Індекси світових фондових бірж і товарних ринків 15 червня продовжили падіння, яке розпочалося минулого тижня на тлі побоювань щодо другої хвилі коронавірусної інфекції.

На торгах в Азії ф’ючерси на один із провідних американських індексів S&P 500 пробили мінімуми минулого тижня і опустилися до рівнів кінця березня.

Також котирування нафти, які на піку відновлення минулого тижня перевищували 43 долари за барель Brent, нині опустилися до позначки 38 доларів за барель, хоча падали і ще нижче, до 37 доларів.

Настрої інвесторів погіршилися на тлі ускладнення епідеміологічної обстановки в світі, яке ставить під загрозу відновлення світової економіки за графіком, подібним до латинської букви V.

Іншою причиною зниження ринку акцій є розчарування рішенням Федеральної резервної системи США, яка минулого тижня утрималася від оголошення про додаткові заходи монетарної підтримки економіки.

Упродовж останніх днів у Китаї зафіксовані нові вогнища COVID-19, у Токіо спостерігається зростання захворюваності, а Латинська Америка перетворюється на нове джерело інфекції.

 
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African Americans are disproportionately likely to say a family member or close friend has died of COVID-19 or respiratory illness since March, according to a series of surveys conducted since April that lays bare how black Americans have borne the brunt of the pandemic.Eleven percent of African Americans say they were close with someone who has died from the coronavirus, compared with 5% of Americans overall and 4% of white Americans.The findings are based on data from three COVID Impact surveys conducted between April and June by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Data Foundation about the pandemic’s effect on the physical, mental and social health of Americans.While recent surveys conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research have found that black Americans are especially likely to know someone who had the virus, the new data from the COVID Impact research further details the toll the pandemic has taken on black Americans.Pre-existing conditions and limited access to health care have been identified as reasons black Americans have been particularly susceptible to the virus. Experts and medical professionals say the longstanding effects of structural racism and generational trauma exacted upon black Americans in the centuries following slavery also cannot be ignored.”The health inequities that we’re seeing here are nothing new, because we’re starting in a place where during slavery, we had black women who were enslaved and were being experimented on by white male physicians,” said New York-based Dr. Uché Blackstock, a former associate professor at the NYU School of Medicine and the founder of Advancing Health Equity. “So our healthcare system is founded on racism, and our communities have been essentially made sick by racism. We carry the highest disease burden in almost every parameter. We were already in a crisis.”The COVID Impact surveys show the racial gap is equally striking in some cities and states hit especially hard by the virus. In Louisiana, 16% of black adults, compared with 6% of white adults, are close with someone who has died, according to the surveys. Black people represent about 33% of the state’s population but account for 53% of the state’s nearly 3,000 COVID-19 deaths, according to data from the state’s health department.The differences are equally stark in several metropolitan areas: Among black adults in Atlanta, 14% have a family member or close friend who has died, compared with 4% of white adults. The comparison is 12% vs. 4% in Baltimore, 15% vs. 2% in Birmingham, Alabama, and 12% vs. 4% in Chicago.Twenty-six percent of nonwhite New Yorkers say a family member or close friend has died from COVID-19, compared with just 10% of white adults in New York City.Meanwhile, an Associated Press analysis of data from state and local health departments nationwide found that more than a quarter of all COVID-related deaths nationwide have been black victims — nearly double the share of the black population in the areas sampled. The data, from early June, included nearly 87,000 deaths in which the dead person’s race was known in 38 states and Washington, D.C.In a number of states, the disparity was even more outsized — for instance, in Michigan, black deaths per 100,000 black residents were four times the rate of white deaths per 100,000 white residents.”I think we will have a national conversation, not only about those inequities, but about how we get to solutions, because it’s not just about what’s going on right now, it’s really what has gone on for decades regarding structural racism, implicit bias, discriminatory housing policies and the like,” said Dr. Patrice Harris, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association and the first African-American woman elected president of the organization.Harris said the AMA launched a Center for Health Equity a year and a half ago to address implicit bias at the physician and institutional level. During the pandemic, she said, many stories have emerged of black patients detailing how their needs were ignored or unmet by doctors, which some experts say is indicative of a historical mistrust of the medical system.”We heard with COVID-19, the stories, or some of the data that says that black men in particular were more likely to take advice from another black physician or that there have been studies where our younger colleagues believe the myth that blacks did not feel pain in the same way as whites,” Harris said. “AMA is going to lead these conversations and make sure everyone has information so we can address issues around implicit bias and discriminatory practices.”The nation must also begin to grapple with the psychological trauma of the pandemic, coupled with the economic fallout, the civil unrest in the wake of several high profile killings of African Americans and witnessing black grief on a mass scale, said University of Michigan health behavior and health education professor Enrique Neblett.Neblett, who studies the intersection of racism and health, said many African Americans could be dealing with depression, anxiety and other mental struggles.”It’s the confluence of all these factors where it’s not just one or two things and that is really weighing hard and heavily on the psyche of black people,” Neblett said. “We do know that when you experience loss at unexpected times, there is scientific evidence showing that that’s related to worse health outcomes later on in life. I think these impacts may be generational.” 
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Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered two Czech diplomats to leave the country in a quid pro quo response to Prague’s expulsion of Russian diplomats amid tensions rooted in differences over history.The ministry said it summoned the Czech ambassador Monday to announce the move, saying the two diplomats must leave Russia by Wednesday.Earlier this month, the Czech government ordered two Russian diplomats to leave the country. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the nation’s spy agency has discovered that one of them had spread false information about a Russian assassin arriving to allegedly target Czech politicians.The alleged assassination plot surfaced in April when a magazine reported that Czech intelligence services suspected that a Russian who arrived in Prague on a diplomatic passport was sent to poison Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and Prague 6 district mayor Ondrej Kolar with a potent toxin.  Kolar, Hrib and the mayor of Prague’s Reporyje district, Pavel Novotny, all consequently received police protection.Moscow has dismissed the allegation as baseless. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ridiculed the claims published in the magazine, saying the notion that Czech authorities spotted a Russian man equipped with ricin and let him through didn’t make sense.The three politicians had been involved in actions that previously angered Russia.  In February, a Prague square in front of the Russian Embassy was renamed after slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, with Hrib unveiling the new nameplate.  In April, Kolar’s district removed a statue of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Konev, whose armies completed the liberation of Prague from Nazi occupation. The statue’s removal caused outrage in Russia, which has angrily lashed out at any attempts to diminish the nation’s decisive role in defeating the Nazis.Novotny provoked Moscow’s ire with plans to build a monument to the soldiers of Gen. Andrei Vlasov’s army. Over 300 of them died when they helped the Czech uprising against Nazi rule and contributed to Prague’s liberation. Their role is controversial for Russia, however, because they previously fought against the Red Army alongside Nazi troops. 
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Two Indian High Commission officials in Pakistan are missing.  The two left Commission offices in Islamabad Monday morning on official business and have not been seen since.  India has contacted Pakistan’s foreign ministry about the missing pair.  India recently expelled two High Commission of Pakistan officials in New Delhi, accusing them of espionage. India says its officials in Islamabad have been harassed since the expulsion of the Pakistani officials from New Delhi.  
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A Manila Regional Trial Court branch convicted the chief executive of popular media outlet Rappler of cyber-libel Monday in a case seen as back-handed retaliation over a string of articles critical of the Philippine president. The court ruled that Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos Jr. had committed cyber-libel, a first for Philippine journalists, over a report posted in 2012. Each faces a jail term of up to six years, Rappler reported.  Philippine authorities got the pair on cyber-libel, a charge usually aimed at pornographers and stalkers, through flukes of timing and details of the law itself, analysts of the case believe.  The government of President Rodrigo Duterte was suspected of pushing legal agencies to seek the conviction because it resents Rappler for reports that criticize its policies. The verdict dovetails with the Duterte government’s anti-fake news laws and its restrictions on reporters going out during the national anti-coronavirus lockdown, his critics say.  “We’re under lockdown, we have a pandemic and the government seems intent on controlling free speech, so this is a very dangerous situation,” said Renato Reyes, secretary-general of the Manila-based Bagong Alyansang Makabayan alliance of leftist political organizations. Rappler has been the subject of 11 “cases and investigations”, Ressa told an online news conference June 10. She rejects the cyber-libel charges. “I always say I have not done anything wrong that I haven’t done in almost 35 years of being a journalist,” she told the news conference. A judge has allowed Ressa to remain free on bail pending an appeal.   Journalism advocacy groups and Ressa’s lawyers point to glitches in timing and an unusual interpretation of the law to suggest government retaliation. The media outlet questions Duterte’s 4-year-old, deadly anti-drug campaign and his intent to back away from military ties with the United States, for example.Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa, center, is escorted after attending her hearing in Manila, Philippines on June 15, 2020.Among the timing oddities, the cyber-libel law was enacted four months after Rappler posted the story in question. The Department of Justice said last year that the law could extend to cases dating back as far as 12 years. The justice department charged Ressa and Rappler itself – which was cleared of charges Monday – in February 2019 over a report on possible ties between a Philippine businessman and a former president of the Philippine Supreme Court. Rappler’s story linked the former justice, Renato Corona, to businessman Wilfredo Keng and cited an intelligence report allegedly connecting Keng to drug and human trafficking. Keng, who disputed the allegations against him, filed a case against Rappler in 2017 with the National Bureau of Investigation cybercrime division. Although a division of the bureau “junked” the cyberlibel complaint, a former bureau director later called it an “unfinished evaluation”, Philippine broadcast network ABS-CBN online said. the bureau filed its case in 2018 and Ressa was arrested last year. The 2014 correction of a spelling error in the controversial report gave the prosecution more clout. When a “defamatory statement is published several times, it gives rise to as many offenses as there are publications,” a trial court judge said, as quoted by Rappler. Ressa, a former CNN Philippines investigative reporter and Time magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, told the news conference last week she felt “under attack” and “anger” for doing her job. Her lawyer, Ted Te, vowed to appeal. “We’re going to challenge it all the way to the supreme court,” Te told the new conference. Media freedoms took root in the Philippines after martial law ended in the 1980s. But the Southeast Asian democracy of 109.6 million people ranks 136th this year out of 180 countries in the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 World Press Freedom Index. It had placed at No. 134 in 2019. Duterte asked reporters in 2017, a year into his term, to avoid lies, “sensationalized news” and “overpublicized political propaganda.” In a similar case, ABS-CBN quit broadcasts in May after the National Telecommunications Commission halted a franchise license. Duterte had separately accused the network of declining to air his political campaign ads. However, most media in the Philippines still operate freely as long as they report known facts, rather than taking strong viewpoints or digging too deep, country observers say. “If you put (Rappler  and ABS-CBN) together plus Duterte’s foul language against the media, then you get the impression there’s a systematic attack against the media,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “But if you look at the big picture, there’s a few other thousand media outlets out there.” 
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A Fulton County, Georgia, medical examiner has ruled Rayshard Brooks’ death outside an Atlanta fast food restaurant Friday night a homicide. Brooks was cooperating with police officers during a sobriety test, but then struggled with the officers as they tried to arrest him and ran. The medical examiner’s autopsy found that Brooks was shot in the back twice and died from organ damage and blood loss. Officer Garrett Rolfe has been fired, and the Atlanta police chief, Erika Shields, has resigned. A second officer, Devin Brosnan, has been placed on administrative leave. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told CNN his office will decide later this week what kind of charges, if any, Rolfe would face.  “(Brooks) did not seem to present any kind of threat to anyone, and so the fact that it would escalate to his death just seems unreasonable,” Howard said. “If that shot was fired for some reason other than to save that officer’s life or prevent injury to him or others, then that shooting is not justified under the law,” he added. Shields resigned Saturday even as the investigation into the shooting had barely begun.  “I have served alongside some of the finest men and women in the Atlanta Police Department. Out of a deep and abiding love for this city and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief. … It is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.” Police dash and body cam video shows the 27-year-old Brooks asleep in his car and blocking the drive-thru lane of a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant.  It took a few moments for Officer Rolfe to waken Brooks. The video shows the two having a cordial conversation, but Brooks didn’t seem to know what city he was in or what restaurant. At one point, Brooks told the officer “I know you’re just doing your job.” This screen grab taken from body camera video provided by the Atlanta Police Department shows Rayshard Brooks speaking with Officer Garrett Rolfe in the parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant, late Friday, June 12, 2020, in Atlanta.When the second officer, Devin Brosnan, arrived, Brooks failed a breathalyzer, was handcuffed and appeared to resist arrest.  The officers wrestled him to the ground, demanded he stop fighting and warned Brooks that they would use a Taser on him. Brooks apparently grabbed one of the officer’s Tasers and pointed it at the police as he tried to run off. Rolfe opened fire and three shots could be heard as Brooks falls to the ground. Fellow officers attempted to comfort Rolfe as an emergency team tended to Brooks, who was pronounced dead at a hospital. The shooting set off a day of protests in Atlanta Saturday that started peacefully but turned violent. Demonstrators tried to block an interstate highway and the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned to the ground. Thirty-six people were arrested, and police are looking for the suspect who started the fire. A lawyer for the Brooks family, L. Chris Stewart, says he wants Rolfe to be charged with “an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder.” “You can’t say a Taser is a nonlethal weapon … but when an African American grabs it and runs with it, now it’s some kind of deadly, lethal weapon that calls for you to unload on somebody,” Stewart said. But the only African American member of the U.S. Senate, South Carolina’s Tim Scott, says more questions need to be asked.  “The question is when the suspect turned to fire the Taser, what should the officer have done?” Scott told CBS’s Face the Nation, adding that what happened in Atlanta “is certainly a far less clear one than the ones that we saw with George Floyd and several other ones around the country.” The death of Brooks comes as the entire country is grappling with the issue of how police treat African American men suspected of relatively minor crimes.  Many Americans regard last month’s death of George Floyd in Minneapolis as the last straw in several such incidents. Floyd died after an officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck when Floyd was suspected of trying to spend a counterfeit $20 bill. His death set off protest marches in nearly every major U.S. city and in several European capitals. 
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High-profile Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was convicted Monday in a cyber libel case that press freedom advocates have branded a ploy to silence critics of President Rodrigo Duterte. The verdict was handed down in a Manila courtroom against Ressa, who heads the news site Rappler, and she will be allowed to post bail. 
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South Korea on Sunday convened an emergency security meeting and urged North Korea to uphold reconciliation agreements, hours after the North threatened to demolish a liaison office and take military action against its rival.There’s concern that North Korea could turn to provocation to bolster its internal unity and wrest outside concessions as nuclear talks with the United States remain deadlocked. Observers say North Korea desperately needs sanctions relief in the face of harsh U.S.-led sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.South Korea’s national security director, Chung Eui-yong, held an emergency video conference with ministers in charge of security and military generals on Sunday morning to discuss the latest situation on the Korean Peninsula and the government’s possible steps, the presidential Blue House said in a statement.The Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, later said that both Koreas must strive to abide by all agreements they have reached. The Defense Ministry said separately it closely monitors North Korea’s military and maintains a firm military readiness.Both ministries said the South Korean government “views the current situation as grave.”On Saturday night, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned that Seoul will soon witness “a tragic scene of the useless North-South liaison office (in North Korea) being completely collapsed.” She also said she would leave to North Korea’s military the right to take the next step of retaliation against South Korea.North Korean Leader’s Sister Threatens Military Action Against South Korea ‘We will soon take a next action,’ vows Kim Yo Jong North Korea earlier suspended communication lines with South Korea and threatened to nullify 2018 agreements that led the Koreas to halt firing exercises, remove some land mines and tear down guard posts in front-line areas.The North has linked its recent series of threats to Seoul’s failure to prevent activists from launching propaganda leaflets across their border. But some experts say North Korea is deeply frustrated that South Korea hasn’t done enough to revive lucrative joint economic projects as well as over a lack of progress in its nuclear talks with Washington.The negotiations have made little progress since a second summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in early 2019 fell apart because of disputes over how much sanctions should be lifted in return for Kim’s dismantling his main nuclear complex.Kim later vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal, introduce a new strategic weapon and overcome the U.S.-led sanctions that he said “stifles” his country’s economy.He also pushed South Korea to resume the operations of the two big inter-Korean projects — a factory park and a tourism site, both in North Korea — but South Korea was unable to do so due to the sanctions.Kim’s struggle to address economic woes has likely faced setbacks as the coronavirus pandemic forced North Korea to close its border with China, its biggest trading partner. North Korea says it hasn’t reported a single outbreak but foreign experts question that claim and warn a pandemic in the North could be dire due to its fragile heath care system.Some observers say the end of the 2018 deals could allow North Korea to send ships across the disputed sea boundary, float down mines on a border river or take other provocative steps at the border area. The South Korean Defense Ministry statement said the 2018 deals must be maintained to prevent accidental armed clashes and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.But it’s still unclear if the North would go ahead with its threat to destroy the liaison office, which was built at a North Korean border town following a 2018 summit between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Such a move could deepen anti-Pyongyang sentiments and make it difficult for the North to restore ties with South Korea when needed. 
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