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.
In Denmark the so-called "robustness commission" has announced its recommendations for "a more robust healthcare system".
Denmark's universal healthcare system is widely popular, doctors and nurses are among the most trusted professions and very few people would dream of moving towards the wasteful nightmare that is the American model. There are however challenges. An aging population means more demand for care and greater workers to carry out the care, recruiting enough healthcare workers is a challenge and those in the system experience having too many tasks. In addition significant regional and social inequalities in healthcare exists and the increasing cost of new treatments is straining the healthcare system.
Of course the recommendations doesn't address price gouging by the medical-industrial complex. Instead, the chairman of the commission used today's press event to fingerwag and blaming the public for having too much "hygge", for drinking, smoking and eating too much.
The recommendations themselves are a mixed bag. Stove of it is reasonable enough but it has some huge red lights in it. Austerity dog whistles like "core services" is being blown and although part of the stated goal is to reduce inequalities, one of the principles introduced is that "everyone should not get the the same". On the face of it this means that "resourceful" patients will have to do more stuff themselves without actually seeing doctors or nurses who will them have more time for the less resourceful patients. It sounds nice but it has the potential of pushing a development towards a more stratified system where the middle class has private health insurance while the service for the poor ends up becoming a poor service.
Another potentially concerning suggestion is that of reducing the amount of care given. Palliative care should start sooner for terminal patients than is the case today, patients should be "more included in their health care decisions" with the started goal of talking them out of the more invasive and expensive options. This can have it's good sides, patients should give informed consent and there is little sense in stressing dying people with invasive treatments but again, in the hands of the neoliberal state it can easily become a reduction in service.
The worst suggestion is the formation of a so-called "prioritising commission" who will be takes with finding ways to cut care. The commission will be enabled to tighten criteria for receiving treatments dented too expensive for their effectiveness and will potentially be enabled to introduce copayments or to reduce today's full coverage with a mere subsidy. This has the potential to be a significant blow to today's principle of free and equal access to healthcare.
The government has already signals it's willingness to form the "prioritisation commission". The government has also decided to increase military expenditure to two percent of GDP and to replace every ship in the Danish navy.
Healthcare funding is getting routed to defence. Is anyone surprised? No.