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The World
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said China "has openly declared its ownership over the Taiwan Strait" and accused Beijing of seeking to change the status quo — charged language in the context of cross-strait relations — as the Chinese navy further extended its live-fire drills around Taiwan. U.S. President Joe Biden said he was "concerned" about Beijing's provocations but downplayed the risk of further escalation. (Financial Times)
War Game Finds U.S., Taiwan Can Defend Against a Chinese Invasion: All sides would pay a heavy price if ever there were a military conflict over the island. In the first three weeks after invading Taiwan, China sank two multibillion-dollar U.S. aircraft carriers, attacked American bases across Japan and on Guam, and destroyed hundreds of advanced U.S. jet fighters. China’s situation was, if anything, worse. It landed troops on Taiwan and seized the island’s southern third, but its amphibious fleet was decimated by relentless U.S. and Japanese missile and submarine attacks and it couldn’t resupply its own forces. The capital, Taipei, was secure in Taiwanese hands, and Beijing was low on long-range ballistic missiles to counter America’s still-potent air and maritime power. This complex daylong war game, played out late last week at a Washington think tank, demonstrated how destructive any attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be across the Indo-Pacific—and what a forbidding challenge the island would be for Beijing’s military forces. (Wall Street Journal)
Beijing-backed cyberspies used specially crafted phishing emails and six different backdoors to break into and then steal confidential data from military and industrial groups, government agencies and other public institutions, according to Kaspersky researchers. The security shop's industrial control systems (ICS) response team initially detected a series of targeted attacks back in January that compromised more than a dozen of organizations in several Eastern European countries, including Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, and Afghanistan. (The Register)
The prime ministers of Estonia and Finland have called on the EU to stop issuing tourist visas to Russians in an attempt to open up a new sanctions front following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland — which, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, shares a border with western Russia — has noted an uptick in Russian tourists entering the country often on visas from other EU countries and then using its airports to fly elsewhere in the bloc through the Schengen free travel area. (Financial Times)
No Zeitenwende for Germany: Olaf Scholz Is Dragging His Feet on Defense Spending and Ukraine. Since announcing revolutionary changes in German defense, Berlin has been dragging its feet nonstop. (Foreign Policy)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the risk of nuclear confrontation had returned after decades, calling on nuclear states to commit to no first use of the weapons. (Reuters)
The Chaotic Monkeypox Vaccine Pipeline Is Leaving Everyone Short: A Danish company that’s the sole producer of the only approved vaccine has sold nearly all its supplies to the US, and it won’t be making new doses until 2023. (Wired)
Everything you need to know about the monkeypox vaccines. (MIT Technology Review)
A federal judge in California ruled that three golfers who joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf will not be able to compete in the PGA Tour’s postseason. U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman made her decision in San Jose after attorneys for the sides each spoke for about an hour. Freeman said she didn’t consider the golfers faced irreparable harm because of the big money they were guaranteed by joining LIV, a key issue in the case. (Associated Press)
The Inflation Reduction Act, a $430 billion bill, designed to combat climate change, lower prescription drug costs and raise some corporate taxes. While President Biden last month asserted that it is “far from perfect” and a “compromise”, he also urged Congress to act since it is "how progress is made" and "the strongest bill you can pass." Indeed, after months of negotiations and numerous amendments made in order to get the bill through, what began life as part of the perhaps overly ambitious Build Back Better plan is expected to fall considerably short of the administration’s emissions goal of reaching 50 percent of the 2005 level by 2030. (Statista)
Economy
Inside Susan Li’s Rise to Meta’s C-Suite: When Meta Platforms reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline last month, the Facebook parent company also made a key promotion with little fanfare: 36-year-old finance executive Susan Li would become chief financial officer in the fall, replacing longtime CFO Dave Wehner, who held the role for eight years and would transition to a strategy role. It marked the latest step in Li’s rise within Meta, which she joined in 2008 following a short stint on Wall Street after graduating from Stanford University at 19 years old. Li made her mark early on with her work on Meta’s 2012 initial public offering, and she’s gained allies across the company’s business lines thanks to her knack for pairing financial acumen with big-picture business strategy, former colleagues told The Information. (The Information)
Why SoftBank’s mea culpa is a rarity among investors: It took a $22.7 billion loss to do it, but SoftBank’s CEO offered a rare “oops, my bad” among the startup investment world. But SoftBank wasn’t the only one to turn “somewhat delirious” during the heady days of Uber and WeWork. Why do so few investors admit to their bad bets? (Crunchbase)
London’s ‘magic circle’ law firms make renewed bid to crack US: For decades, cracking the US has proved to be a step too far for London’s top corporate law firms. But Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy are all in the midst of a renewed assault on the world’s most lucrative legal market as the “magic circle” firms seek to build on their past strength in Europe and become global heavyweights. Their push is multipronged and expensive, with the firms poaching star US lawyers on record pay deals and opening offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco for the first time. (Financial Times)
Elon Musk Sells Nearly $7 Billion Worth of Tesla Stock: The stock sales come just months after the billionaire said he wasn’t planning to sell additional shares in the company. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
Microsoft is asking teams across the company to rein in some employee expenses as the software giant tries to control costs in the current economic environment. Managers at the Redmond, Wash., company have told staff of various cutbacks to the company’s budget, said people familiar with its plans. Some spending on business travel, outside training and company gatherings is being targeted, said the people. At a recent picnic for one Microsoft team, managers paid for their employees’ food and drinks instead of billing the company, one of the people said. In the past, the company has typically covered such expenses, the person said. (Wall Street Journal)
Walmart has held discussions with major media companies about including streaming entertainment in its membership service, according to three people with knowledge of the conversations, part of an effort to extend its relationship with customers beyond its brick-and-mortar stores. In recent weeks, executives from Paramount, Disney and Comcast have spoken with Walmart, the people said, as the retailer ponders which movies and TV shows would add the most value to its membership bundle, called Walmart+. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. (New York Times)
Can tech reshape the Pentagon? After a long break-up, Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex are getting back together. China has continued to chip away at American military superiority, including its technological edge. Pushing that edge is therefore a priority for the Department of Defence (dod). And that would be easier if America’s world-beating software developers worked more closely with its equally formidable armsmakers, thinks Michael Brown, who heads the department’s Defence Innovation Unit. Katherine Boyle of Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital (vc) firm, observes that America’s largest weapons manufacturers lack top-flight programmers. Silicon Valley has them in spades—but has also long displayed an aversion to battlefield technology. (Economist)
The SEC's cyberattack reporting rules are seeing fierce opposition. CISA is poised to do better. CISA’s initiative to regulate critical infrastructure on incident reporting is just beginning. The focus on industry engagement by CISA and its director, Jen Easterly, could be about to pay off. (Protocol)
“A bitter lawsuit is tearing apart the flying car industry:” Flying cars, almost a reality—then the lawyers got involved Inside the bitter lawsuit between Wisk Aero and Archer Aviation that’s rocking the projected $1 trillion future of urban flight. (Fast Company, The Download)
Smart Links
Chip Makers Expect Demand Slowdown to Expand Beyond PCs, Smartphones. (Wall Street Journal)
Nvidia Issues Revenue Warning for July Quarter, Shares Drop 8%. (Nvidia)
China Consumer Inflation Reaches 2-Year High as Pork Surges. (Bloomberg)
Domino’s shuts up shop in Italy after failing to win over the home of pizza. (Financial Times)