Politico: Russia’s boom (farming) economy

Russia hasn’t eradicated foreign products from supermarket shelves, but it has moved toward greater self-sufficiency. The country imported 36 percent of its food in 2013, before the EU’s sanctions and Moscow’s retaliatory embargo. In 2015, that figure dropped to 28 percent. In 2016, according to preliminary data, that fell again to 24 percent in the first quarter and 22 percent in the second.

Where Russia struggles to make up the shortfall — in fruit and dairy, for example — it has scrambled to find new trading partners. Moscow has approved dairy imports from New Zealand and has opened up to Asian dairy investments from Vietnam and Thailand.

Despite the rosy spin from Putin and Tkachev, Moscow is adopting a high-risk strategy. Sanctions, coupled with plunging oil prices, have hit the currency and driven up food prices by 14 percent in 2015. Fruit and vegetables cost on average 22.8 percent more in June 2015 than a year earlier, according to Rosstat, the state statistics bureau.

With local supply available for just three months of the year due to climate and growing conditions, Russia relies on imports for 90 percent of its fruit, according to the country’s agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor. On average, fruit prices jumped between 30 percent and 50 percent over 2015. The price of oranges shot up 58 percent.

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Quartz: A lot of people in the US are suddenly identifying as “white”—and a lot of them support Donald Trump

In a study of white Americans’ attitudes and candidate preferences, we found that Trump’s success reflects the rise of “white identity politics”—an attempt to protect the collective interests of white voters via the ballot box. Whereas racial prejudice refers to animosity toward other racial groups, white identity reflects a sense of connection to fellow white Americans. [...]

Non-Hispanic whites are projected to become a minority in the year 2044. This increasing diversity across the country is making whites’ own race harder and harder to ignore. Political and social phenomena, from Barack Obama’s presidency to the Black Lives Matter movement, are making whiteness even more salient to white Americans.

As whites increasingly sense that their status in society is falling, white racial identity is becoming politicized. Trump’s promise to “make America great again” speaks to these anxieties by recalling a past in which white people dominated every aspect of politics and society. That’s why media outlets from New York Magazine to The National Review have dubbed Trump an “ethnonationalist” candidate. [...]

Recent research in social psychology suggests that when whites engage in discrimination based on their perceived collective interests, it’s hard to convince them that such discrimination is wrong. After all, doesn’t every group have a right to prioritize its own members? We believe our results portend increasing difficulty in achieving the democratic aim of getting race out of American politics.

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Politico: Orbán’s ‘war of attrition’ against churches

 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is fond of presenting himself as a defender of Christian civilization. But critics say he’s waging a crusade against religious institutions — including the church of the pastor who baptized his two eldest children.

The Hungarian government, which has historically subsidized churches, in 2011 stripped about 300 mostly smaller churches and religious groups of their legal status — and, as a result, of access to state-endorsed funding programs and subsidies. Only the institutions on a government-approved list are now eligible for such schemes, including one that lets Hungarians divert 1 percent of their income taxes to a church recognized by the state. [...]

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2014 that the law violates freedom of religion and should be amended, but the Hungarian government has done little to comply. To critics of the long-ruling prime minister, the pressure on the religious groups is part of an overall push to control and stymie independent institutions that pose a potential threat to his rule.  [...]

The refugee crisis highlighted the divergence between the political positions of some of the recognized churches and the churches that had lost their status.

At the height of the flow of migrants into Hungary last year, Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and the highest-ranking Catholic official in Hungary, said the Hungarian Catholic Church would not take in any refugees, arguing that providing shelter to them constitutes human trafficking.

Small unrecognized churches, meanwhile, took a leading role in both providing assistance and advocating on behalf of refugees. The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, for example, cooked 600-800 meals per day at its central Budapest compound and provided shelter for 80-200 refugees every night. Even now, with Hungary’s borders largely closed, the Fellowship provides temporary lodging to small numbers of refugees.

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BBC: Is Turkey still a democracy?

It was seen as an anchor of stability in the volatile Middle East - although critics here believe the perception from outside was already skewed.

This week, the World Justice Project's rule of law index placed Turkey 99th of 113 countries, just behind Iran and Myanmar. It has reclaimed its place as the world's main jailer of journalists. A couple of analysts who I asked to interview for this piece were unwilling to be quoted, for fear of speaking out.

"It is the end of democracy", the HDP's Deputy President Hisyar Ozsoy told the BBC. [...]

But the kind of democracy that was defended that night is still heavily contested. Unity against the coup did not equal unity in favour of this government. Elections are still relatively free here, but not fair. The governing AK party hugely dominates the media, and is accused of intimidating voters.

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Independent: 12 eerie images of huge Chinese cities completely empty of people

Throughout China, there are hundreds of cities that have almost everything one needs for a modern, urban lifestyle: high-rise apartment complexes, developed waterfronts, skyscrapers, and even public art. Everything, that is, except one major factor: people.

These mysterious — and almost completely empty — cities are a part of China's larger plan to move 250 million citizens currently living in rural areas into urban locations by 2026, and places like the Kangbashi District of Ordos are already prepped and ready to be occupied.

Photographer Kai Caemmerer became fascinated with these urban plans, and in 2015 he traveled to China to explore and document them. His series, “Unborn Cities,” depicts a completely new type of urban development. “Unlike in the US, where cities often begin as small developments and grow in accordance to the local industries, these new Chinese cities are built to the point of near completion before introducing people,” he told Business Insider.

See 12 eerie images from his series: