The Ukrainian presidential office said on July 8 local time that Russia's large-scale attacks on many parts of Ukraine have killed 36 people and injured 140 others. According to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, a total of 619 rescue workers and 132 equipment participated in the rescue work across Ukraine that day. Ukrainian President Zelensky said on social media on the 8th that Russia launched more than 40 missiles of various types at Ukraine that day. Residential buildings and infrastructure in many cities in Ukraine were damaged in varying degrees of attacks, and a children's hospital was destroyed. Rescue departments are currently conducting emergency rescue on the scene. The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement on the 8th local time saying that Ukrainian officials' claim that Russia used missiles to attack Ukrainian civilian facilities was untrue. The damage suffered by Kiev was caused by the fall of missiles launched by the city's air defense system.

After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video on his Facebook and Instagram accounts of his free time during the Independence Day holiday on the X platform, Musk said, "I prefer to work." Zuckerberg posted a video of himself surfing on a hydrofoil in a tuxedo, waving an American flag and drinking a beer, and wrote: "Happy birthday America." The video quickly went viral, and after greg shared it on the X platform, Musk replied: "I hope he continues to have fun on the yacht." I prefer to work." Musk, a workaholic, attended the 29th annual Barron Investment Conference in November 2022, where he said: "My workload went from 78 hours a week to 120 hours a week..." In 2018, he slept on the floor of the Gigafactory in Fremont in an effort to ramp up production of the Tesla Model 3.

On the 8th, the Argentine government promulgated the "Foundations and Starting Points for Argentine Freedom" comprehensive bill and a package of fiscal measures, marking the official entry into force of the government reform bill. According to the official gazette of the Argentine government, Argentine President Milley, Chief Cabinet Minister Guillermo Francos and Economy Minister Luis Caputo jointly signed Decrees No. 592 and No. 593 to promulgate these two new reform measures. The comprehensive bill declared Argentina to enter a one-year public emergency in the administrative, economic, financial and energy fields, and granted the president special powers in these fields. It also includes the relaxation of economic regulations, labor reforms and the implementation of a large-scale investment incentive system. The package of fiscal measures involves anti-money laundering, tax deferral, tariffs, re-imposition of high-salary income tax and reduction of personal property taxes. On June 28, after six months of negotiations, the two reform bills were finally passed by the Argentine Congress.

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan After an intense month focused on election risk around the world, markets quickly switched back to the more prosaic matter of the cost of money - and whether disinflation is resuming to the extent it allows borrowing costs to finally fall. Thursday's U.S. consumer price update for June is the key moment of the week for many investors - with the headline rate expected to have fallen two tenths of a percentage point to 3.1% but with 'core' rates still stuck at 3.4%. With Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell starting his two-pronged semi-annual congressional testimony later on Tuesday, the consensus CPI forecast probably reflects what the central bank thinks of the situation right now - encouraging but not there yet. But as the U.S. unemployment rate is now back above 4.0% for the first time since late 2021, markets may look for a more nuanced approach from the Fed chair that sees it increasingly wary of a sudden weakening of the labor market as real time quarterly GDP estimates ebb again to about 1.5%. There were some other reasons for Fed optimism in the lead up to the testimony. The path U.S. inflation is expected to follow over coming years generally softened in June, amid retreating projections of price increases for a wide array of consumer goods and services, a New York Fed survey showed on Monday. Inflation a year from now was seen at 3% as of June - down from the expected rise of 3.2% in May - and five-year expectations fell to 2.8% from 3%. Crude oil prices are better behaved this week, too, falling more than 3% from the 10-week highs hit late last week and halving the annual oil price gain to 10%. The losses on Tuesday came after a hurricane that hit a key U.S. oil-producing hub in Texas caused less damage than many in markets had expected - easing concerns over supply disruption. Before Powell starts speaking later, there will also be an update on U.S. small business confidence for last month.

US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday restricting investments in China, intended to further stymie China's advances in three cutting-edge technology areas: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain artificial intelligence systems. The "decoupling" of high tech from China began under Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has continued that ambition. However, the new order doesn't target US investments already invested in China, but the new ones. The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that the US restrictions will be narrowly targeted and will not "have a fundamental impact on affecting the investment climate for China." Biden's new executive order is still subject to consultation with the US business community and the public and is not expected to take effect until next year. The order has been brewed for a long time and has generated a lot of publicity. But almost no one believes that this executive order will deal a new practical blow to Chinese high technology, because almost everyone knows that China needs American technology more than American money. The order has gained much attention because it is seen as part of a broader trend of the US drifting away from China. The promulgation and brewing process of the executive order reflects the strong desire of American political elites to suppress China's high-tech development, as well as a fierce game between those supporting the executive order and the concerns of the technology and economic sectors about a potential backfire on the US. It is a kind of compromise. Washington obviously hopes that major allies will follow Biden's executive order. The UK's Sunak government has made cautious statements, stating that it is consulting business and the financial sector before deciding whether to follow suit. In fact, China also has the ability to influence the extent to which Biden's executive order is implemented, as well as the extent to which the US will go in terms of "decoupling" from China. We are definitely not just passive recipients of US policies. American political elites are eager to "decouple" from China as quickly and deeply as possible, but they fear two things: First, this will immediately damage the performance of relevant high-tech companies in the US, undermine their influence and further innovation. The current Biden administration, in particular, does not want to incur strong resentment from Silicon Valley and Wall Street toward the escalating "decoupling," which will ultimately lead to the loss of support for the Democratic Party. Second, they are afraid of pushing China toward more resolute independent innovation to achieve breakthroughs in key technologies such as chips. If the US "decoupling" policy gives birth to major technological achievements in China, it means that Washington will completely lose the gamble: They originally wants to stifle China's high-tech development, but ends up strangling their own companies. What China needs to do next is to fully unleash our innovation vitality, continuously reduce our dependence on high-tech products from the US, and prove that as long as we are determined to achieve independent innovation, we have the ability to accomplish things. We need to prove that being pressured by the US will only make us stronger. As long as there are several solid proofs of this trend, the US policy community will fall into unprecedented chaos, and their panic will be much more severe than when they saw the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy before Trump started the trade war. Regardless of the future of China-US relations, the current battle will be the key battle that determines the future competition between China and the US. China can only win and cannot afford to lose. High-tech products such as chips are not isolated. The innovation power of China's entire manufacturing industry and the creative vitality of the whole society are the foundation for shaping these key achievements. When pressured by the US, our society needs to generate confidence and resilience from all directions, and we need to accelerate and seize every opportunity, rather than shrink and simply defend. Otherwise, the US will gain the upper hand in momentum, and we will truly be in a passive and defensive position. We must see that the US is on the offensive, but its offensive is becoming weaker and weaker, and it is always hesitant with each step. What is presented to China are difficulties and risks, but also the dawn of victory.