Image is from this article in the New York Times.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck Morocco on September 8th, with the epicenter 73 kilometers away from Marrakesh.
At least 2500 people have died as of September 11th, most outside Marrakesh, with more people being pulled out of the rubble every day, making it the deadliest earthquake in Morocco since 1960, and the second-deadliest earthquake this year (first being, of course, the one in Turkiye-Syria in February, which killed nearly 60,000 people). While the deaths are the most horrific part, damage to historic sites has also been very significant - including buildings dating back to the 1000s.
Morocco is situated close to the Eurasian-African plate boundary, where the two plates are colliding. The rock comprising the Atlas Mountains, situated along the northwestern coast of Africa separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean Sea, are being pushed together at a rate of 1 millimeter per year, and thus the mountains are slowly growing. As they collide, energy is stored up over time and then released, and faults develop. The earthquake this month originated on one such fault, as did the earthquake in 1960. The earthquake hypocenter was 20-25 kilometers underground, with 1.7 meters (or 5 and a half feet) of rock suddenly shifting along a fault ~30 kilometers (19 miles) long.
Earthquake prediction is still deeply imprecise at best, and obtaining decent knowledge and forewarning of earthquakes is highly dependent on dense seismometer arrays that constantly monitor seismic activity, such as in Japan, and detailed understanding of the local and regional tectonic environment. The best way to prevent damage is to build earthquake-resistant infrastructure and establish routines for escaping buildings and reaching safety. All of these, of course, are underdeveloped to nonexistent in developing countries, particularly in poorer communities inside those countries.
The Country of the Week, in honour of Allende’s death 50 years ago (the only bad geopolitical event that has occurred on September 11th, of course), is Chile. Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The weekly update is here!
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week’s discussion post.
The other day there was a post about Bad approval ratings of the major liberal flavour leaders in the west like macron Biden etc. Normally I wouldn’t share polling, but numbers for Trudeau were not on that list and these are indicative that he is in the same situation.
https://abacusdata.ca/conservatives-lead-by-15-as-government-disapproval-jumps-4-points/
The next Canadian federal election is a ways away, but I can’t emphasize how bad this looks for the libs right now. 41% cons 26% libs federally, cons winning in literally every region, every demographic, with - 20% approval rating is staggeringly bad for the libs, billed as “Canada’s natural governing party”.
Complete dogfucking of the Canadian housing market over the lib tenure has destroyed the prospects of another generation of people and now its likely that the rabid transphobe, reactionary fuck Pierre peppercorn will be the next pm here. The libs also campaigned in 2015 on electoral reform and then ignored their promises in a cynical end of electoral history way. If they had passed that, these numbers would probably mean the libs would end up in a coalition gov’t with the ndp instead of spending a cycle or two or three in the wilderness like during the harper years.
Also, it’s hilarious in a misogynist comeuppance way that chrystia freeland was the heir apparent to Trudeau, but now her inheritance is turning to ash before her eyes, just like her ukrainian counteroffensive. Stabbed in the back again!
I’m glad to see freeland getting the stink of Trudeau all over her; hopefully it will end her chances of being party leader.
It’s real bad that poilievre will probably win the next election though. Something about his weird prairie french Canadian upbringing and religious extremism just makes a deeply cursed combination that scares me more than some of the other conservative leaders we’ve had
deleted by creator
That’s a relief honestly. I didn’t know about the French thing but that makes sense. How do you think that will affect poiliovres chances?
Slightly off topic, but I have a feeling sexism would come into play with freeland as well, do you have thoughts on that as well?
deleted by creator
I’m not some Canadian election whisperer but FWIW I think that the Canadian electorate would support a woman leader if she had a reasonable shot in the first place. Freeland has brutal headwinds as a senior lpc member and also as the face of a losing war (I don’t think the electorate knows how bad ukraine is losing now but they will by the time an election comes). That said, she has some “progressive economic” history in her publications and resume that she could lean into.
I suspect that Pierre’s lack of french will buoy the bloc Quebecois and potentially give them more seats, but I don’t think that changes the big picture of likely CPC majority (I wish it was the cool CPC). The most hilarious outcome would be CPC majority with bq opposition but I doubt that.
deleted by creator
Oh my mistake, I was mixing him up with that oatmeal baby Andrew scheer
That’s definitely true, Canadians love to back whoever looks like a winner. I definitely agree about the Ukraine war support, that’s gonna hurt sooner or later (personally I expect a lot of backers to start to soften after the ‘counteroffensive’ finishes). Either way I hate it. Canadian politics, like so much of this country, are a sick fusion of american and British politics anyway, just not nearly as funny
deleted by creator
The NDP would be in a really strong position for this election too, but Singh doesn’t seem to know how to capitalize on Liberal weakness.
That is literally the entire history of the ndp
Layton tried, didn’t he? Then he had to go and die ffs
deleted by creator
Oh for sure. On the other hand, the NDP only really needs to hold Toronto and Vancouver to be relevant in an election… And in both places being brown isn’t that big of an issue.
I think Eby is planning for an NDP nom after his next term as Premier. If he can make tangible progress on housing and complete some big-ticket projects in BC without controversy, he would have incredibly strong credentials for a run at Prime Minister.