San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Russia takes economic hit from isolation
The Russian economy contracted steeply in the second quarter as the country felt the brunt of the economic consequences of its war in Ukraine, in what experts believe to be the start of a yearslong downturn. The economy shrank 4% from April through June compared with a year ago, the Russian statistics agency said. It is the first quarterly gross domestic product report to fully capture the change in the economy since the invasion of Ukraine. It was a sharp reversal from the first quarter, when the economy rose 3.5%.
Western sanctions, which cut off Russia from about half of its $600 billion emergency stash of foreign currency and gold reserves, imposed steep restrictions on dealings with Russian banks and prompted hundreds of major Western corporations to pull out of the country.
But even as imports to Russia dried up and financial transactions were blocked, the fall in GDP was not as severe as some expected in part because the country’s coffers were flush with energy revenue as global prices rose.
Russia moved quickly in the days after the invasion to mitigate the effect of sanctions. The central bank more than doubled the interest rate to 20%, severely restricted the flow of money out of the country, shut down stock trading and loosened regulations on banks. The government also increased social spending to support households and loans for businesses hurt by sanctions.
Crucially, the prospects for Russia’s energy industry, central to the country’s economy, are deteriorating. The U.S. and Britain have already banned Russian oil imports, and the country’s oil output will fall further next year when the full effect of a European Union ban on imports comes into effect.
MONTENEGRO Nation mourns mass shooting
Montenegro declared three days of national mourning Saturday, a day after 10 people were killed in an attack by a 34-year-old gunman who police said had recently exhibited a “change in behavior.”
The attacker used a hunting rifle to first fatally shoot two children, 8 and 11, and their mother, who lived as tenants in his house in the western city of Cetinje. He then walked to the street and randomly shot 13 more people, seven of them fatally. The gunman was shot dead later after a gunbattle with police.
Police said Saturday it was still unclear what motivated the gunman — identified only by his initials, V.B. But they said people close to the attacker said he had recently started exhibiting a “change in behavior but nothing that indicated he could commit such a crime.”
Witnesses struggled to come to terms with the carnage. They described scenes of chaos and horror as the gunman unleashed his fury on innocent people just going about their daily business on a warm summer afternoon.
ARIZONA State fortifies border wall
Arizona has begun moving in shipping containers to close a 1,000foot gap in the border wall near the southern city of Yuma, with officials saying they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to block off the area. The move by Arizona comes without explicit permission on federal land, with state contractors on Friday starting to move in 60-foot-long shipping containers and stacking them. They plan to complete the job within days, and the containers will be topped with 4 feet of razor wire, said Katie Ratlief, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s deputy chief of staff.
The state aims to fill three gaps in the border wall constructed during former President Donald Trump’s tenure in the coming weeks totaling 3,000 feet.
John Mennell, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the agency had just learned of Arizona’s action and “is not prepared to comment at this time.”
The move is the latest pushback by a Republican-led border state to what they contend is inaction by Democratic President Biden on immigration.
Ducey is using $6 million for the project out of $335 million the Legislature authorized in June to construct virtual or physical fencing along the border with Mexico.
MARYLAND Vaccine plant to trash doses
About 135 million more doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine from a troubled Baltimore factory will have to be destroyed because of quality problems, Congressional panel leaders said. The announcement last week follows a report in May that detailed how more than 400 million vaccine doses made at an Emergent BioSolutions plant had to be trashed. The doses more recently slated for destruction were made between August 2021 and February, the House members said. Johnson & Johnson said no doses produced at the site since the factory restarted have reached the market, and it was ending its agreement with Emergent. The doses had been set aside after they were made. The panel said J&J told it that a batch of the shots failed inspection, which rendered all of them unusable.