Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced Friday to more than 11 years in prison for duping investors in the failed startup that promised to revolutionize blood testing but instead made her a symbol of Silicon Valley ambition that veered into deceit. 

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila was shorter than the 15-year penalty requested by federal prosecutors but far tougher than the leniency her legal team sought for the mother of a year-old son with another child on the way. 

Holmes, who was CEO throughout the company’s turbulent 15-year history, was convicted in January in the scheme, which revolved around the company’s claims to have developed a medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked, and her claims were false. 

Theranos was dashed “by misrepresentations, hubris and just plain lies,” the judge said. 

“This case is so troubling on so many levels,” he said. “What was it that caused Ms. Holmes to make the decisions she did? Was there a loss of a moral compass?” 

Superstar image

Holmes’ meteoric rise once landed her on the covers of business magazines that hailed her as the next Steve Jobs. And her deception was persuasive enough to draw in a list of sophisticated investors, including software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the Walton family behind Walmart. 

She sobbed as she told the judge she accepted responsibility for her actions. 

“I regret my failings with every cell of my body,” Holmes said. 

The sentencing in the same San Jose courtroom where Holmes was convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January marked another climactic moment in a saga that has been dissected in an HBO documentary and an award-winning Hulu series. 

Holmes, 38, faced a maximum of 20 years in prison. Her legal team asked the judge for a sentence of no more than 18 months, preferably served in home confinement. 

Her lawyers argued that Holmes was a well-meaning entrepreneur who is now a devoted mother with another child on the way. Their arguments were supported by more than 130 letters submitted by family, friends and former colleagues praising Holmes. 

Prosecutors also wanted Holmes to pay $804 million in restitution — an amount that covers most of the nearly $1 billion that she raised from investors. But the judge left that question for a future hearing that has not been scheduled. 

While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz “for the fool.” 

The judge gave Holmes more than five months of freedom before she must report to prison on April 27. She gave birth to a son shortly before her trial started last year. 

If Holmes’ pregnancy had a role in determining her sentence, the decision could prove controversial. A 2019 study found that more than 1,000 pregnant women entered federal or state prisons over a 12-month study period; 753 of them gave birth in custody. 

According to a 2016 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than half of women entering federal prison — 58% — reported being mothers of minor children. 

‘Preyed’ on investor hopes

Federal prosecutor Robert Leach described the Theranos scam as one of the most egregious white-collar crimes ever committed in Silicon Valley. In a scathing 46-page memo, Leach told the judge he had an opportunity to send a message that curbs the hubris and hyperbole unleashed by the tech boom of the past 30 years. 

Holmes “preyed on hopes of her investors that a young, dynamic entrepreneur had changed health care,” Leach wrote. “And through her deceit, she attained spectacular fame, adoration and billions of dollars of wealth.” 

Even though Holmes was acquitted by a jury on four counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to patients who took Theranos blood tests, Leach also asked the judge to factor in the health threats posed by Holmes’ conduct. 

Holmes’ lawyer Kevin Downey painted her as a selfless visionary who spent 14 years of her life trying to revolutionize health care. 

Although evidence submitted during her trial showed the blood tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have steered patients toward the wrong treatments, her lawyers asserted that Holmes never stopped trying to perfect the technology until Theranos collapsed in 2018. 

They also pointed out that Holmes never sold any of her Theranos shares — a stake valued at $4.5 billion in 2014. 

Defending herself against criminal charges has left Holmes with “substantial debt from which she is unlikely to recover,” Downey wrote, suggesting that she is unlikely to pay any restitution. 

“Holmes is not a danger to society,” Downey wrote. 

Downey also asked Davila to consider the alleged sexual and emotional abuse Holmes suffered while she was involved romantically with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who became a Theranos investor, top executive and eventually an accomplice in her crimes. 

Balwani, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced December 7 after being convicted in a July trial on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
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Authorities in Botswana are reporting increased thefts of lithium batteries from mobile phone towers amid a surge in global demand for the battery in electric vehicles. The southern African nation’s biggest mobile network operator says it has lost more than $100,000 worth of lithium batteries in the past week alone.

Botswana police spokesperson Diteko Motube said most of the stolen batteries are being smuggled across the border to Zimbabwe.

Motube said five suspects from Zimbabwe and a Botswanan national were arrested this week while in possession of batteries worth more than $100,000.

The batteries were stolen from Botswana’s leading mobile network service provider, Mascom.

Company spokesperson Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego said the thefts are derailing their service delivery.

“This issue is certainly a crisis and it is affecting our quality of services ambitions,” said Lebotse-Sebego. “We are working closely with the relevant law enforcement offices and other administrators, including the community to find sustainable solutions to arrest the situation.”

Electric cars fuel demand

There is a surge in global demand for lithium batteries – and their components – due to their use in electric cars.

However, Zimbabwean-born UK based economic and political analyst Zenzo Moyo said the thefts in Botswana could be the result of the frequent power outages experienced in some southern African countries.

“It is not surprising that these lithium batteries are in high demand now mainly because of the load shedding that is being experienced in southern Africa especially in Zimbabwe and South Africa,” said Moyo.

Some households use lithium batteries for solar lighting, while light industries also rely on them.

Moyo said there is a huge market for the batteries in countries — such as Zimbabwe — that are turning to alternative energy sources.

“The economic hardships that Zimbabwe face cannot be used as an excuse for any kind of theft whether these are batteries or not,” he said. “If you look at the numbers that (the police) intercepted — these are huge numbers — it indicates that the people who were carrying these batteries are either runners or were selling them. There is a huge market for them understandably but the people that were carrying these batteries cannot be people who are starving but selling because there is a market.”

Demand greater than supply

Lithium’s price has risen 13-fold in the last two years, with global demand for the metal rapidly outpacing supply.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London-based price reporting agency, projects, that the lithium mining market will almost double in the next eight years to nearly $6.4 billion in 2030.
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«За ці кошти фінансуємо критично важливі бюджетні видатки. Зокрема виплати бюджетникам, пенсіонерам, ВПО, отримувачам субсидій, підтримуємо спроможність громад»
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Говорили, зокрема, про «відпрацювання механізму використання заморожених російських активів на території ЄС»
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris convened an emergency meeting of key regional powers Friday on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok to discuss North Korea’s latest missile launch, that fell 200 kilometers off Japan’s coast.

“This conduct by North Korea most recently is a brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security resolutions. It destabilizes the security in the region, and unnecessarily raises tensions,” Harris said in brief remarks to press prior to meeting with leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The launch is the latest of the barrage of missiles that North Korea has test-fired in recent weeks. Pyongyang said they were a “corresponding military operation” aimed at conducting simulated strikes on South Korea and the United States in response to large-scale allied air drills. 

North Korea’s provocation occurs amid already heightened geopolitical tensions over the war in Ukraine that has exacerbated supply chain issues and inflationary pressures globally.

Harris is in Bangkok as the head of the U.S. delegation in the meetings of members of APEC, a grouping of 21 economies in the Asia Pacific, whose mandate is to promote regional economic cooperation and integration. 

“Our message is clear; the United States has an enduring economic commitment to the Indo Pacific, one that is measured not in years but in decades and generations,” she said during remarks at the APEC CEO Summit. 

Harris argued that there is “no better economic partner for the Indo-Pacific than the United States of America” as she pushed for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that Washington launched in May.

Indo-Pacific Economic Framework 

The framework is a trade facilitation, standards-setting, and capacity-building mechanism designed to provide a counterweight against Chinese economic clout in the region. It is the Biden administration’s effort to reengage Indo-Pacific nations on trade after former President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew in 2017 from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  The previous U.S. administration, that of President Barack Obama, had promoted and launched that regional comprehensive trade pact in 2015.

Thirteen countries in the region have signed on to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, or IPEF, which includes provisions divided into categories that countries can choose from – fair and resilient trade; supply chain resiliency; clean energy, decarbonization and infrastructure; and taxation and anti-corruption.

While there are signals the region wants the U.S. to increase its economic engagement to counterbalance China’s, it has given lukewarm reception to IPEF, which does not include market access or tariff-reduction provisions.

Beijing meanwhile boasts the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade agreement it promoted and has been signed onto by Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is also accelerating negotiations on the ASEAN -China Free Trade Area “Version 3.0” with Southeast Asian nations.

It is a big challenge for U.S. policymakers to match China’s latest geoeconomic maneuver, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute for Science and International Security at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

Nevertheless, the U.S. is still a major investor in the region, Pongsudhirak told VOA. 

“The stock of U.S. investments is immense, very close to China. They take turns going back and forth,” he said.

Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment

Harris highlighted the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, the West’s counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

“At the G-7 we intend to mobilize $600 billion in infrastructure investment in the developing world that will be high standard, transparent, climate-friendly,” Harris said.

In a veiled criticism of Beijing, she added the partnership, “does not leave countries with insurmountable debt.”

Harris noted the Just Energy Transition Partnership developed with Indonesia during its G-20 presidency that aims to mobilize $20 billion over the next three to five years to help the country’s energy transition and implementation of its climate agenda.

“That effort shows Washington recognizes that it has work to do to compete with China,” said Susannah Patton, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, said.

“However, until tangible projects are delivered, skepticism about U.S. efforts will remain,” she told VOA. 

Like many other countries in the region who look to China to bankroll its infrastructure, Indonesia in 2023 is set to launch its Beijing-funded $8 billion high-speed rail project connecting Jakarta and Bandung.

Biden absence

The APEC summit caps off a series of international meetings in Southeast Asia this week, following the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia and the ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Harris is standing in for President Joe Biden who attended the G-20 and ASEAN meetings but returned to Washington Wednesday to host his granddaughter’s upcoming wedding at the White House. 

Biden’s absence will feed into some of the concerns and anxieties the region has on U.S. commitment to the region, said Andreyka Natalegawa, associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to VOA.

However, Natalegawa noted that the U.S. IS taking over as APEC chair next year.

“That’s sort of a strong signal that Washington remains engaged and committed to economic integration in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

Following his meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali Monday, from Bangkok Chinese President Xi Jinping warned against Cold War tensions, saying that the Asia-Pacific is no one’s backyard and should not become an arena of big power rivalry.

Capping off her day in Bangkok, Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will meet with King Maha Vajiralongkorn Phra Vajiraklaochaoyuhua and Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana. 
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Africa’s biggest cotton exporter, Benin, has built an industrial park to move the country away from raw exports to finished products.  Environmental activists say local manufacturing will also cut down on emissions from shipping that contribute to climate change.  Henry Wilkins reports from Djigbé, Benin.
Camera: Henry Wilkins  Video Editor: Henry Wilkins 
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Минув перший шок, і український бізнес за підтримки уряду знайшов рішення складних проблем, каже міністр економіки Юлія Свириденко
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Taiwan’s envoy to a gathering of Asia-Pacific leaders is the 91-year-old billionaire founder of a computer chip manufacturing giant that operated behind the scenes for decades before being thrust into the center of U.S.-Chinese tension over technology and security.

Morris Chang’s hybrid role highlights the clash between Taiwan’s status as one of China’s top tech suppliers and Beijing’s threats to attack the self-ruled island democracy of 22 million people, which the mainland’s ruling Communist Party says it part of its territory.

Taiwan’s decision to send Chang instead of a political leader to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Thailand reflects the island’s unusual status. The United States and other governments have agreed to Chinese demands not to have official relations with Taiwan or have their leaders meet its president.

Chang transformed the semiconductor industry when he founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. in 1987 as the first foundry to produce chips only for customers without designing its own. That allowed smaller designers to compete with industry giants without spending billions of dollars to build a factory.

TSMC has grown into the biggest chip producer, supplying Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and other customers and turning Taiwan into a global tech center. TSMC-produced chips are in millions of smartphones, automobiles and high-end computers.

Despite that, TSMC ranks high on any list of the biggest companies that are unknown outside their industries.

Chang, a Texas Instruments Inc. veteran who served as TSMC chairman until 2018, represented then-President Chen Shui-bian at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in 2006. He was re-appointed to the same job in 2018, 2019 and 2020 by President Tsai Ing-wen.

“Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, especially TSMC, plays a pivotal role in the domestic and even the world economy,” Tsai told reporters on Oct. 20. “At this important moment, Chang is an irreplaceable candidate to serve as the representative of our country’s APEC leaders.”

Britain’s trade minister, Greg Hands, said London wants closer cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductors during a visit this month. Britain is home to Arm, a leading chip designer.

Taiwan is in a “very challenging environment” and APEC is the “most important international conference venue for Taiwan,” Chang said at the Oct. 20 briefing with Tsai.

“Taiwan needs to build a secure and resilient supply chain with trusted partners, especially in the electronics sector,” he said.

Last year, Chang warned support was eroding for globalization and free markets that helped TSMC prosper.

“Globalization seems to be a bad word and ‘free market economy’ is beginning to carry conditions,” Chang said while accepting an award from the Asia Society.

“Many companies in Asia and America face challenges as to how to operate in the new environment,” Chang said. “Still, I’m confident that solutions will be found.”

TSMC was thrust into geopolitics in 2020 when then U.S. President Donald Trump blocked the company and other vendors from using U.S. technology to make chips for Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Ltd., which produces smartphones and network gear for phone and internet carriers. American officials say Huawei is a security threat and might enable Chinese spying, an accusation the company denies.

Most of the world’s smartphones and other consumer electronics are assembled in Chinese factories. But they need components and technology from the United States, Europe and Asian suppliers — especially Taiwan, the biggest chip exporter.

Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, designs chips but needs TSMC and other contractors to make them. Their foundries need American manufacturing technology, which gives Washington leverage to disrupt Chinese high-tech industry.

Processor chips are China’s biggest import at $300 billion a year, ahead of oil. The ruling Communist Party sees that as a strategic weakness and is spending heavily to create its own chip producers, but they are generations behind TSMC and other global leaders.

Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, left Trump’s curbs in place and imposed more restrictions that extend to other Chinese companies.

TSMC, headquartered in Hsinchu, adjacent to the Taiwan capital, Taipei, says it made 12,302 different products last year for 535 customers. The company reported an $18.7 billion profit last year on $49.8 billion in revenue.

Chang was born in Ningbo, south of Shanghai, and moved to Hong Kong after a civil war on the mainland ended with the Communist Party taking power in 1949.

The mainland’s former ruling Nationalist Party fled to Taiwan. The two sides have been ruled separately since then. They have no official relations but are linked by billions of dollars of trade and investment.

Chang studied at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before receiving a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1964.

Chang spent a quarter-century at Texas Instruments, rising to become a vice president in charge of its semiconductor business, before being invited to Taiwan in the 1980s to lead a technology research institute.

In 1988, TSMC became Taiwan’s first company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Chang’s stake in the company is worth $1.6 billion.
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