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.
Encouraging news coming out of Germany as a statute erected for the erstwhile dictator and strongman Angela Merkel collapsed overnight. German freedom fighters have yet to comment on this historic event.
Erected just two years ago near the CSU stronghold of Nürenberg the statue depicted the german despot on a horse and was over 2.7 meters tall and made out of concrete weighing 1.5 metric tons, the german government have not yet commented on this historic event presumably out of a fear of ‘Gesichtsverlust’. Still the pictures of Mother Merkel, a subtle reference to the lesser book 1984 by writer ‘George Odergut’ are making the rounds on social media and may be what will make the german people cast of the authoritarian one coalition government that has kept the reigns of power for decades.
notceps reporting live from outside of germany
This has to be ironic, there is no way you can erect something ugly like this
It’s not, guy gave an interview where he literally says “Well Merkel is an icon you can’t deny that, also this isn’t a political thing this is just me showing my personal appreciation.” Also this statue was made from 3d printed concrete so like ole Willhelm didn’t seem to really try. Fun fact I didn’t know about this guy at all but the deep dive is kind of funny. Guy is now a brutalist greek statue guy, like he unironically wanted to build a greek temple but make it out of grey concrete, he has matured a ton from his car tire days during the 80s.
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Post yugoslavian looking ass reactionary political figure style ass statue
…oh, it’s real. I never knew lol. I thought that was just a shitpost.
Ah well, I stand by my words. The statue was near Amberg and if you go that far into to the countryside, you’re gonna encounter turbocranks and there’s certainly no shortage of them here.
I did the ole half and half, thing happened I just rewrote it in the western journalist voice i.e. not really caring about anything and using the most unfavourable language possible
Do all German statues look like they just shit themselves and don’t know what to do?
I haven’t paid attention to the faces on statues thus far
Thanks for your reporting, notceps. The statue falling over is the perfect symbolism for the crumbling regime as a whole, as international sanctions take their toll. The evidence keeping pouring in from this deeply troubled northern European nation that their economy is in shambles and a political collapse of the ruling junta seems inevitable. Here’s to hoping that the brainwashed citizenry of this state, which has experienced so much turmoil and internal conflict over its history, can rise up against their oligarchs and create a democracy. More on the Hexbear News Network after these short messages from our sponsor, Xi Jinping.
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They’re sending in the replacement asap
#SOSGermany
The
we have at home:
Nice try, Nürnberg is far from a CSU stronghold. It’s a big city and is split into two electoral districts, the northern of which was only won by the CSU because of Green Party/SPD vote splitting.
The left party was able to get up to 10% in the city in the 2010s before the party started collapsing (and before the sex pest allegations).
The cities surrounding it are even less of fertile ground for the CSU.
The Fürth City council election 2020 had the Socdems get 42% of the vote, the Greens 20% and the Left Party 6% - That’s like Hamburg or Bremen results.
If you’re looking for CSU strongholds, look at cities in the south-east of Bavaria, like say Altötting - 66% for the CSU in 2013 (nowadays less because of a strong fash)