Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

UK medicines regulator approves gene therapy for two blood disorders

Summary: The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has approved a CRISPR-based treatment called Casgevy which edits the genes that cause two common blood disorders, sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia, and which in clinical trials seemingly cured almost all the patients who participated.

Context: This is the first CRISPR-based, faulty gene-editing treatment to be approved by a regulator, and that approval could impact the around 15,000 people in the UK who have sickle cell and the 1,000-ish people who have beta thalassemia; in clinical trials, 28 of the 29 sickle cell patients suffered no major pain episodes for at least a year after treatment, and 39 of the 42 participating beta thalassemia patients did not need red blood cell transfusions for at least a year following their treatment; this is still a wild west sort of therapy, so patients will be watched closely and everyone’s on guard for potential, unexpected long-term consequences associated with editing genes in this way, but if the successes we’ve seen in clinical trials so far continue, it’s likely this treatment will be approved in more jurisdictions in the near-future and that more treatments based on the same general principle, using CRISPR and CRISPR-like tools to edit patients’ genes to address health issues, will be forthcoming.

—The Guardian

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US to resume food aid across Ethiopia next month

Summary: The US Agency for International Development has said that it will start sending food aid to Ethiopia again beginning in December, after halting such shipments in June due to their interception by, reportedly, regional governments and military groups.

Context: This aid will be sent on a one-year, trial basis, now that the agency has implemented reforms meant to prevent the theft of goods meant for non-military civilians by the very groups causing much of their suffering; Ethiopia has been plagued by conflict in recent years, much of that conflict the result of a revolt by the TPLF against the central government, which led to widespread violence and starvation across the country—that conflict mostly ended in November of 2022, and the TPLF began disarming in early 2023.

—Reuters

France issues 'historic' arrest warrant for Syria's Assad

Summary: In what’s being called an historic move, the French government has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his alleged complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Context: Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons, including sarin gas, against his own people in 2013 when the ongoing Syrian civil war was just getting started; three other arrest warrants were also issued by the French government against Assad’s brother, the head of Syria’s elite military unit, and two Syrian generals; this theoretically puts heightened pressure on Assad, though it’s unclear whether this will have any practical impact on him in the foreseeable future, as the principle this type of warrant is based on, universal jurisdiction, allows national governments to claim jurisdiction beyond their borders, but has never been successfully applied to the current leader of a sovereign nation.

—Al-Monitor

This week’s inflation data continues to be heralded as a cause for celebration across economic circles, and has triggered a huge surge in stock investment, capping a long slump in the same.

—Axios

2,786 megahertz

Size of spectrum the Biden administration is studying to see if it should be reallocated for wireless broadband purposes.

These bands show promise for use-cases ranging from next-generation satellite (space-to-space) and autonomous/unmanned vehicle communications, to more conventional utilities for defense-related or consumer-grade wireless broadband networks.

The US government is taking its time, though, as previous reallocations of spectrum have led to interference issues and public battles between industries, like the ongoing conflict between the airline industry and wireless carriers over the deployment of 5G.

—Ars Technica

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