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.

  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    50·
    10 months ago

    US at grave risk of China tech war retaliation

    The US imported US$33 billion in capital goods from China for electricity generation and distribution in 2022, items that are no longer manufactured in the US.

    Substituting domestic production for these items would entail long lead times and exorbitant costs, industrial officials say. In the event of a full-scale trade war, a Chinese ban on critical components could cripple basic US infrastructure.

    “The vulnerability of supply chains for critical infrastructure is acute and self-inflicted. The US and its allies have allowed themselves to become captive to Chinese cartels that control production of electronic components, high-powered magnets, printed circuit boards, computers, drones, rare earth metals, wind turbines, solar cells, cellular phones and lithium batteries… In fact, nearly every element of the technology-based digital smart grid is dependent on Chinese-made components,” Brien Sheahan, a former top US energy regulatory official, wrote in April.

    US defense contractors also depend heavily on China. In a June 19 interview with the Financial Times, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said his company had “several thousand suppliers in China and decoupling is impossible. We can de-risk but not decouple,” adding that he believed this to be the case “for everybody” in US manufacturing.

    Hayes added, “Think about the $500 billion of trade that goes from China to the US every year. More than 95% of rare earth materials or metals come from, or are processed in, China. There is no alternative. If we had to pull out of China, it would take us many, many years to re-establish that capability either domestically or in other friendly countries.”

    It is a good article there is more and some graphs.

    You can spot the exact date the American capitalists decided to offshore manufacturing to China lol.