provides support for patients with propionic acidemia and others.

She said she has been setting the record straight every time she hears someone claim that the technology behind the COVID vaccines was rushed.

This is something theyve been working on for a long time, she said.

Eisen, the Penn State cardiologist, was working at the University of Pennsylvania decades ago when Penn scientist Katalin Karik was doing some of the early experiments that would set the stage for the vaccines.

She was not working on vaccines at the time, but on using messenger RNA to treat heart disease. Now that the technology has matured, AstraZeneca and Moderna are tackling heart disease once again.

In essence, Eisen said, it has come full circle.

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Vaccines are just the beginning for RNA. The technology is being tested on heart and liver diseases. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Long reads: The USA TODAY stories readers spent the most time with in 2021 – USA TODAY

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What a year. We laughed, we cried, we socially distanced and we held our loved ones close. And ... we read the news. A lot of it.

As part of our look back at 2021, we've pulled together a collection of some of the stories that USA TODAY readers spent the most time with this year.

The selections includea profile of the New Jersey man who became the world's first successful face and double-hand transplant recipient, the journey of a little girl with a rare disease who was given hope through a medical miracle and thestory of onefamily's drug ring that was linked to the Sinaloa Cartel and deaths in three states.

There are also stories of redemption, remembrance and faith, including a woman's tale of escaping Afghanistan and the story of a young boy who lost his mom on 9/11 and the young man he's become.

All of these pieces were available to USA TODAY subscribers this year and we're making them free this holiday season.

If you want unlimited access tounique, straightforwardreporting from around the nation that takes you beyond the headlines, please consider a subscription to USA TODAY.

Stories of the Year: A look back at the biggest moments of 2021

Photos of the Year: See a photo from every day in a life-changing year

Those We Lost: Hank Aaron, Bob Dole, Cicely Tyson: Remembering notables who died in 2021

Feel-good stories: From daring rescues to medical breakthroughs, here are 12 of the happiest stories of 2021

A Sinaloa Cartel supplied drug ring is tied to multiple deaths in Michigan, Kentucky and Mississippi, a USA TODAY Network investigation finds.

After a car accident destroyed his face and arms, Joseph DiMeo determined to recover his independence. Now, after complex transplant surgery, he has.

For decades, two lovestruck teenagers made good on a promise to their parents to never talk again. But one day, 51 years later, everything changed.

Five years after then-coach Tyler Summitt was caught having an affair with his point guard at Louisiana Tech, the couple are married and have a son.

When NCAA men's basketball referee Bert Smith collapsed during the Gonzaga-USC game, some thought he had died. Turns out, that fall saved his life.

A scientific vision for decades, gene therapy is finally becoming more common in the U.S., fueling optimism for the treatment of rare diseases.

In 2001, Tionda and Diamond Bradley left a note and disappeared from their Chicago home. For two decades, their family has fought for answers.

The boy in the yellow raincoat made for one of 9/11's most moving images. Two decades after the attacks, Kevin Villa reflects on his mom's sacrifice.

It seems impossible that civilization can regress decades, that your life can collapse before lunch. But it can, and it did as the Taliban took Kabul.

Bishop Sycamore gained national attention when it lost an ESPN-televised football game 58-0 and questions were asked about the school and coaches.

Published1:01 pm UTC Dec. 25, 2021Updated2:17 pm UTC Dec. 25, 2021

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Long reads: The USA TODAY stories readers spent the most time with in 2021 - USA TODAY

Which philosophy helps us confront the crises that beset us… we first or me first? – The Guardian

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We live in capitalist economies that deliver great wealth, innovation and dynamism but lurch from systemic crisis to crisis, throw up gigantic inequalities and are careless about nature and the societies of which they are part. Its obvious that we want more of the former and less of the latter but how? Never easy, this question is now so bitterly dividing western politics that in the US there is even talk of a second civil war. Post-Brexit Britain is only fractionally less toxic.

There are two increasingly hostile camps living in their intellectual and political silos. On the one hand, there are the me firsts, the apostles of salvation through individualism. Capitalism propelled by individuals aggressively pursuing their own self-interest will deliver the goods. It is essentially self-organising, self-propelling and self-dynamic. Dont worry about booms, busts, monopoly and disastrous social side-effects; we have to put up with them as we do with the weather. They will sort themselves out in time. Any public intervention will bring errors and costs that outweigh the benefits. Allow the tall poppies to grow even taller and wealth will ultimately trickle down; inequality is the price paid for capitalist effectiveness. Capitalism harnesses the base metals of human greed and self-interest to deliver the alchemy of economic dynamism.

On the other hand, are the we firsts. They are equally passionate in their insistence that salvation lies in the group and society and convinced, whether on the climate emergency, hi-tech monopolies, crippling uncertainties about living standards or just the evident truth that we humans are altruists as much as individualists, that to follow the me firsts is the road to perdition. What is crucial to us as social beings is the group, society, the commonweal and belonging as equals. After all, it was associating in groups that was fundamental to our evolutionary capacity to hunt and to see off predators. That primeval urge to associate in the group is what underpins happiness and wellbeing. What people want is less the exercise of choice in markets, more to control their lives in the service of what they value and that is best done collectively and, as far as possible, equitably.

And so the Is and wes confront each other in intense enmity, crystallised in the debates about the proper reaction to the virus. The Is inhabit a world in which we must make our own choices, even over vaccination, and the state must be minimalist. The wes urge mandatory vaccination, early lockdowns and Covid passports. Yet the sustainable policy is to blend the two: to find ways of persuading individuals, by choice and shaming, to get vaccinated and to ensure that Covid passports are employed, but only when it is clear that public health demands it for NHS and care workers and for any large events. Too much we zeal and there is insupportable state intrusion into our lives; too much I libertarianism and you are free to infect and maybe kill me. Yes, we need the pluralism of different options and individual agency; equally, we need an agile public realm and collective action to serve the group.

The good society (and successful public policy) is one that cleverly uses its institutions to reconcile the we with the I. It is great institutions, in the private and public sectors, which bind society and mitigate the worst excesses of both group force and individual licence. The problem is that we have too few of them and those we do have are being undermined by the dominance of the me firsts who insist anything to do with the we is coercive and undermines liberty.

Thus, despite the me firsts, we witness the success of the NHS through this pandemic, plainly dedicated to serve the we but never in such a way as to be oppressive. Thus, too, the amazing vaccines incubated in Oxfords Jenner Institute, the university itself an example of combining the we of a shared academic vocation but with 37 individual, competing colleges. These were then rolled out with the impetus of the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, an institution part tax-funded and part funded from its own commercial activities but one consecrated to promoting the public interest of a strong cell and gene ecology. And all further enabled by an enlightened capitalist enterprise, AstraZeneca, which institutionally recognised its social purpose of promoting health by selling a billion doses at cost.

Another institution that has proved its worth in the pandemic is the BBC, particularly its political and health teams. Laura Kuenssberg and Ros Atkins, for example, have shown the power of impartiality, while Fergus Walsh and Hugh Pym have been models of rock-solid, informed reporting. It has had a cascade effect on much of the media. In a deadly pandemic, beyond some on the Conservative backbenches and rightwing columnists, there can be no luxuriating in ideology. Everyone wants to get to the other side in the best and safest way they can.

Our democratic institutions have been less secure. The checks and balances vital to political integrity have been found wanting. It should never have been possible for the prime minister to use executive discretion, backed by a parliamentary majority, retrospectively to change the terms of the committee on standards in public life; it should be understood that these institutions, including the Electoral Commission, can be reformed only deliberatively and with cross-party support. They represent the we. Public procurement, too, has proved spectacularlyopen to abuse. Meanwhile, the Tory party has demonstrated its institutional weakness, becoming hostage to its ultra-libertarian wing and arriving at public health policies erratically and often too late.

The wider lesson is clear. If we want the best of capitalism and less of the worst, we need to build institutions across our economy, society and democracy that covenant through their constitutions, from a company to a university, that they will respect values we hold dear: equality, fairness, universality, transparency, societal obligation and sustainability. Indeed, in the face of 21st-century challenges AI, the drive to net zero, levelling up great institutions are more important than ever. They will not emerge spontaneously from markets and the operation of capitalism. They have to be created and sustained, the progressive project of the decades ahead.

Will Hutton is an Observer columnist. His December lecture to the Academy of Social Sciences, Its institutions stupid the moralisation of capitalism, from which this column is drawn, is available here

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Which philosophy helps us confront the crises that beset us... we first or me first? - The Guardian

Top News About Mesothelioma and Asbestos of 2021: Part 1 – Mesothelioma Guide

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With the end of the calendar year on our collective doorstep, its time to reflect on the previous 12 months.

In the world of mesothelioma and asbestos, 2021 was a busy year. A lot of breaking news regarding regulations and advancements for treatment occurred.

In fact, there was so much news about mesothelioma that Mesothelioma Guides annual year-in-review article needed to be split into two parts.

Here is part 1, which has five of the top 10 stories from 2021 about mesothelioma and asbestos. These are summarized, with links to the full stories included. Look for part 2 on Thursday.

Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturing giant responsible for Talc Baby Powder and other talc products, is the center of thousands of cancer lawsuits. The company is accused of exposing users to asbestos, which can contaminate talcum powder in cosmetics like Baby Powder.

Johnson & Johnson stopped manufacturing and selling talc Baby Powder in the United States and Canada in 2020. Now the company is trying to Texas Two-Step away from current and future lawsuits. The Texas Two-Step is when a company creates a subsidiary LLC as an attempt to offload legal liabilities to the subsidiary, which immediately files for bankruptcy to block future lawsuits. Johnson & Johnson filed to create a subsidiary called LTL to absorb all talc cancer liabilities.

The Texas Two-Step is common in mesothelioma claims and led to the requirement of companies to create asbestos trust funds, a way for companies with bankrupt subsidiaries to continue compensating patients, albeit at smaller amounts.

When Johnson & Johnson tried this maneuver, a North Carolina judge paused the movement along with 35,000 legal claims. The judge moved the case to New Jersey, where Johnson & Johnson headquarters are. The judge paused the claims for 60 days, which is set to expire in mid-January.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tested talc samples from an assortment of products. The agency tested 50 samples and found no asbestos, a perfect score. In 2020, the FDA found evidence of asbestos fibers in 17% of samples.

This is excellent news for the health and safety of consumers, who may use talc cosmetics or cleaning powders for beauty or skincare. Caution is still recommended and companies are urged to use alternatives to talc for consumer safety.

Many cancer centers with mesothelioma programs were at the top of the U.S. News & World Report hospitals rankings.

The Mayo Clinic, UCLA Medical Center, Johns Hopkins, University of California San Francisco Medical Center, Michigan Medicine, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center all made the top 20. All of these top cancer centers feature at least one specialist for either pleural mesothelioma or peritoneal mesothelioma.

The Checkmate-743 clinical trial led to Opdivo and Yervoy being approved for unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma. The three-year follow-up proves this immunotherapy combination is working tremendously for patients who cant have surgery.

The three-year survival rate is 23%, which is higher than chemotherapys 15% rate. The two-year survival rate is 40% and the median survival for Opdivo and Yervoy is 18.1 months.

Opdivo and Yervoy are immune checkpoint inhibitors, meaning they block specific protein receptors to help the immune system appropriately treat cancer cells as dangerous.

A study from Spain revealed people with mesothelioma are at high risk of COVID-19 death.

A hospital in the European country had seven cases of COVID-19 among mesothelioma patients. Five died, with four attributed to COVID complications. Six of the seven were hospitalized.

This data confirms the fears of COVID-19 for mesothelioma patients. The combination could have a deadly effect on respiratory functioning.

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Tips to Make the Most of Holiday Season Despite Mesothelioma – Mesothelioma Guide

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The holiday season is a heartwarming time for family and friends.

Unfortunately, for some, the cheer is dampened by a diagnosis of mesothelioma during the holidays.

Around 2,500-3,000 people each year in the United States are told they have mesothelioma, a rare cancer caused by asbestos. This news often leaves people with more questions than answers. As they go to the holiday season, theyre either beginning treatment with hopes of long-term survival or receiving palliative care to make their final months comfortable.

The dark cloud hovering above should not overwhelm your time with family. Whether youre the patient with mesothelioma or a loved one of someone diagnosed with the cancer, here are four tips to help make this years holiday season special.

Make memories with your loved ones. This is the most important piece of advice we can give and one that serves as an umbrella for the rest.

The holidays are a time of the year when different segments of your family come together to spend time as a collective group. Whether its a massive lunch or dinner at someones house, an exchanging of presents or some other activity, this is a potential once-a-year opportunity.

Strike up a conversation with your nephew. Share laughs with your grandchild. Smile at your son or daughter.

If youre the family member, include your loved one with mesothelioma. The most important part of this time is being part of the family. So make sure to include them, as this is a part of providing patient support.

One of the best assets fighting malignant mesothelioma is regular exercise and a healthy diet. Dont overdo it: Regular exercise could be a walk around the block or even gardening in the front or back yard.

This serves as a chance to spend time with family. Make exercise a group activity a family walk outside or gardening with a loved one. This can turn into cherishable moments during the holidays.

Let family members help you with meals, too. If youre the primary caregiver, ask other family members for help. If youre a family member visiting, request to help with meals. You can make this a team-oriented task for the benefit of your loved one with mesothelioma.

Yes, exercise is important. So is rest and sleep.

Mesothelioma is trying to take over your body. The cancer is going to sap your energy. The same is true for the therapy you might be taking to fight back against these tumors. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy both cause fatigue and nausea as a side effect.

If you dont want to participate in a family holiday activity such as shopping or another event just say no. Its OK, and your family members will understand.

If youre the family member, respect and understand that the participation level might be low. This is understandable, and its OK to let them have time to themselves. Its also worthwhile to stay back and spend one-on-one time with your parent, grandparent or sibling with cancer.

Mesothelioma is an expensive disease. It removes people from full-time work both the patient and family caregiver and causes exorbitant medical bills. Debt is quite common for families paying for mesothelioma treatment costs.

When the holidays come around, theres a sense of responsibility to spend money on gifts. There are alternatives, such as:

Please remember the holidays arent at all about the price tag on gifts. Its about spending time with your loved ones and making memories. This time together is the best gift of all, and it can raise your spirits as you continue living with and fighting your cancer.

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Plant Engineering | Resource processing challenges that …

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Throughout history, most production processes relied on a steady stream of resource processing of raw materials extracted directly from nature. However, those resources are not renewable at least not as much as we need them to be to sustain the production cycles.

One of the possible solutions to that problem may be found in the model of circular economy, which emphasizes the use of waste materials in the production process. That should effectively reduce the amount of raw materials we need to take from nature and divert most waste from landfills.

But even though that alternative sounds pretty appealing, its not without challenges. With that in mind, RTS wanted to talk about some of the resource processing difficulties people might come across in the next two decades as people slowly transition to a circular economy.

The current state of affairs is far from sustainable. According to a recent report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, G20 countries account for about 75% of global resource use and 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. In the past three decades, annual material consumption has increased from 37 billion tons in 1990 to 88 billion tons in 2017. Naturally, the countries that are the main drivers of that change should take on the responsibility of pushing for a more resource-efficient economy model.

The report mentioned illustrates the wasteful nature of the past and current production models. However, it also leaves space for a more hopeful future. More than anything else, the document shows that material processing industries need to change as soon as possible.

On the one hand, people need to reconsider the amount of raw resources theyre using during production processes. Then, theres the question of the methods companies are using to process those materials. Its not enough to recycle metals, plastics and paper products. Instead, people have to expand their reach by improving processing methods and making them more accessible.

As mentioned, the circular economy model aims to close the linear mode of production into a loop. Instead of using new materials from nature, people would simply divert waste materials from landfills to processing plants. Of course, material efficiency strategies dont begin and end with the production of goods.

Instead, people need to consider their daily use of materials such as the fuel vehicles use. Until now, many have considered car ownership to be the end goal of a young professionals life. However, moving toward a more sustainable future would include a move toward ride-sharing practices and using public transportation. So while many usually talk about resource processing in terms of industrial manufacturing cycles, a circular economy would require concessions on an individual level as well.

According to a report from the International Resource Panel, taking steps towards establishing a circular economy would have several positive effects in the long run. For one, doing so would reduce the use of raw natural resources by as much as 28% by 2050. Moreover, it would also result in a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions. This would naturally affect the planets climate as well.

Before anyone can see the benefits of a circular mode of production, they need to implement certain changes on a global scale. The International Resource Panel has long advocated for a complete reimagining of the way we manufacture goods. To do that, we need to change the way we value resources we have already used.

Instead of considering items spent once people are done with them, they should make an effort to repair, refurbish and reuse them. When theyre no longer useful to a plant, they should be put back in circulation by donating, selling or recycling them. That should help these objects retain value even when they lose their original purpose. But, establishing the circular economy will take more than individual actions.

Rather, governments and multinational entities alike need to incentivize industries to incorporate those values too. Instead of participating in an endless cycle of resource extraction and waste creation, companies need to invest in recycling. Unfortunately, the main obstacle that stands in the way of achieving that goal is the fact that companies dont have a reason to transition to sustainable resources.

After all, the extraction of raw materials remains cheap and widely accessible. The use of natural resources is too ingrained in manufacturing processes to disappear with the kind of incentives the EU and other governmental bodies have proposed. With that in mind, people need to make sure manufacturers have easy access to recycled goods.

To that end, recycling needs to be easily available to individuals as well as companies. Whats more, using sustainable resources during the production process needs to be financially accessible to manufacturers.

As established, the goal of a circular economy is the preservation of natural resources and the elimination of waste. Due to this, people can understand why the industry around resource processing needs to develop quickly.

If manufacturers can choose between raw material extraction and sustainable resources, their decision wont be based on environmentalism. Rather, theyll go for the cheaper option. Thats why there are tax benefits for going green but clearly, those kinds of incentives are still insufficient.

So what can people do to make sure the following two decades bring everyone closer to the circular economic system our planet needs? As individuals, people need to make their voices heard through voting and community organizing. People need to get behind the scientific community, which has been advocating for a transition to sustainable resources for decades.

This move toward a more sustainable future will ultimately reduce the cost of production and lower greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, itll also create countless jobs. People just have to clear any hurdles that stand in the way of the future everyone deserves.

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Plant Engineering | Resource processing challenges that ...

Mapped: Economic Freedom Around the World – Visual Capitalist

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Mapped: Economic Freedom Around the World

How would you define a countrys economic freedom?

The cornerstones of economic freedom by most measures are personal choice, voluntary exchange, independence to compete in markets, and security of the person and privately-owned property. Simply put, it is about the quality of political and economic institutions in countries.

Based on the Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage Organization, we mapped the economic freedom of 178 countries worldwide.

The index uses five broad areas to score economic freedom for each country:

In 2021, the global average economic freedom score is 61.6, the highest its been in 27 years.

But from Mauritius and smaller African nations being beacons of hope to East Asian and Oceanic countries epitomizing economic democracy, every region has a different story to tell.

Lets take a look at the economic freedom of each region in the world.

Even though the U.S. and Canada continue to be some of the most economically free countries globally, some markers are suffering.

The regional average unemployment rate has risen to 6.9%, and inflation (outside of Venezuela) has increased to 5.2%. The regions average level of public debtalready the highest globallyrose to 85.2% of its GDP during the past year.

Across many Latin American countries, widespread corruption and weak protection of property rights have aggravated regulatory inefficiency and monetary instability.

For example, Argentinas Peronist government has recently fixed the price of 1,432 products as a response to a 3.5% price rise in September, the equivalent to a 53% increase if annualized.

More than half of the worlds 38 freest countries (with overall scores above 70) are in Europe. This is due to the regions relatively extensive and long-established free-market institutions, the robust rule of law, and exceptionally strong investment freedom.

However, Europe still struggles with a variety of policy barriers to vigorous economic expansion. This includes overly protective and costly labor regulations, which was one of the major reasons why the UK voted to leave the EU.

Brexit has since had a major impact on the region.

Even a year later, official UK figures showed a record fall in trade with the EU in January 2021, as the economy struggled with post-Brexit rules and the pandemic.

Dictatorships, corruption, and conflict have historically kept African nations as some of the most economically repressed in the world.

While larger and more prosperous African nations struggle to advance economic freedom, some smaller countries are becoming the beacon of hope for the continent.

Mauritius (rank 11), Seychelles (43) and Botswana (45) were the top African countries, offering the most robust policies and institutions supporting economic self-sufficiency.

From property rights to financial freedom, small African countries are racing ahead of the continents largest in advancing economic autonomy as they look to build business opportunities for their citizens.

When Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords last year, there was a sense of a new paradigm emerging in a region with a long history of strife.

A year into the signing of this resolution, the effects have been promising. There have been bilateral initiatives within the private sector and civil society leading to increasing economic and political stability in the region.

Central Asian countries once part of the Soviet Union have recently starting integrating more directly with the world economy, primarily through natural resource exports. In total, natural resources account for about 65% of exports in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and more than 90% in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Despite this progress, these countries have a long way to go in terms of economic freedom. Uzbekistan (108), Turkmenistan (167) and Tajikistan (134) are still some of the lowest-ranked countries in the world.

Despite massive populations and strong economies, countries like China and India remain mostly unfree economies. The modest improvements in scores over the last few years have been through gains in property rights, judicial effectiveness, and business freedom indicators.

Nearby, Singapores economy has been ranked the freest in the world for the second year in a row. Singapore remains the only country in the world that is considered economically free in every index category.

Finally, its worth noting that Australia and New Zealand are regional leaders, and are two of only five nations that are currently in the free category of the index.

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Mapped: Economic Freedom Around the World - Visual Capitalist

Web3 digital infrastructure for connected vehicle and IoT commerce in the New Economy of Movement – Ledger Insights

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This is a guest opinion post from Tram Vo, Co-director + Founder,MOBI.

The convergence of multiple rapidly maturing technologies, such as AI, IoT, and blockchain, permits any connected entity whether a person, vehicle, device, package, piece of infrastructure, or data set to communicate and autonomously participate as an independent economic agent in transactions. These usage-based (pay as you go) economy-of-things transactions will:

These transactions the exchange of value, goods, and data between entities in the economy of things will produce a multi-trillion-dollar pay-per-use ecosystem weve termedThe New Economy of Movement.

The New Economy of Movement requires a new way of identifying people and things, one which is blockchain-based, self-sovereign, decentralized, and machine readable. These are known asdecentralized identifiers(DIDs).

DIDs give individuals and organizations the power to own and control their digital identifiers, breaking the reliance on third party authenticators and centralized authorities. In a decentralized system, DIDs are embedded inVerifiable Credentials(VCs). Those VCs may be created by trusted entities, such as government agencies, businesses, universities, or employers and issued to a holder of the VC. If we think of the DID as a global ID, then VCs are like digital passports, or unique stamps which serve to attest to specific information about an entity associated with a specific DID.

In the New Economy of Movement, Web3 federated networks and decentralized platforms are needed to manage DIDs and VCs to enable trusted data sharing and business automation. MOBIs Web3 infrastructure consists of three member-owned and operated layers collectively the MOBI Technology Stack (MTS) needed to verify decentralized transactions between connected entities. Each layer with a different architecture and function, together forming a holistic approach to Web3 applications developed for decentralized connected ecosystems.

The three layers are illustrated below. The foundational layer is the MOBI consortium, which createsstandardsto identify connected entities and shared business processes. The middle layer ismobiNET, a layer-two, protocol-agnostic digital infrastructure to provide trusted decentralized identity (DID) services. The top layer isCitopia, a trustless decentralized platform to onboard DIDs and enable VC issuance for business automation; monetizing assets such as infrastructure, services, and data.

Beginning with Vehicle Identity (MOBI VID, a vehicles digital twin based on the internationally accepted vehicle identification number, or VIN) in 2019, MOBI has published thirteen blockchain-based standards (including nine in 2021) outliningsustainabledecentralized solutions fordigital identitymanagement,supply chain,vehicle electrification,mobility data, and mobility-related IoT commerce. The most recent of these theMOBI Trusted Trip(MTT) Standard is perhaps the most important pillar of the New Economy of Movement.

For a trip to be useful to entities in a decentralized usage-based ecosystem, it must be trusted by all entities in the transaction. The MTT Standard links an entitys DID with its timestamped location in the form of VCs and enables the linkage to be certified throughout any trip in a trusted network. It is the key to decentralized privacy-preserving pay-per-use mobility.

MTT Verifiable Credential is based on W3Cs DID and VC Specifications. Using DIDs allows holders, on their own terms, to share trusted data with other verified entities without disclosing identity-related information and other selective attributes. MTT allows a holder of such credentials to prove to verifiers that it was present, completed a trip, used a resource, provided a service, or performed other relevant activities while safeguarding their Personally (or organizational) Identifiable Information (PII). MOBI Trusted Trip is the key primitive of the multi-trillion-dollar New Economy of Movement.

Linking decentralized identities with reliable and immutable location tracing, provenance, and chain of custody for data, people, and devices enables business automation and interoperability in the economy of things. This includes a huge new class of automated pay-per-use services in The New Economy of Movement. Specifically, MOBI Trusted Trip enables marginal cost pricing where users are charged based on the additional cost, including social cost, of what they consume for many new classes of transactions such as:

Movement reveals our most valuable preferences and behaviors. Web3 holds the potential to expose new dimensions of our personal data, while giving us the tools to control, protect, and monetize it. Web3 business models will upend and outcompete todays dominant Web2 centralized platforms as quickly and decisively as those Web2 platforms replaced the platforms that dominated earlier industrial and digital eras.

MOBI participants and other adopters will enjoy access to the cutting-edge markets, customers, and business models made possible in the New Economy of Movement. More importantly, the architectural and business decisions made by Web3 pioneers, including the MOBI community, will determine the experience of future users.

Will Web3 realize the original web vision of decentralization, equal access, and fairness? Or will it strengthen the market power of centralized platforms? We hope that the MOBI community, through their contributions to the New Economy of Movement, can positively influence the outcome.

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Web3 digital infrastructure for connected vehicle and IoT commerce in the New Economy of Movement - Ledger Insights

Mexicos lithium and the global race to lock in white gold – Al Jazeera English

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Mexico City, Mexico This years political moves surrounding Mexicos lithium reserves have tested the limits of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors (AMLO) pledges to keep the countrys most precious natural resources firmly in Mexican hands.

In October, AMLO unveiled a sweeping energy reform bill that included nationalising Mexicos lithium deposits as a strategic mineral a move that threw into doubt Chinas ability to lock in a critical reserve of lithium to support its green energy transition plans.

Also known as white gold and the new oil, lithium is a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries that are used for green energy storage, including powering electric vehicles.

Chinas Ganfeng Lithium had set its sights on upping its stake in a massive lithium mining project in Mexicos Sonora state by buying all the concessions held by its partner in the project, United Kingdom-based mining and exploration giant Bacanora.

After the news of AMLOs nationalisation plans hit the markets in October, the government scrambled to assure firms with active lithium mining permits in Mexico that they would be exempt from any new legislation. That, in turn, was interpreted to apply to Ganfeng, because construction had started on the Bacanora Sonora Lithium deposit in February.

Last week, Mexican regulators made good on that theoretical grandfather clause and without fanfare gave the green light to Gengfengs takeover of Bacanoras Sonora lithium mining concessions.

The official exemption illustrates that AMLOs government is willing to concede some of Mexicos natural resources to a foreign economic power. It also reveals what analysts see as a vector of tension between AMLOs quest for Mexican strategic mineral sovereignty and the much larger geopolitical race surrounding lithium.

Not everyone was supportive of Ganfengs takeover of Bacanoras Sonora lithium mining rights.

A cohort of individual shareholders in Bacanora who call themselves the Think BIG Bacanora investors group, has campaigned against the takeover.

Think BIG spokesperson Dawood Patel, told Al Jazeera that they were originally promised that Ganfeng would not try to monopolise the Sonora lithium reserves that had proven to be larger with every survey. He also said that private shareholders had been recommended by Bacanoras board to accept Ganfengs offer, even though a significant proportion of the risks associated with mining exploration had already been mitigated, allowing Ganfeng to solely profit.

We feel the Board and Ganfeng only spoke about partnerships and production to keep us small shareholders invested until Ganfeng could take control at an opportune moment, Patel said, adding that his group is also concerned about the geopolitical risks in allowing one of the worlds largest lithium resources to fall under the control of a single country.

This is a resource that the world including Mexico should benefit from, he said.

Ganfeng did not respond to Al Jazeeras request for comment.

As economies around the world decarbonise, the race has only intensified to lock in lithium supply chains.

Ganfeng, which supplies Tesla with lithium, accounted for 24 percent of the global output of lithium hydroxide last year, according to China Minmetals a substantial increase of the 18 percent market share it commanded in 2019.

With warnings of potential lithium shortages looming, Mexicos lithium deposits, as well as those in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, have become prime prizes in the ever-heating competition between Washington and Beijing for economic supremacy and influence over the most powerful industries of the near future.

Margaret Myers, director of the Asia and Latin America Program at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said that China will rely on lithium in order to ensure that it grows efficiently in the coming years.

As such, lithium in Latin America is a critical mineral for its (Chinas) own growth, and also a potential choke point with the US or with other countries that may rely heavily on lithium, as well as rare earths and other tech essential minerals.

AMLO had already taken steps to reduce any potential fallout from grandfathering a Chinese company against his high-profile pledges to nationalise strategic minerals.

As talk of nationalising lithium ramped up in October, Mexico hosted an international mining conference in Acapulco, during which the Mexican federal geological service downplayed the significance of the Sonora lithium deposit, describing it as in reality, clay and saying that claims of large reserves of lithium in Mexico had been exaggerated.

That balancing act, analysts have said, is born of AMLOs need to maintain Chinese investment in Mexico.

Carlos Flores, an expert on Mexicos energy sector, told Al Jazeera that Mexico and China have been growing closer in recent years.

Chinese companies, for example, are responsible for the refurbishment of one of the lines of Mexico Citys subway, he said. [They] are also in charge of the construction of one of the sections of the Mayan Train (Tren Maya) located in the Yucatan peninsula. There is also one Chinese company that invested in renewables in Mexico, they own wind farms.

But Myers noted that China is nevertheless very concerned by AMLOs efforts to potentially nationalise certain sectors of Mexicos economy, or to impose regulations that would make certain sectors unprofitable and untenable for Chinese companies.

This is evident among oil companies, she said. [Chinas] CNOOC, in particular, has assets in Mexico.

At the same time, said Meyers, of all of the countries in Latin America, especially the major economies, Mexico is the least dependent on China economically speaking noting that the vast majority of Mexicos trade is with the United States, while the extent of Chinese investment in Mexico is minuscule in comparison to whats coming from the US.

So in Mexico, China just doesnt have the sort of leverage in Mexico that it does in other places, she said.

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Mexicos lithium and the global race to lock in white gold - Al Jazeera English

Education quality, green technology, and the economic impact of carbon pricing | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal – voxeu.org

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Carbon pricing is among the most prominent policy instruments being used or considered by governments to reduce emissions today. Proponents argue that carbon pricing may allow us to reach internationally accepted temperature targets at minimal cost (Borissov et al. 2019, Gollier and Tirole 2015, Rausch et al. 2011).

However, most studies suggest that carbon taxes will negatively affect output and could be regressive (Grainger and Kolstad 2010, Mathur and Morris 2014, van der Ploeg et al. 2021), though some emerging empirical studies challenge this (e.g. Klenert and Hepburn 2018, Metcalf and Stock 2020, Shapiro 2021). Mitigating factors that can reduce output losses or reduce rising inequality have received substantial attention in the literature, particularly the mechanism for redistributing carbon-tax revenue.

What has received less attention is the mitigating role of policies that promote education quality. Better quality education has the potential to (1) improve the supply skills needed to enable green technological innovation in response to carbon pricing, leading to lower output losses and higher reductions in carbon emissions; and (2) reduce inequality resulting from carbon pricing by ensuring that green skill acquisition is accessible to all.

Emerging research suggests that green technological change relies on human capital. For example, the role of education and skilled labour for the transition to green growth in the report of the Commission on Carbon Pricing (Stiglitz et al. 2017) explains that production using clean technologies is human capital-intensive so education decisions become closely interlinked with the energy transition (Yao et al. 2020). At the same time, shortages of skilled labour may constrain the decarbonisation process of an economy (OECD 2017). Human capital has also been linked to firms better adapting to climate change and environmental regulations (Lan and Munro 2013, Pargal and Wheeler 1996).

Carbon pricing through its impact on human-capital accumulation may not only be the cornerstone of climate policy but may also act as a development policy, fostering technology switches and education of the labour force. However, if green technological change relies on higher-skilled workers and, as a result, is skill-biased, then the increased demand for higher-skilled labour resulting from carbon taxes may further widen the earnings gap between high- and low-skilled workers.

In a recent paper (Macdonald and Patrinos 2021), we consider how education quality interacts with carbon pricings effect on emissions, output, and wage inequality. Education quality as a determinant of the elasticity of skill supply in the economy may act as a mitigating factor both for the impact of carbon pricing on emissions reduction and on economic outcomes, including wage inequality and output.

This argument is parallel to skills and automation: if automation complements higher-skilled workers productivity, then the elasticity of skill supply for example, through the quality of education enhances the economic benefits of automation and mitigates its costs (Bentaouet Kattan et al. 2020).

We test the hypothesis that cognitive skills, as an indicator of overall human capital, are associated with a lower reliance on emissions in aggregate production technology and estimate the subsequent mitigating effect of education quality on carbon pricings effectiveness and economic consequences, including wage inequality.

Using data on workers cognitive skills and their industrys emissions for 21 European countries, we find that cognitive skills are associated with lower emissions per output and faster reductions in emissions per output across time. All three measures of cognitive skills in the OECD dataset literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving were associated with reduced emissions per unit of output (see Figure 1). We found this association to be true within countries, controlling for level of education, and primarily associated with the cognitive skills of professional and managerial occupations, which would be most involved in innovation and adaption.

Figure 1Association between one-standard-deviation-higher cognitve skills of employees and average annual growth rates in industries' CO2emissions per unitof value-added in percentage point terms

Notes: Estimates using OECD PIAAC data 2012 merged with EU EmissionsAccounts by Industry for 2012 to 2019. Observations are 67,877 workers in 21 countries for numeracy and literacy skills; 44,446 workers and 17 countries for problem-solving skills. Associations estimated using linear regression models controlling for education level, sex, age and fixed effects for each country.Source: Macdonald and Partinos 2021.

Variation in the reduction of reliance on emissions across industries and within countries is likely the result of technological change, either through innovation or adaption. The association between cognitive skills and reduction in reliance on emissions by industries is consistent with skill-level as an enabler of innovation or technology adoption. This is further supported by the finding that the association between skills and reduced reliance on emissions are predominantly among managerial and professional occupations, which are most involved in innovation and driving technological change.

These findings are also consistent with green technology which enables production with fewer emissions being skill-biased: workers with a higher level of literacy skills contribute more to reducing the production functions reliance on emissions relative to capital.

To understand how education quality can interact with carbon pricing, we estimate a general equilibrium macroeconomic model for 15 European countries and predict the marginal effects of an increase in the price of carbon on output, emissions, and wage inequality defined as differences in wages that children from wealthy and poorer households earn when they reach adulthood to capture inequality of opportunity. Using the OECD PISA data for each country, we estimate the overall ability of households to acquire cognitive skills for their children as well as differences in ability between richer and poorer households to acquire cognitive skills. Higher-quality education systems are, in our model, able to provide more cognitive skills for a given level of investment in education and can do so more equitably.

Our estimated baseline models predict that a carbon tax reduces emissions but also negatively affects output, consistent with standard macro models of carbon pricing. A carbon tax also increases wage inequality which, in our model, is a result of green technological change being skill-biased and the inequality in skill acquisition between richer and poorer households measured in PISA.

We then study how the marginal effects of a carbon tax for each country compare between the baseline education quality regime as measured in PISA and each of two counterfactual education quality regimes. In the first counterfactual, we compared how the marginal effects of a carbon tax would change if each country had the same level of education quality as Finland the country with the highest level of education in our estimates. In the second counterfactual, we compared how the marginal effects of a carbon tax would have changed because of changes in the quality of education measured in PISA across time (see Figure 2).

Figure 2Projected annual percentof GDP saved according to countries' current education quality (compared to Finland's, as measured in PISA)if a carbon tax were used to reduce emissions by 55%

Note: Estimates not statistically significant for Denmark, Greece, and Norway. Source:Linearised projection based on marginal effects presented in Macdonald and Patrinos 2021.

For both simulations, we found that improvements in education quality (1) strengthened the marginal effect of a carbon tax on reducing emissions, (2) reduced the negative effect on output, and (3) reduced the positive effect on wage inequality. The magnitude of effect varies by country depending, in the first scenario, on the difference in education quality between Finland and the country in question and, in the second scenario, by how much education quality has improved (or declined) across time.

By projecting the changes in the marginal effects, we can offer a sense perspective of the impact. For example, in the early 2000s, Poland implemented a significant education reform that improved its education quality substantially. The reform, which raised the age of streaming into vocational programmes among other policy changes, had few recurrent cost implications but a large impact on cognitive skills. In our estimated model, if Poland increased its carbon tax to achieve the EUs carbon reduction targets, the loss in GDP would be a quarter of a per cent less thanks to the increase in education quality from the reform.

Our findings that cognitive skills are associated with industries that are more efficient in terms of emissions per output and, subsequently, that education quality plays a mitigating role is consistent with greener technology requiring a higher level of skills than existing technology. These findings also echo the literature showing that firm-level human capital improves environmental compliance and practices, and higher educations association with reduced emissions at the macro level. Green technology is skill-biased. However, our model does not explain why this would be the case, and the topic deserves further research.

Our model could be extended in several ways in future research. First, labour mobility could be added to understand how the variation in education quality across the EU may affect the impact of carbon pricing. For example, countries with lower-quality education systems may have higher elasticity in skill supply by attracting foreign-trained labour; however, the presence of low-quality education systems within the EU may lower the elasticity of skill supply for the EU as a whole.

A second extension of the model would be to include other mitigating factors, such as progressive or otherwise targeted redistribution of a carbon tax, and compare the strength of the mitigating effect with increased education quality.

Finally, a third extension is to transform the framework into a growth model and examine steady-state growth outcomes. This would allow us to better understand how the elasticity of skill supply affects carbon pricings impact on annual changes in carbon emissions and other macroeconomic outcomes including output.

Carbon pricing to reduce emissions that is accompanied by improvements in education quality will result in better environmental and economic outcomes. In this context, investing in education quality is not to change the values or behaviours of consumers but rather to enable technological change that can reduce emissions. Human-capital investment should improve cognitive skills and enable technological change to mitigate the costs and enhance the benefits of increased carbon pricing.

Borissov, K, A Brausmann and L Bretschger (2019), Carbon pricing, technology transition, and skill-based development, European Economic Review 118: 25269.

Bentaouet Kattan, R, K Macdonald and H Patrinos (2020), The role of education in mitigating automations effect on wage inequality, Labour 35: 79104.

Gollier, C, and J Tirole (2015), Negotiating effective institutions against climate change, Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy 4(2): 528.

Grainger, C A, and C D Kolstad (2010), Who pays a price on carbon?,Environmental and Resource Economics 46(3): 35976.

Klenert, D, and C Hepburn (2018), Making carbon pricing work for citizens, VoxEU.org, 31 July.

Lan, J, and A Munro (2013), Environmental compliance and human capital: evidence from Chinese industrial firms, Resource and Energy Economics 35(4): 53457.

Macdonald, K, and H Patrinos (2021), Education quality, green technology, and the economic impact of carbon pricing, Policy Research Working Paper No. 9808, World Bank.

Mathur, A, and A C Morris (2014), Distributional effects of a carbon tax in broader US fiscal reform, Energy Policy 66: 32634.

Metcalf, G E, and J H Stock (2020), Measuring the macroeconomic impact of carbon taxes, AEA Papers and Proceedings 110: 101106.

OECD (2017), Boosting skills for greener jobs in Flanders, OECD.

Pargal, S, and D Wheeler (1996), Informal regulation of industrial pollution in developing countries: Evidence from Indonesia, Journal of Political Economy 104(6): 131427.

Rausch, S, G Metcalf and J Reilly (2011), Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: A general equilibrium approach with micro data for households, VoxEU.org, 10 June.

Shapiro, J (2021), Pollution trends and US environmental policy: Lessons from the last half century, VoxEU.org, 2 December.

Stiglitz, J E, N Stern, M Duan, O Edenhofer, G Giraud, G M Heal, E L La Rovere, A Morris, E Moyer, M Pangestu and P R Shukla (2017), Report of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices, World Bank.

van der Ploeg, R, A Rezai and M Tovar (2021), Carbon tax recycling and popular support in Germany, VoxEU.org, 2 November.

Yao, Y, K Ivanovski, J Inekwe and R Smyth (2020), Human capital and CO2 emissions in the long run, Energy Economics 91.

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Education quality, green technology, and the economic impact of carbon pricing | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org

Build brains better: A proposal for a White House Brain Capital Council to accelerate post-COVID recovery and resilience – Brookings Institution

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All roads lead to the brain. Depression and anxiety, loneliness, Alzheimers disease, learning disorders, substance misuse disorder, long-haul COVID (i.e., brain fog), the toxic effects of air pollution on the brain, and even deaths of despair are all brain-based challenges. These issues typically fall through the proverbial cracks given they cut across policy areas and sectors of government. We need a coordinated approach to manage and ultimately prevent these issues: Such an approach will boost economic dynamism through reduced suffering, optimized brain performance and productivity, and new industries.

Brain-based challenges all involve brain health and wellness at an individual and societal level. They all represent internal or external disruptions whether biological, economic, structural, environmental, or social. Collectively, they were reducing life expectancy in the United States, long before the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. The pandemic, in turn, has made all of these brain-based issues profoundly worse.

Brain function and the myriad of conditions that influence it are rarely considered in current economic or public policy approaches. This may in part be due to scientific advancements in the brain sciences outpacing economic and policy change. It is also a result of the siloed and growing knowledge of the brain and economics rarely converging to inform the development and implementation of policy.

Our collective failure to connect neuroscience and social policy may be most conspicuous in matters of social justice. Increasing homelessness, mass incarceration, and deaths of despair are all driven, in part, by untreated brain disorders. With the rising threat of automation, workers who are not brain ready for the knowledge economy will face job losses, loss of purpose, despair, and fall further behind. Further, over a dozen institutions within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) engage in brain research, which results in imperfect coordination, artificial siloes, resource waste, and redundancy. This is particularly troubling given many of the fundamental brain disease mechanics are shared across many disorders, and dysfunction in mood and cognition is common among brain challenges across the lifespan.

A new approach to improve economies and societies is long overdue. To this end, we have developed a novel asset, Brain Capital, which we believe can inform better policy development. Brain Capital incorporates brain health and brain skills and drives economic empowerment, social resilience, and emotional connection. As brains are indispensable drivers of human progress, Brain Capital provides an opportunity to invest in these valuable assets and nurture healthier, more resilient, and flexible brains. And yet, remarkably, Brain Capital is not captured by any existing measure of gross domestic product (GDP).

Download the full policy brief

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Build brains better: A proposal for a White House Brain Capital Council to accelerate post-COVID recovery and resilience - Brookings Institution

New Southbound Policy Offers New Prospects for 2022 – Taiwan Business TOPICS – Taiwan Business TOPICS

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Five years after its implementation, the Tsai governments flagship policy initiative aimed at boosting engagement with South and Southeast Asian countries has delivered some encouraging economic results. But observers say that to fulfill the policys goal of developing more comprehensive relations, a greater focus on people-to-people ties is needed.

Taiwans Executive Yuan reported this September that overall trade between Taiwan and the 18 countries targeted under its New Southbound Policy (NSP) reached US$68.4 billion in the first half of 2021, a 32.14% increase from the same period last year. Trade in agricultural goods also experienced significant growth of 12.3%, which included a 31.7% rise in Taiwanese exports of fertilizer, pesticides, and farm machinery and equipment to the NSP countries.

In addition, approved or planned investment by Taiwanese businesses in NSP markets saw major increases between January and June this year. Sixty projects totaling US$2.24 billion were applied for or given the green light during that time, a year-on-year increase of 58.8%. Government-approved investments from NSP countries in Taiwan came to US$297 million; while a comparatively small amount, it represented a 57.5% increase from the first half of 2020.

For Taiwan and the Tsai Ing-wen administration, whose stated purpose for the NSP was in part to reduce economic overreliance on a single market, China, these numbers appear to indicate that the policy has been a smashing success. Of note is that the impressive growth in trade and investment has occurred despite a global pandemic that continues to impede economic recovery around the world.

Much of that growth can be traced to the consistent movement of Taiwanese business operations out of China due to issues such as the U.S.-China trade dispute, the emergence of COVID-19, and the Chinese governments increasing hostility toward foreign and Taiwanese business interests. While a significant portion of capital has been directed toward Taiwan, Southeast Asian countries particularly Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia have been the recipients of an increasing amount of investment by Taiwanese businesses.

According to Alan Hao Yang, a professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at National Cheng Chi University, this movement is part of a global trend, as countries look to diversify their supply chain networks as a way to mitigate risk and increase resilience to shocks like another pandemic. The idea is not to terminate their Chinese factories but rather to set up another network in neighboring countries like Vietnam due to [its status as an] emerging market and its abundant labor force, he says.

Yang, who also serves as executive director of the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation (TAEF), a think tank that focuses on Taiwans relations with ASEAN and South Asian countries, says that while this years trade and investment numbers have indeed been impressive, theyre not large enough to meet the goal of weaning Taiwan off of the Chinese market. And in any case, the aim of the NSP is not solely to bolster commercial ties with the programs countries.

As President Tsai has mentioned, it is imperative to engage comprehensively with neighboring countries, he says, referring to the NSPs four pillars of promoting economic cooperation, conducting people-to-people exchanges, enhancing resource sharing, and forging regional links.

Over the past five years that the NSP has been in effect, Taiwan has made significant efforts to engage its regional partners in a number of different areas. Considerable effort has gone into talent training, particularly in attracting students from NSP countries to study in Taiwan. The Ministry of Education (MOE) in late November reported that while the total number of international students enrolled in Taiwanese schools fell by 30,000 in 2020 due to the pandemic, those from NSP countries decreased by only 2,000. Furthermore, such students constituted 56% of the foreign student population in Taiwan last year, a nearly 30 percentage point increase from 2016, the year the NSP was launched.

In addition, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported that 75% of students that came to Taiwan in 2017 through the MOEs International Programs of Industry-Academia Collaboration in Taiwan continued on in Taiwan after their studies. The scheme, which combines targeted degree programs with internships in related industry areas, is available exclusively for students from NSP countries.

Yet while a growing number of students from ASEAN and South Asian countries are choosing to come to Taiwan to pursue educational and career opportunities, the reverse cannot be said of Taiwanese students. Huynh Tam-Sang, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities and research fellow at Taipei-based think tank Taiwan NextGen Foundation, cites MOE data showing that last year fewer than 1,000 Taiwanese students chose to pursue a degree at Southeast Asian universities. In comparison, 23,700 went to the U.S. for their studies and 9,500 to Japan.

In order for Taiwanese to gain a deeper understanding of Southeast Asia and vice versa, Huynh says that the government needs to better incentivize its students, researchers, and scholars to engage in academic exchanges with educational institutions in NSP countries. These can be short-term programs, around six months, or they can be one to two years, he says, adding that cultivating a pool of young Taiwanese that are familiar with the local customs and bureaucracy around the region can also help Taiwanese firms minimize the costs and challenges of doing business in NSP markets.

Another issue is that the vast majority of international students and aspiring talent coming to Taiwan through the NSPs flagship education programs are from Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, countries that are home to substantial ethnic Chinese populations and with which Taiwan already maintains deep ties. However, some say that more needs to be done to engage those countries that have not traditionally been on Taiwans radar but have nonetheless been identified as key partners under the NSP.

One such country is India. Relations between Taiwan and Asias largest democracy have warmed significantly since they established representative offices in each others respective territory in the mid-1990s. Sana Hashmi, a visiting fellow at the TAEF and an expert on Taiwan-India relations, cites such developments as the establishment of the Taiwan-India Parliamentary Friendship Association in 2016, as well as activities organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) in India, as demonstrating the two sides desire to further institutionalize their relationship.

Hashmi says that economic and commercial development has long been the focus of relations between India and Taiwan. However, she noted in a recent report for the French Institute for International Relations that several previous attempts to accelerate that development were less than successful. As a result, bilateral trade and investment between the two sides have remained relatively low compared with other countries in the Indo-Pacific. In her report, Hashmi noted that overall trade between India and Taiwan in 2020 totaled US$5.6 billion, a small fraction of the approximately US$89 billion in trade Taiwan conducted with ASEAN last year.

One issue she raises is that while the work of TAITRA and other organizations set up to foster better commercial relations between Taiwan and India is important, formal mechanisms like a free trade agreement are needed to really drive the economic relationship forward.

Furthermore, Hashmi notes that the traditionally risk-averse approach of Taiwanese businesses has caused them to invest in places they are more familiar with, namely China and Southeast Asia. She suggests that these companies look to the examples of Singapore and Japan, whose firms have been making inroads in India for several years.

Although on paper the NSP has not yet garnered the kinds of economic results that Taiwan and India might have hoped for, Hashmi explains that the policy and the outreach it encourages have succeeded in expanding the breadth and depth of cultural and people-to-people ties. Given the increased attention paid to Taiwan by the Indian government and public in recent years, thanks in no small part to Taiwans skillful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its offers of medical equipment and assistance to India, the time seems ripe for the two sides to build on their mutual goodwill.

Most observers agree that the main impediment to Taiwan further deepening ties with its NSP partners is intervention by China, whose expansive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) allocates significant resources toward economic development projects in South and Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the desire of regional leaders to avoid antagonizing China has caused them to take a more cautious approach to dealing with Taiwan.

China is paying attention to Taiwans every move, says Yang of the TAEF. They target the areas where we have an advantage. And because they are a larger economy, they have a lot of resources to fully promote those areas and then squeeze our diplomatic and other space in the region.

Joyce Juo-yu Lin, professor emeritus of the Graduate Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at Tamkang University, says that Chinas 14th Five-Year Plan, released this March, seeks to incorporate Taiwanese overseas businesspeople (known in Mandarin as Taishang) into the BRI, but that is not easy to accomplish.

Chinese state-owned enterprises are huge in scope and have lots of power, she says. But the Taishang are overwhelmingly small and medium-sized enterprises, which makes it much harder to compete in the targeted markets. So now these Taiwanese businesses that want to diversify their overseas investment are increasingly looking to the American market. [U.S. President] Bidens infrastructure bill, which was recently passed by Congress, makes the U.S. very attractive for the Taishang.

In addition, Lin says, Taiwans exclusion from the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), trade pacts that combined include virtually every other Asia-Pacific country, has further discouraged Taiwanese enterprises from expanding into those markets.

In spite of the challenges, Lin is determined to put her three decades of observing the region, including a stint in the early 1990s as Southeast Asia correspondent for the China Times, to use in bolstering engagement. Earlier this year, she founded the South and Southeast Asia Association Taiwan, a nonprofit that aims to promote industry, government, education, and research ties between Taiwan and its regional neighbors through the integration of area research, political and economic development, trade and investment, and social and cultural resources.

I think we can enhance mutual understanding between Taiwan and the ASEAN member states, as well as South Asian countries, Lin says. Because the more relations that are established and the deeper they become the more important that understanding will be.

The global shortage of semiconductors also presents opportunities for Taiwan in NSP countries. India, for example, has expressed interest in working with Taiwan to develop its own chipmaking capabilities. In November, Indian media reported that the country was in talks with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), as well as other major chip producers, to invest in India under a massive incentive program coordinated by Prime Minister Narendra Modis office.

The TAEFs Yang says that while developing economic engagement can be considered the main theme of the NSP, it spills over into other dimensions, including social resilience and other areas where Taiwan has comparative advantages. He says that over the past few years, the TAEF has promoted the notion of Taiwans warm power its willingness to share knowledge, experiences, and resources with NSP countries which has endeared them to Taiwan.

As these countries continue to refer to Taiwan and increase their curiosity about Taiwan and Taiwanese people, they will learn more about our position and challenges, which are common to their countries as well, he says. Our suffering and responses are quite useful for their reference.

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New Southbound Policy Offers New Prospects for 2022 - Taiwan Business TOPICS - Taiwan Business TOPICS

When Democracy is Commodified: On the US Summit for Democracy and Other Ruses – Palestine Chronicle

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US Summit for Democracy. (Photo: via Social media)

By Jim Miles

The US Summit for Democracy has come and gone without too much fuss. It was a strange little show with the leader of the so called free world being those democratic countries that for whatever reason support US dictates attempting through rhetoric and probably a few winks and nods to maintain its establishment as the groups leader. From what I saw in the MSM it really amounted to little and may well have shown how weak the supposed leadership is.

It did however raise the very good question of what democracy is. From its etymological roots, it simply means essentially power by the people although even that has various interpretations, none straying far from that simplicity. As for practical applications, there are many different routes that can be taken, different levels of democracy depending on initial premises. For example, the idea that capitalism is the main pillar of democracy is a premise that allows all kinds of actions that are decidedly non-democratic. To present arguments as to what democracy leads into a mess of philosophical arguments leaving no verbiage unturned in pursuit of its definition to support politicians practical applications.

It is therefore not a good argument to get into. Instead what makes more sense is to look at how societies apply their laws domestically in practical situations towards their citizens and with foreign affairs against others. In other words, the following is more a look at actions taken that are definitely non-democratic, a view that seriously limits the understanding of democracy as power by the people.

Freedom and Democracy

There needs to be a differentiation between freedom and democracy. While the two go together well, freedom can be had without democratic control, according to the whims of the government, and according to the perhaps unseen aspects of domestic control (laws and belief systems) that are disguised as freedom. An example of the latter would be the theorized rugged individualism as propounded by many US authorities which really indicates that, if one cannot make it in society it is all your own fault and not societys.

Domestic

There are some big obvious practical issues that deny democracy. Probably the biggest is racism in its many forms. Different laws for different sections of the population based on race or ethnic background are decidedly non-democratic. This includes various reservation systems as applied to all the British colonial heritage countries, mainly the Five Eyes, the imperial system as exercised in Canada, the US New Zealand, and Australia. It includes apartheid states like Israel, and formerly South Africa.

Domestic spying is another form of non-democratic action. Still, with the Five Eyes, their nominal designation is based on their actions of spying on foreign countries, including those within the group one of their main purposes is to avoid the legal entanglement of a government spying on its own people. Other countries are not so constrained and any government that has a security system for internal security certainly spies on its citizens. Canadas government has its Communications Security Establishment (1946) and its better-known component, CSIS. The USas various spy and policing agencies, the FBI being the best known, keeping records on many of its citizens mainly for political reasons. Israels Shin Bet works hand in hand with the military to control the indigenous Palestinian population.

Along with those spy organizations goes a highly militarized police force. These forces are used to control opposition street-level (democratic) protests against mostly corporate actions supported by governments. This comes back to reservations and apartheid as much of the use of militarized police is to control domestic protests originating from land and resource arguments from indigenous populations. Accompanying this on various levels are outright murder, torture, inhumane treatment, and outright deniers of humanitarian law. Examined in this light, the Five Eyes and Israel are decidedly non-democratic.

Election laws and rules have a large impact on the application of democracy. For all its self-vaunted mastery of democracy, the whole US system is clearly non-democratic. They put on a great show with constant year-round electioneering and much less governing for the people. The current system of the Electoral College was mainly established to keep the rabble, the factions from having any say in governance. The gerrymandered districts effectively assure certain areas of remaining with a particular party and are usually based on race or ethnic background although in Ireland it contains the religious component as well (although that is mostly ethnic-immigrant Scots versus indigenous Irish). Many other smaller seemingly innocuous laws limit democracy, some being simply outright petty and stupid, such as Georgias law against giving water to voters.

One of the larger factors in the US is the huge amount of money corporations are allowed to spend on elections as determined by Citizens United in which donations of money are considered free speech and corporations are people. Supposedly intelligent people believe this stupidity mainly as it serves their own power and finances. There is no peoples power when corporations are usually able to buy their favored candidate. The combination of predatory financialization (meaning most of us to live in debt servitude of some kind) to some bank or other) and corporate militarism (spending huge amounts of money liberally distributed throughout the country for political gains) certainly do not give power to the people.

Corporations

The corporate world straddles the domestic and foreign affairs realm. Basically, corporations are non-democratic by nature. Their purpose is to make profits and protect owners against financial losses as well as externalized costs such as environmental damage which includes the poisons of resource extraction, the removal of land from public or indigenous jurisdiction, and the creation of an impoverished workforce.

Much of that profit recently has come from the huge amounts of Quantitative Easing supplied by the US Government in liaison with the Federal Reserve (a series of private banks supposedly directing the economy). The stock markets and commodities markets are all manipulated and serve mostly the wealthy who benefit most from the tax cuts, low-interest rates, and government subsidies.

Corporations can be simply about business, but as seen above, corporations are also well tied into the security apparatus of the country, from the militarized police forces to laws that generally protect the rights of corporations over the rights of citizens, in particular indigenous citizens. Further, many that appear to be superficially benign are highly involved in the production of equipment and materials for various spy agencies and military agencies. Boeing, Kodak, Intel, General Electric, Amazon, Facebook are all well known domestic names with strong ties to the military and security apparatus of the US Israeli corporations are highly militarized as is the state and its field-tested security and military equipment is sold around the world to various other governments acting in a non-democratic manner.

Canadas corporations act decidedly in a non-democratic manner in certain situations apart from the externalized costs. Mining, forestry, and energy companies frequently intrude on indigenous land and retain special rights also to public lands. With the ultimate control of all land-based on the sovereign as per millennia-old racist laws, governments and corporations operate together against the will of the people.

Foreign Affairs- Economic

Apart from domestic non-democratic actions, actions taken within or against other countries are frequently non-democratic. It is a combination of military and economic actions that are used to deny the sovereignty of other nations even if many are nominally democratic.

Free trade is one of the more obvious non-democratic sets of rules globally. Designed in secret without public input, seldom if ever voted on either by referendum or representatives[1], these agreements are designed to give freedom only to the movement of money and profits. Any impedance to that movement is generally fought not in the courts but in private arbitration structures that abide by the decisions of the theoretical experts chosen by the aggrieved complainant, usually a large international corporation.

The agreements have nothing free for the workers and end up weakening workers rights. There is nothing free for the environment and quite the opposite pretend losses due to environmental laws are liable to lawsuit compensation against governments. Which adds to the point that people are not able to sue governments, in some cases governments cannot sue corporations, yet corporations are free to sue governments.

The global financial institutions are not democratic by any definition. Mostly controlled by the US the US or EU based international corporations (banksters et al) democracy is not available to those coming under the dictates of the IMF and World Bank [2], nor the larger constraints of the SWIFT settlement system or the rulings of the global oversight Bank of International Settlements (BIS).

Beyond the manipulations of financial institutions is the use of sanctions. Sanctions can be applied in a positive manner as exemplified by the BDS sanctions that worked to eliminate apartheid in South Africa [3] and are currently being used to support Palestinian rights in occupied Palestine (being all of Israel). Both of these uses developed from grassroots initiatives, truly democratic actions against oppressive non-democratic regimes.

Using sanctions as an economic/military weapon has become the main method of international relations with the US. Arguably better than outright war, they cause enormous suffering mostly to the citizens of the countries they are applied to. What is currently working against them is the indigenous resistance against ceding to the demands of the sanctions. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria are all surviving the sanctions imposed by the US and its allies of the west, establishing a resistance to empire supported by other countries with more resources.

Russia to a degree has actually benefited from sanctions as it, fortunately, has a large resource base and has become a strong agricultural center. It has also divested itself of ties to US debt obligations and on a debt to GDP ratio is probably one of the strongest economic countries in the world. Counter to desires, sanctions have also pushed Russia and China much closer geopolitically creating a new multipolar world that does not necessarily make it all democratic, but it puts a preventative in place against US military and economic aggression.

Foreign Affairs Military

There is not much really needed to say about how military interventions and occupations are anti-democratic. Having ones country destroyed by someone elses military on any pretense simply denies democracy. The supposed right to protect mantra used by the US and NATO on several occasions has proven to be a total disaster which arguably is one of the hoped-for outcomes as these disasters are profitable for the corporate militarized world and ideal to shape a failed country that needs submit to imperial desires.

The US/NATO are the primary guilty party for all kinds of military interventions used to serve the purpose of the empire. Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia are all current examples of either direct western military interference or subsidized military manipulation. There are many other smaller events occurring globally, directed and supported by the US and allied (MI6, Mossad, CSIS) covert services. It is tiring to repeat it, but it is significant with over 800 military bases around the world in over 125 countries, U.S./NATO/EU foreign policy is mainly determined by illegal military interventions.

Democracy Now?

Contemporary geopolitical currents make global democracy a highly contentious issue. The US empire is continually looking for a bad guy as required by the military-industrial-financial community in order to maintain their power over the people of the world. They are currently acting aggressively against both China and Russia with two areas Ukraine and Taiwan being possible flashpoints for some kind of war, while continuing their smaller aggressive actions in areas of geopolitical interest Ethiopia and Yemen being two of many current hotspots.

Beyond wars, the current world of financial manipulations has led to huge inequalities within countries and between countries. Structured mostly on debt manipulations of one kind or another, the US economic system is slowly having its impact reduced, but its overall enormity mostly due to the global reserve nature of its currency keeps it powerful. But power built on debt and large manipulations of economic factors could also lead to an equally enormous collapse.

Finally, one of the more discussed but practically ignored situations is climate change. Lots of greenwashing occur but until the grassroots of society change and demand change to the overall debt-burdened consumer society powered by economic structures and military structures, climate impacts will simply be absorbed and placed under the rubric of disaster capitalism, and the corporate interests will harvest their profits until flooded or burned out.

In sum, democracy is a wonderful ideal, superficially widespread, but with major aspects of society that truly deny it. Many places have personal freedom, but limited also for many by economic, social, educational, and other civic structures, many racist, many class-oriented. Until the non-democratic aspects of the financial world, the military world, and global climate change are dealt with, democracy will be a commodity in name only.

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When Democracy is Commodified: On the US Summit for Democracy and Other Ruses - Palestine Chronicle

Jan. 6 panel signals interest in whether Trump committed crime – NewsNation Now

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(The Hill) The Jan. 6 Select Committee has signaled it intends to explore potential criminal wrongdoing by formerPresident Trump, marking a significant escalation for the investigationthat could put pressure on the Biden administration.

The panelhas said it could referTrump to the Justice Department for prosecutionif it finds damning evidence, in what would be seen as an open invitation to Attorney GeneralMerrick Garlandto be more aggressive towards the former president than he has been in his tenure thus far.

Rep.Liz Cheney(R-Wyo.), the select committees vice chair, gave the first indication at a hearing earlier this month that the panel is examining whether Trump committed a crime.

Quoting the statutory text for a felony obstruction offense, Cheney said that a key question for the select committee investigation is, Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress official proceedings to count electoral votes?

Obstruction of an official proceeding is a charge that carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison. Federal prosecutors have wielded it against hundreds of rioters alleged to have participated in the attack on the Capitol.

But bringing the same charge against a president who never set foot in the building would require far more complex legal and political calculations.

The challenge isthis undefined territory of the circumstances under which an executive official crosses the line between exercising executive power to actual obstruction of justice, said Daniel Hemel, a University of Chicago law professor.

The comments about Trumps potential wrongdoing come after months of growing frustration among Democrats and Trump critics that Garland and the DOJ arent doing enough to address potential illegal activity in the highest levels of the previous administration.

Any criminal referral from the select committee alleging that Trump violated the law would be an overt escalation of lawmakers efforts to pressure the Biden DOJ into being more aggressive towards the former president.

But criminal referrals from congressional investigators have no legal weight to compel federal prosecutors to bring charges, unlike the criminal contempt of Congress referrals that must be approved by a floor vote in the House and have already resulted in charges againstSteve Bannon, Trumps former White House strategist who pleaded not guilty last month to a pair of misdemeanors for defying the select committees subpoenas.

Jeff Robbins, a former federal prosecutor who has also served as an investigative counsel on two Senate committees, said that in order for such a referral to be persuasive to federal prosecutors, it must be backed up by solid evidence that would not only support bringing charges but show evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

A committee that wants to make a persuasive referral will be as specific and as detailed and as evidence-based as possible, delivering something as close to a basis for an indictment on a silver platter as can be provided, he said.

Robbins said that any referral involving a former president would be held to an even higher standard, but added that the committees credibility would support its findings in the eyes of the Justice Department.

There will be an inclination to review very, very, very carefully any criminal referral involving Donald Trump, to kick the tires again and again and again, Robbins said. But on the other hand, theyll treat a criminal referral by this committee given its leadership and the quality of the lawyers as a serious document if thats what blows its way.

Throughout the first year of the Biden administration, Garland has sought to keep politics at arms length as he inherited a department that had been repeatedly used to further Trumps political ends and protect his personal interests over the previous four years.

In some high-profile cases, Garlands DOJ has backed the legal positions pushed by the department during the Trump administration, including defending the former president in a defamation suit from E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of raping her in the 90s, and arguing that an internal DOJ memo clearing him of wrongdoing in connection with the Mueller investigation should remain under wraps.

The department has shown little sign that its pursuing a criminal investigation into Trump.

Its going to be really hard to convict him here in part because I dont think we have a Nixon Watergate-style smoking gun, Hemel said, noting that even if a jury is filled with people who hate Trump with every bone in our body, they might be hesitant to convict him of obstructing an official proceeding.

And pursuing charges against Trump could be a fraught undertaking beyond the political implications. Such a prosecution would be unprecedented and could be undermined by legal uncertainties surrounding whether a president could be charged with a crime for actions he took while in office.

The obstruction charge that federal prosecutors have brought against many of the rioters in what is considered to be a novel interpretation of the statute has so far survived a series of legal challenges from defendants, but it remains to be seen whether juries will find the obstruction cases persuasive.

The courts have made clear in at least three different rulings that the rioters on the ground can be prosecuted for conspiracy charges; there is no reason to believe, evidence permitting, that the former president cant be similarly charged, Bradley Moss, a national security law expert, told The Hill by email.

If DOJ is to take this politically-explosive step, they no doubt have identified admissible evidence that Trump intended to obstruct the certification proceedings, that his actions in recommending the mob march on the Capitol was more than a mere throwaway line, and that he was aware of efforts by his war room to intervene if the mob did in fact prevent Congress from completing its certification process.

But Hemel sees the downside of losing the case being a far worse outcome, arguing an unsuccessful criminal prosecution of Trump would only strengthen the former president and heighten the threat he poses to American democracy.

There was a lot of criminal activity on Jan. 6. Are they building a case against President Trump? I dont think so. And, gosh, I think Im glad that DOJ isnt devoting resources to a fools errand effort to tear the country further apart and further elevate the political profile and demagogic myth of Trump, Hemel said.

Its unclear what evidence, if any, the committee has gathered to support a criminal referral aimed at the former president. But if the lawmakers are able to make a persuasive public case that Trump violated the law, some believe it would be important for the DOJ to follow through in order to send the message that nobody is above the law.

Katherine Hawkins, a senior legal analyst at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, believes its important for the select committee to reach its own conclusions about whether Trump violated the law and, if it finds that he did, to clearly articulate the case against him.

Hawkins said that the DOJs inclination to defend the legality of executive branch actions makes the congressional investigation even more crucial. She pointed to the Senate Intelligence Committees investigation into the CIAs torture practices, a portion of which was made public in 2014 that found that the agency had exceeded the legal justification for the practices and engaged in a cover-up. Despite the Senate panels findings, the DOJ never prosecuted anyone for their role in torturing terror suspects.

I think that the committee should seriously consider making a well-supported referral, because otherwise we just get silence from DOJ, which could be [doing a] diligent investigation, theoretically, but given how the torture investigation went, how the Department of Justice approaches executive law breaking in general and what weve seen from Garland, I doubt it, Hawkins said.

She added that the committees findings will be valuable even if they make a referral that the DOJ chooses not to act upon.

Just getting the truth out is valuable in itself, Hawkins said. Knowing how close we came and what mechanisms could be in place to prevent that from happening again is really important. But also if theres evidence of unaddressed crimes that we dont know if the Department of Justice is going to investigate, I think its definitely appropriate for the committee to put that at the DOJs feet and say, What are you doing with this? Whats going on here?

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Jan. 6 panel signals interest in whether Trump committed crime - NewsNation Now

Trump could face charges for trying to obstruct certification of election, legal experts say – The Guardian

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Expectation is growing that Donald Trump might face charges for trying to obstruct Congress from certifying Joe Bidens election this year as a House panel collects more evidence into the 6 January attack on the Capitol, former prosecutors and other experts say.

Speculation about possible charges against the former US president has been heightened by a recent rhetorical bombshell from Republican representative and 6 January panel vice-chair Liz Cheney suggesting the House panel is looking at whether Trump broke a law that bars obstruction of official proceedings.

Former prosecutors say if the panel finds new evidence about Trumps role interfering with Congress job to certify Bidens election, that could help buttress a potential case by the Department of Justice.

In varying ways, Cheneys comments have been echoed by two other members of the House select committee, Republican Adam Kinzinger and Democrat Jamie Raskin, spurring talk of how an obstruction statute could apply to Trump, which would entail the panel making a criminal referral of evidence for the justice department to investigate, say DoJ veterans.

Cheneys remarks raising the specter of criminal charges against Trump came twice earlier this month at hearings of the committee. Experts believe the charges could be well founded given Trumps actions on 6 January, including incendiary remarks to a rally before the Capitol attack and failure to act for hours to stop the riot, say former justice department officials.

Based on what is already in the public domain, there is powerful evidence that numerous people, in and out of government, attempted to obstruct and did obstruct, at least for a while an official proceeding i.e., the certification of the Presidential election, said former DOJ inspector general and former prosecutor Michael Bromwich in a statement to the Guardian. That is a crime.

Although a House panel referral of obstruction by Trump would not force DOJ to open a criminal case against him, it could help provide more evidence for one, and build pressure on the justice department to move forward, say former prosecutors.

Attorneygeneral Merrick Garland has declined to say so far whether his department may be investigating Trump and his top allies already for their roles in the Capitol assault.

The panel has amassed significant evidence, including more than 30,000 records and interviews with more than 300 people, among whom were some key White House staff.

The evidence against Trump himself could include his actions at the Stop the Steal rally not far from the White House, where he urged backers to march to the Capitol and fight like hell [or] youre not going to have a country any more. Trump then resisted multiple pleas for hours from Republicans and others to urge his violent supporters to stop the attack.

Recent rulings by Trump-appointed district court judges have supported using the obstruction statute, which federal prosecutors have cited in about 200 cases involving rioters charged by DOJ for their roles in the Capitol assault that injured about 140 police officers and left five dead.

Still, experts note that the House panels mission has been to assemble a comprehensive report of what took place on 6 January and work on legislation to avoid such assaults on democracy. They caution that any criminal referral to DOJ documenting Trumps obstruction of Congress will take time and more evidence to help bolster a DOJ investigation.

Some DOJ veterans say that any referral to DOJ by the House panel for a criminal case against Trump and perhaps top allies such as ex chief of staff Mark Meadows, whom the House last week cited for criminal contempt for refusing to be deposed might also include Trumps aggressive pressuring of federal and state officials before 6 January to block Bidens win with baseless charges of fraud.

Bromwich stressed that the evidence is steadily accumulating that would prove obstruction beyond a reasonable doubt. The ultimate question is who the defendants would be in such an obstruction case. Evidence is growing that, as a matter of law and fact, that could include Trump, Meadows and other members of Trumps inner circle.

Cheney teed up the issue about Trumps potential culpability first at a House panel hearing last week, when she urged that Meadows be held in contempt for refusing to be deposed, and then hit Trump with a rhetorical bombshell.

We know hours passed with no action by the president to defend the Congress of the United States from an assault while we were counting electoral votes, Cheney said.

Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress official proceeding to count electoral votes?

Cheneys comments about Trump were very precise, including language from the criminal obstruction statute, and she stated that her question is a key one for the panels legislative tasks.

Raskin too has told Politico that the issue of whether Trump broke the law by obstructing an official proceeding is clearly one of the things on the mind of some of the members of the committee.

The possibility of obstruction charges is legally valid, said Paul Rosenzweig, a former DOJ prosecutor who worked on Ken Starrs team during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, noting that two district judges appointed by Trump have recently said that the statute covers the efforts on January 6 to stop the electoral count.

For instance, Judge Dabney Friedrich in a recent opinion rejected the claim by some defendants who were challenging the DOJ view that the 6 January meeting of Congress fit the legal definition of an official proceeding.

Rosenzweig posited that given Trumps various attempts before 6 January to undermine the election results, a broader conspiracy case may be another option for prosecutors to pursue. Should DOJ look at broader conspiracy charges, Trumps persistent pressures on acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his top deputy for help blocking Bidens victory wouldprobably be relevant, say ex-prosecutors.

On one call on 27 December 2020, Trump pressed Rosen and his deputy to falsely state the election illegal and corrupt despite the fact that the DOJ had not found any evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DOJ, said that Cheneys statements were carefully crafted and obviously based upon evidence the committee had seen. Should Congress ultimately refer the case to DOJ for investigation and prosecution, the DOJs investigation would not be limited to a single obstruction charge, but would more likely investigate broader conspiracy charges potentially involving Trump and other key loyalists.

The panel has accelerated its pace recently by sending out dozens of subpoenas for documents and depositions, some to close Trump aides. Meadows has become a central focus of the inquiry, in part over tweets he received on and near the insurrection that are among approximately 9,000 documents he gave the panel, much to Trumps chagrin.

As Trumps efforts to thwart the panel from moving forward have had limited success, he has relied on sending out splenetic email attacks, including one last month that read: The Unselect Committee itself is Rigged, stacked with Never Trumpers, Republican enemies, and two disgraced RINOs, Cheney and Kinzinger, who couldnt get elected dog catcher in their districts.

Despite Trumps angry attacks on the panel, some ex-prosecutors say that prosecuting Trump if enough evidence is found to merit charges is important for the health of American democracy.

Former Georgia US attorney Michael J Moore told the Guardian: I hate to think of a legal system that would allow the most powerful person in the country to go unchallenged when he has abdicated his highest priority, that being to keep our citizens safe. Trumps conduct that day was not unlike a mob boss.

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Trump could face charges for trying to obstruct certification of election, legal experts say - The Guardian

Trump asks supreme court to block release of 6 January records – The Guardian

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Donald Trump turned to the supreme court Thursday in a last-ditch effort to keep documents away from the House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol.

A federal appeals court ruled against the former US president two weeks ago, but prohibited documents held by the National Archives from being turned over before the supreme court had a chance to weigh in. Trump appointed three of the nine justices.

Trump is claiming that as a former president he has right to assert executive privilege over the records, arguing that releasing them would damage the presidency in the future.

But Joe Biden determined that the documents were in the public interest and that executive privilege should therefore not be invoked.

The documents include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, handwritten notes concerning the events of January 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity, the Archives has said.

The House committee has said the records are vital to its investigation into the run-up to the deadly riot that was aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.

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Trump asks supreme court to block release of 6 January records - The Guardian