The Russian ruble is the world's top-performing currency but its strength masks serious problems in the economy, says political scientist


Phil Rosen
Mon, June 27, 2022 

Russia's central bank has cut interest rates sharply over the last two months.

NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/Getty Images

Russia's ruble has been the top performing currency in the world against the dollar this year.


A Russian political scientist said that doesn't indicate a healthy economy in Russia amid war and sanctions.


"The strong ruble only reflects the fact that there is no use for foreign currency in Russia right now," Ilya Matveev told NPR.

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine and Western sanctions set in on Moscow, the ruble tanked to historic lows. Yet, four months later, the ruble has become the world's best-performing currency against the US dollar.

Russian political scientist Ilya Matveev told NPR last week that the currency's rebound isn't a sign of a strong economy, nor does it signal that sanctions aren't working against Russia.

"The strong ruble is a bad indicator of Russian economic performance generally because it only reflects the fact that imports have fallen so sharply that importers simply do not need so much foreign currency because they're unable to import goods from…Western countries," Matveev said during an interview with All Things Considered.

He noted that the effect of wartime sanctions has devastated Russia' economy, and long-term prospects for Moscow are bleak because of Western businesses halting operations there, soaring inflation, and the heavy toll on locals.

A soaring currency, he said, is not a good measure for the broader economy because it has more to do with trade prospects falling off during the war.

"So the strong ruble only reflects the fact that there is no use for foreign currency in Russia right now," Matveev said. "And this is, of course, a very bad thing for the economy."

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Russia saw its first foreign debt default in more than a century, reports say. The nation missed a deadline to pay $100 million in dollar- and euro-denominated interest on two foreign currency bonds, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Magnificent ancient mosaic found near Tel Aviv returns home





Restored Roman-era mosaic is put on display in its original site in Lod

Mon, June 27, 2022 

LOD, Israel (Reuters) - An exceptionally well-preserved Roman floor mosaic, showing a rich variety of fish, animals, birds and ships, has returned to the site where it was first found in a Tel Aviv suburb after a decade-long tour of some of the world's top museums.

The 1,700 year-old mosaic, from the late Roman period,‮ ‬was discovered in 1996 during highway construction work, but was not put on display until 2009, when sufficient funding to preserve it was donated.

The colorful mosaic, 17 metres (55 ft) long and about 9 metres (29 ft) wide, may have served as the foyer floor of a mansion in a wealthy neighborhood of Lod, near what is now Tel Aviv, the Israel antiquities Authority said in a statement.

"The owner was probably a very rich merchant because he travelled throughout the world and he saw things, like all the ships and the fish on display in the mosaic," said archaeologist Hagit Torge from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The design of the mosaic was influenced by North African mosaics and lacks any depiction of people, suggesting it may have belonged to a Christian or a Jew who wanted to avoid pagan attributes such as depiction of Roman gods, said archaeologist Amir Gorzalczany from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The mosaic will now be exhibited at an archaeological centre built where it was found, in Lod.

(Writing by Rinat Harash, additional reporting by Rami Amichai; editing by James Mackenzie, William Maclean)

THANKS TO SCOTUS

Too much mayo’: 

Subway customer arrested 

after shooting 2 employees, 

killing 1 over sandwich order

WSBTV.com News Staff

Mon, June 27, 2022 a

Atlanta police are investigating a shooting that has left one woman dead and another in critical condition at a metro Atlanta Subway store.

The reason for the shooting? Too much mayonnaise on a sandwich, police said.

APD responded to a Circle K gas station at the intersection of Northside and Markham St. to a person shot call just after 6:30 p.m. When they arrived, they learned two female employees had been shot after a dispute about the amount of mayonnaise on a customer’s Subway sandwich.

Police said the woman who was killed was 26 years old. A 24-year-old employee was shot in front of her 5-year-old son and is now in critical condition. A relative told Channel 2′s Tom Jones that the victim, Jada Statum, was hit twice after she pushed her son under the counter to keep him from being hurt.

A co-owner of the Subway said that a third worker shot at the gunman.

“He didn’t hit the guy, but he put up a little fight,” Willie Glenn said.

A 36-year-old man has since been arrested. Police have not identified him.

“There was something wrong with the sandwich that made him so upset that he decided to take his anger out on the two employees here,” police said.

Atlanta police officers said that this was a case of someone with a gun who didn’t know how to resolve conflict without resorting to violence.

Jones talked to Statum’s uncle, who said her son witnessed his mother get shot and that she is doing alright.

Glenn said it breaks his heart.

“It just breaks my heart, to know that someone has the audacity to point a weapon, and shoot someone for as little as too much mayonnaise on a sandwich,” said Glenn.

The store’s other co-owner, Al Baily, said no one deserves to get shot over something so trivial.

“Everybody packing,” Bailey said. “What sense does it make? They want to dummy this society down.”

He wouldn’t release the identity of the the worker who was killed because he’s still waiting for family members to be informed, but he said both employees were young women who just started at the location about three weeks ago.

“They were just model employees,” Glenn said.

Glenn said the shooter had been in the store before.

Interim Chief Of Police Darin Schierbaum said arguments are the majority cause of homicides in 2022.

 USING A MECH ROBOT SUIT

 

TOYOTA ARMY UPGRADE

Watch this Inkas armored Toyota Land Cruiser take bullets, mines, hand grenades

Explosions, what explosions? Video shows intense ballistic/blast certification tests

JONATHON RAMSEY

Jun 27th 2022 

We hope you never need an armored car to safely run errands, but if you do, Inkas Armored Vehicle Manufacturing is ready to gear a parent up for the school run. The Canadian armorer has just announced its latest, the 300 Series Toyota Land Cruiser. Given VPAM VR7 certification and EVR2010 blast certification, this means a truck that could already go anywhere can now get safely out of a lot of gunfights.

The video is the real eye-opener, showing a finished version enduring the tortures of more than 780 laser-guided rounds in various calibers, six hand grenades placed on the roof, four more hand grenades placed under the body, two land mines, and 33 pounds of TNT blown up 6.5 feet away. 

For a little background, VR certifications require flying a test vehicle to one of the armor testing outfits in Europe. According to German firm Aurum Security, passing the test for VPAM VR7 papers requires a ballistic steel protection that's three inches thick. A properly designed rig can withstand, among other threats, "7.62х51 (.308) up to 30.06 AP (Armor Piercing) and Penetrator rounds." Test dummies also need to pass pressure and survivability tests so real-life occupants aren't rescued from explosions only to be felled by concussive aftereffects. Judging by the footage, we'd rather be a blast test dummy with Inkas than a crash test dummy with NHTSA.

The company also makes a version of the latest 300 Series Land Cruiser with slightly less armor "which is ideal for civilian use," if you're a Walter White kind of civilian. There are no prices listed, but if you need this kind of protection, money is likely the least of your problems.

HINDU NATIONALIST STATE

Activist Held as Court Strikes Petition Against Modi

Ronojoy Mazumdar and Upmanyu Trivedi
Sun, June 26, 2022 at 2:14 AM·1 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Police detained an activist linked to a petition to probe Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in orchestrating deadly violence in Gujarat state in 2002, the Hindustan Times reported.

Teesta Setalvad, secretary of human rights group Citizens for Justice and Peace, was taken from her home in Mumbai by police on Saturday, and later transported to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, the organization said in a statement on Saturday. She has been detained by the Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad on “trumped up charges” that are “part of an elaborate witch hunt,” it said.

Calls to Mumbai police were not answered while an official with the Gujarat police declined to comment. Setalvad didn’t immediately respond to calls and emails requesting comment.

Setalvad’s reported detention follows the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the petition on Friday against a special investigative team’s findings in 2012. A decade earlier, religious riots when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. The Citizens for Justice and Peace was formed to advocate for the victims of that violence.

“It appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat along with others was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge,” the Supreme Court said in a judgment Friday. “All those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law.”

GEMOLOGY
Ukraine war robs India's 'Diamond City' of its sparkle

Nivrita GANGULY
Sat, June 25, 2022 


Yogesh Zanzamera lays out his bed on the floor of the factory where he works and lives, one of around two million Indians polishing diamonds in an industry being hit hard by the Ukraine war.

The air reeking from the only toilet for 35-40 people, conditions at workshops like this in Gujarat state leave workers at risk of lung disease, deteriorating vision and other illnesses.

But Zanzamera and others like him have other more immediate worries: the faraway war in Europe and the resulting sanctions on Russia, India's biggest supplier of "rough" gemstones and a long-standing strategic ally.

"There are not enough diamonds. Because of that, there is not enough work," Zanzamera, 44, told AFP at the workshop, situated up some dingy stairs in Surat where he has worked since leaving school at 13.

"The war should end. Everybody's livelihood depends on the war ending."

His monthly pay packet of 20,000 rupees ($260) is already down 20-30 percent, he says.

But he is one of the lucky ones -- the local trade union estimates that between 30,000 and 50,000 diamond workers in Surat have lost their jobs.

- Rough times -

Originally founded as a port city at the mouth of the Tapi river, Surat earned a reputation as the "Diamond City of India" in the 1960s and '70s.

Now, some 90 percent of the world's diamonds are cut and polished in the bustling industrial city and elsewhere in the western state of Gujarat.

Traders in Surat's crowded Mahidharpura market openly trade diamonds worth millions of dollars on the streets each day, carrying the precious gems loose in paper wrappings.

"If it doesn't go through Surat, a diamond is not a diamond," said Chirag Patel, CEO of Chirag Gems.

Russian mining giants like Alrosa traditionally accounted for over a third of India's rough diamonds, but supply has all but stopped because of Western sanctions.

For Chirag Gems, Russia was even more important, accounting for half the 900 "roughs" that his firm turns into dazzling gems that sell anywhere from $150 to $150,000.

Using state-of-the-art scanning and laser-cutting machines, his factory is better than most, with air-conditioning and exhaust systems protecting workers from inhaling dangerous dust.

But supply has shrunk to a tenth of what it was in the months since Western sanctions cut Russia off from the SWIFT international payments network in March.

"We are not getting goods from Russia because the payments system is stuck due to the war," Patel, 32, told AFP, saying he is trying to bridge the gap with supplies from South Africa and Ghana.

- Demand at Tiffany's -

The June-to-September wedding season in the United States is a crucial period for diamond exporters, Patel says.

The US accounted for more than 40 percent of India's $24 billion exports of cut and polished diamonds in the financial year to March, data from the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) shows.

But along with supply, traders say demand from the United States and Europe, too, has nosedived in recent months as companies like Signet, Tiffany & Co, Chopard and Pandora refuse to buy diamonds sourced from Russia.

Workers like Dipak Prajapati have suffered the consequences. In May he lost a job in May that paid $320 a month to support his family of six.

"I called the company to ask when I could resume work, but they said they don't have any work for me and told me to stay home," the 37-year-old told AFP.

"Sixty percent of the jobs in Surat run on diamonds. Diamonds are the biggest industry in Surat. I don't know any work other than diamonds."

His layoff comes close on the heels of pandemic shutdowns.

"We didn't get any salaries for six to eight months. We had to borrow money from all sides to survive and are still paying back those loans," Prajapati said.

The Gujarat Diamond Workers' Union has asked Gujarat's chief minister for a 10-billion-rupee ($128-million) relief package for workers who have lost their jobs.

"We told him that if the situation does not improve in the coming days, our workers will be compelled to commit suicide," union vice-president Bhavesh Tank said.

"Surat has given the world so much," Tank says. "Surat has scrubbed diamonds for the entire world but our diamond workers are now getting scrubbed."

"We can only pray to God that the war will end. If the war does not end, we don't know how bad things will get."

ng/stu/oho

Vatican Says 'Pro Life' Activists Must Fight For Gun Control 

AND END THE DEATH PENALTY


Mary Papenfuss
Sat, June 25, 2022 

The Vatican hailed the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but said it is imperative that people who identify as “pro-life” also fight for critical life-protecting issues like gun control.

“Being for life always means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S.,” the Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, chided Saturday in an essay.

“Pro-life” is not just about opposing abortion, he pointed out. Anti-abortion activists must be concerned with all issues that threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, which are alarmingly high in the U.S., Tornielli emphasized.

The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. has climbed from 20.1 deaths of women per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020, he noted, citing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And “strikingly,” maternal mortality rates are three times higher for Black women in the U.S., Tornielli added.

“Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life,” he added, noting that that 75% of women in America who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage earners. And only 16% of workers in private industry have paid parental leave, he added.

“We can hope ... that the debate on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling will not be reduced to an ideological confrontation, but will prompt all of us ... to reflect on what it means to welcome life, to defend it, and to promote it with appropriate legislation,” Tornielli emphasized.

The U.S. Conference of Bishops and the Vatican’s Academy for Life praised the Supreme Court ruling on Friday. But the Academy for Life also called for social changes to help women keep their children.

Pope Francis celebrated families on Saturday, but didn’t mention the ruling. And he warned families not to be “poisoned by the toxins of selfishness, individualism [and] today’s culture of indifference and waste.”

WASTED TAXPAYER $ ON TRIP TO THE ALPS

G7 Leaders Call the Death of the Necktie at the 48th Summit in Germany

NONE OF THEM KNOW HOW TO TIE A WINDSOR KNOT

Hikmat Mohammed
Mon, June 27, 2022 


LONDON — Seven world leaders have declared the end of the necktie at the G7 Summit in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

The annual gathering of the Group of Seven is never about fashion, however, every photo op sends a loud and clear message in the world of politics.

Everyone got the memo for the official 48th G7 Summit group photo on Sunday featuring Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi; Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; French President Emmanuel Macron; German Chancellor Olaf Scholz; U.S. President Joe Biden; British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

A price cap on Russian oil, supply of weapons to Ukraine, climate change and Africa’s potential famine is on the agenda for the next three days for the gentlemen to discuss, but under all that, so are the intentions of presenting their best image to the world.

After all, this isn’t just a press conference, it’s a stage to show a united front.

At the 47th G7 Summit held in Cornwall, England, last year, all the male politicians sported a necktie while gray clouds hovered over them in the group shot. Their somber suits and ties resembled the mood of the last two years.

A pandemic later and with the activewear industry expected to generate more than 95 billion dollars in the U.S. alone, the power suit no longer yields the intellect and vim it once did.

The removal of the necktie is a departure from the expected stale presentation of world leaders — the seven white crisp shirts worn with blazers in flat hues is the Hollywoodification they’ve been searching for. It’s George Clooney’s signature recipe for the red carpet with two buttons undone that Draghi emulated to perfection.

“Traditionally, the tie is a badge of professionalism, distinction and success,” said Peter Bevan, a London-based menswear stylist, adding that it once carried gravitas, but now it’s being considered as “increasingly stuffy and conservative — becoming more casual since the pandemic in line with the rest of the world is perhaps a way for the politicians to remain relatable and relevant.”

Outside of the western world, the necktie carries no sentiment. It’s a sartorial tool used to project authority rather than having earned it.

New Zealand politician Rawiri Waititi called the accessory a “colonial noose” in 2021 after being ejected from parliament for wearing a traditional pendant called hei-tiki instead of a tie.

“Wearing a tie is wrapped up in notions of class, male privilege and status, which are concepts the younger generation are increasingly trying to reject,” Bevan said.

On the runways, ties are loosened and are being interpreted in new ways. For Thom Browne’s spring 2023 collection, necktie lengths got shorter, brighter and camper while models wore them with tweed miniskirts.

“The obligation to wear a tie day-to-day will become a thing of the past, but as they can bring such personality to a suit, I don’t think they’ll die out altogether. They’ll become solely fashion accessories rather than necessity,” Bevan explained.

The sartorial chatter was among the politicians themselves, too. When the leaders sat down for their first meeting of the day, Johnson asked if they should remove their jackets or doff further, which was met by a witty answer from one of his colleagues: “We all have to show that we’re tougher than Putin.”

Trudeau chipped in with “bare-chested horseback riding,” alluding to the images of Putin topless on a horse in southern Siberia’s Tuva region in 2009, to which European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen fired back with “horseback riding is the best.”

Conversing with fashion lightens the mood, but changing the course of a uniform can perhaps combat real change that’s much needed in the world right now.

THANKS GOP
US Families brace for changes to pandemic-era free school meals


LISA RATHKE
Mon, June 27, 2022 

Students in a lunch line at Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School in Essex Junction, Vt., on June 9. (Lisa Rathke / Associated Press)

Before the pandemic, there was no room in the budget for Kate Murphy’s children to buy lunch at school. She and her husband would buy in bulk and make bag lunches at home. So the free school meals that were made available to students nationwide amid the crisis have brought welcome relief, especially since her husband lost his job last year at a bakery company that closed.

The free meals gave the Essex Junction, Vt., family one less thing to worry about.

“We make just too much money (literally by just a few dollars) to qualify for free or reduced lunches and other food-related benefits, but not enough to truly ever feel financially comfortable,” Murphy, a mother of four and administrator at a trust company, said by email.


The pandemic-era federal aid that made school meals available for free to all public school students — regardless of family income levels — is ending, raising fears about the effects in the upcoming school year for families already struggling with rising food and fuel costs.

For families already strained by inflation and the end of other federal help like expanded child tax credits, advocates say cuts to the aid could mean turning more frequently to food banks.

“Families across the country are facing a very difficult reality of having to choose between feeding their kids or filling up their gas tank or purchasing medicine,” said Vince Hall, chief government relations officer for Feeding America, a nonprofit network of food banks.

The rules are set to revert to how they were before the coronavirus pandemic, with families who are eligible based on income required to apply for their children to receive free or reduced-price lunch. Schools in predominantly low-income areas will be allowed to serve breakfast and lunch to everyone for free, as before.

Since waiving the eligibility requirement during the pandemic, the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees school meal programs, has seen the number of participating students soar.

During this past school year, about 30 million kids a day were getting free meals, compared to 20 million before the pandemic, said Cindy Long, administrator of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.

At summer meal distributions, 1.3 billion meals and snacks were given out nationwide in fiscal year 2020 at a cost of $4.1 billion — an eightfold increase from the previous year in terms of meals and cost, according to the USDA.

A bill passed in Congress last week and signed by President Biden on Saturday aims to keep the rules around summer meals programs as they have been during the pandemic so that sites can operate in any community with need, rather than just where there’s a high concentration of low-income children, and offer to-go meals. It also provides flexibility for schools to make substitutions for certain types of food without being fined if they run into supply chain problems.

Advocates say the legislation will provide relief, but the timing has caused confusion around plans for summer meal distributions.

“It’s disappointing that the extension of the summer waivers would come so late that for the most part they’re not going to be able to stem the dramatic loss in summer meal sites that are happening this summer," said Anore Horton, executive director of Hunger Free Vermont.

For the next school year, some states have taken it upon themselves to keep school meals free for all students.

California and Maine made universal meals permanent last year, and Vermont is continuing free meals for all public school students for another year using surplus state education funding. In Massachusetts, House lawmakers included $110 million in the budget to extend universal school meals for another year, but the Senate version did not. Now both versions are before a conference committee. In Colorado, the Legislature passed a bill to ask voters this November whether to fund free universal breakfast and lunch at schools.

At the Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School in Vermont one recent day, eighth graders picked up freshly made pizza and Caesar salad and ate lunch with friends around round tables. Students said it was important to continue to provide free meals to all students.

“Not everybody has the same situation at home and it’s hard to learn at school when you’re super hungry, so I think free lunch, it makes it easier for everybody,” student Ethan Pringle said.

Not only do the free universal meals give kids nutrition so they can learn, but they also provide some reliability for kids and families during what is still a challenging time, Vermont state Rep. Karen Dolan said. It also removes the stigma of being a free or reduced-price lunch kid and the embarrassment of families who can’t pay their kids’ lunch accounts, officials said.

But some officials worry about paying for meals for children from families who could easily afford them.

Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott supports helping those in need but “will not support imposing such taxes, which would disproportionately impact the very people we are trying to help, in order to fund meals for children of affluent families,” spokesperson Jason Maulucci said.

Families and advocates say losing universal school lunch and breakfast next year would have been a hardship for families.

“Our kids have so much to worry about these days, and food shouldn’t be one of them,” Murphy said.