Bloomberg Businessweek-Asia Edition January 10, 2022

● Global coronavirus cases have passed 242 million, 5.4m people have died, and more than 9.2 billion vaccine shots have been given. With the omicron variant running rampant, the U.S. set a global record of more than 1 million new Covid-19 diagnoses on Jan. 3—almost twice the previous record, set just days before. ● Kazakhstan was rocked by violent protests over political and economic stagnation. Protesters stormed the mayor’s office and attempted to seize the presidential residence in Almaty, the country’s largest city, on Jan. 5. ● Hundreds of motorists—including Senator Tim Kaine—were stuck in heavy snow for more than 20 hours along a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 95 in Virginia on Jan. 3. Heavy snowfall on the East Coast has caused power outages and traffic accidents. ● “The unvaccinated, I really want to…

In the year since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the government has responded better than might have been expected. Law enforcement agencies have arrested and charged at least 700 people in 47 states. Congressional investigators have interviewed hundreds of witnesses. Federal courts have resisted efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to deny Congress access to documents and testimony. Despite fears that extremists might be inspired to commit more violence, there have been no repeat performances. Such progress demonstrates the resilience of America’s democratic institutions. It also underscores the need for the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 to quickly complete its inquiry and resist pressure to expand its scope. An open-ended probe that attempts to bring criminal charges against Trump and his inner circle would…

▶ The Bank of Korea sets interest rates at its Jan. 14 policy meeting. The bank hasn’t ruled out a first-quarter increase after two rate hikes in the second half of 2021. ▶ On Jan. 13, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reports fourth-quarter earnings. The numbers will provide a gauge for Apple and Huawei, which use TSMC chips. ▶ Billionaire money manager Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief investment officer at DoubleLine Capital, gives his outlook for 2022 in his Just Markets webcast on Jan. 11. ▶ Abu Dhabi opens Sustainability Week on Jan. 15, convening heads of state, policymakers, and industry specialists to contemplate life after fossil fuels in the Persian Gulf. ▶ UBS holds its Greater China Conference Jan. 10-19, most likely in a hybrid online/in-person format. The world’s largest wealth manager is looking to…

We like to think our frauds mark important moments and teach us deep lessons. WorldCom and Enron took the greed of the dot-com boom too far, and their falls signaled a return to more sober times. Bernie Madoff’s demise capped a period of gross financial engineering and reminded everyone that returns that seem too good to be true usually are. And now we have the fraud conviction of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, which highlights the end of … well, possibly nothing. Silicon Valley investors won’t be changing their ways because of Holmes. Members of the venture capital class have made it clear that they never bought into Holmes or the miraculous tale she told about her blood-testing startup in the first place. Just about every venture capital firm that had a…

No one would call 2021 an uneventful year. The U.S. Capitol was stormed in a would-be insurrection. Inflation surged to levels not seen in decades. And almost 300 million people worldwide were infected by Covid-19 as the emergence of variants wrecked any return to normalcy. But for bankruptcy, a sector usually goosed by global disruption, it was unusually quiet. Large bankruptcies—those involving companies with at least $50 million in liabilities—dipped to 121 last year from 245 in 2020, according to Bloomberg data. That’s below the 10-year annual average of 130. But that could change this year as stimulus money wanes and companies and their creditors try to figure out what to expect. “A lot of people have the view that you’re going to see an uptick in some combination of out-of-court restructurings,…

After thousands of years of humans raising animals for food, the prospect of building a business around meat created in a laboratory instead of on farms or feedlots looks to be a huge technical challenge. Yet for food tech entrepreneur Josh Tetrick, success depends not just on scientists familiar with the latest advances in bioengineering but also on sages devoted to the details of religious dietary laws. Tetrick is chief executive officer of Eat Just Inc., a San Francisco startup backed by billionaires Marc Benioff, Peter Thiel, and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin that’s developing meat that’s grown in bioreactors rather than raised on farms. Unlike plant-based products from Beyond Meat Inc. and Impossible Foods Inc., cultured meat is grown from animal cells and is structurally identical to meat. “From a genetic,…