MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian economy ranks fourth in the world by purchasing power parity, with a shift toward the domestic market over the past five years, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday.

"Today, Russia is the fourth largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity. At the same time, over the past five years, the structure of economic growth has changed: the share of net exports in the economy has decreased almost threefold, and the economy has essentially turned toward the domestic market," Novak said at a meeting the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects convened by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Finland, often known as the happiest country in the world, now has the highest unemployment rate in Europe, demand for food aid has exploded by more than 70%, and homelessness, which had been declining for more than ten years, has increased 34% in just two years. Conditions in the country are so bad that almost 20% of Finland’s population is now considered at risk of poverty,

The reported $2.2 billion in profits involving Donald Trump and his family during his first year back in office has prompted scrutiny of the president’s financial interests. The Democrats should make the scale of the gains more tangible and push for greater scrutiny of presidential conflicts of interest.

To House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – your responses on 1 July 2026 to the reporting of the $2.2 billion profit personally reaped by President Donald Trump, while allegedly a public servant in 2025, were not specific enough.

Jeffries (NY) wrote on his social media account: “Donald Trump made more than $2 billion during his first year as President. Republicans are enriching themselves while making your life more expensive. We must crush the culture of corruption.”

US congressional lawyers are struggling with a flood of error-ridden AI-generated legislation, forcing them to spend increasingly more time rewriting proposals produced by chatbots, Politico reported on Monday.

Staffers and outside groups have more frequently turned to ChatGPT and Claude to produce legislative text, with error-ridden drafts regularly reaching the House Office of Legislative Counsel (OLC), according to eight current and former officials interviewed by the Axel Springer-owned outlet.

In some cases, lawyers spend “more time trying to fix AI-drafted legislation than it would take for them to draft it from scratch,” one person who advises congressional staff on the technology said.

A second suspect has been arrested in relation to the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions in 2022, German prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Croatian police, acting on a European arrest warrant, detained a Ukrainian national in Pula.

"The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office had Ukrainian Vladimir Z. arrested in Pula (Croatia) by local police forces," prosecutors said.

They said that the man, a trained scuba diver, "is strongly suspected of jointly causing explosions."

The prosecutors said they were pursuing the man's extradition from Croatia.

He is reported to have previously been detained in Poland in September 2025 but was released after an extradition request from Germany was turned down. 

Border Force (ABF) is confiscating the phones of returning Australian travellers but declines to confirm if it is using Israel tech group Cellebrite to extract information. What’s the scam?
Returning Australian travellers have had their phones confiscated without a warrant. We put these questions to Home Affairs (which runs ABF).

Customs confiscates travellers’ phones. Does Israeli tech firm clone them?

by Michael West

This is the response:

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for stepped-up airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and for Israel to kill “30 to 40” Palestinians a day, while also renewing calls to resettle Israelis in the Palestinian enclave at the expense of the indigenous population.

Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, made the remarks on the “October 8” podcast hosted by Rom Braslavski, a former Israeli prisoner of Hamas.

On Monday, the Jerusalem Post published excerpts from the interview, in which Ben-Gvir said Israel should not limit its attacks to those who “pose an immediate threat,” calling instead for far-ranging airstrikes across the entire Gaza Strip.

He said some people “aren’t worthy of life … they aren’t people at all.”

He also said Palestinians uninvolved in the fighting should not be exempt from Israeli attacks.

Businessman David Gonski has fronted the Royal Commission into Antisemitism as two Israel conferences land before Commission Bell reports. Wendy Bacon reports.

Prominent businessman David Gonski gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism yesterday in its final hearing block which is focussed on social cohesion.

Gonski is Chair of the Antisemitism Education Taskforce which is driving the implementation of the Special Envoy for Antisemitism Jillian Segal’s plan for the whole education sector.  

In response to downturns in Australia’s productivity, advocates of productivism are peddling a revised version of the old neoliberal ‘trickle-down’ dogma. Increased productivity, they assert, will return the economy to growth. They react negatively to any suggestions that worrying increases in inequality are what’s holding the economy and the country back.

Allan Patience

Look, Queen Ursula, we need to talk, girlfriend.

Yes, I’m addressing you directly, EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, because I’m not going to pretend that there’s anyone in charge in Europe who’s actually elected by the people and crafting EU policy.

And since you’ve apparently been more interested in monitoring Russian media platforms for dissident views that could potentially qualify as “Russian-aligned” than stopping online clarion calls for mass migration pushes into the EU, RT seems as good a place as any for an intervention.

Monday should be a very scary day for the small Middle Eastern country of Oman. President Donald Trump warned it against interfering with US efforts in the Strait of Hormuz, telling Fox News, “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.”

The Government has secretly inserted Palantir into its automated decision system inside the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) exposing Australia’s most vulnerable. Claudia Weisenberger reports.

If the NDIS Amendment Bill passes this week — and it will — a computer program will have the authority to cut a disabled person’s funding. If the program gets it wrong, section 59E(3) of the Bill provides that the decision stands anyway. 

There is no appeal.

Lev Shlosberg, a senior member of Russia's liberal opposition party Yabloko, was pronounced guilty of "public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" and sentenced to 11 years and 1 month in a penal colony by a court in Pskov on Monday.

Shlosberg has described the war as a catastrophe for Russia. The Kremlin says he is spreading slanderous lies about the army.

Making his closing statement before the verdict and sentence were read on Monday, Shlosberg maintained his innocence, saying he was the victim of a political trial.

A US Navy destroyer spent four days without power in the South China Sea last month, depriving its crew of hot meals, flushing toilets, and air conditioning, CNN has reported. The report comes as US sailors in the Persian Gulf are facing similar conditions.

The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, suffered an “engineering casualty involving its generators” while on an exercise in the South China Sea last month, a Navy spokesman told CNN on Monday.

The Benfold lost the ability to maneuver on its own, and lost galley services, toilets, air conditioning, and drinking water, the spokesman said. At the time of the incident, temperatures in the South China Sea averaged between 32 and 37 degrees Celsius.