Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Morocco races to dig out survivors after strongest quake in 100 years
Summary: At least 2,000 people have been confirmed killed, so far, in the wake of the strongest earthquake to hit Morocco in about a century—weighing in at 6.8 on the Richter scale—which collapsed buildings constructed from traditional, mud-brick materials and trapped what are thought to be thousands of people in debris.
Context: Moroccan personnel bolstered by foreign volunteers and equipment are scrambling to rescue survivors across the central and southern portions of the country, and many roads, especially to hard-hit communities in the High Atlas Mountains, remain blocked, hindering these efforts; smaller aftershocks have also hindered search and rescue personnel, and it’s anticipated that because of these confounding issues, and the strength and location of the original quake, the official death toll could climb quite a bit higher in the coming days.
—The New York Times
African Union made permanent member of G20 at Delhi summit
Summary: The African Union, consisting of 55 African member states—though six of those nations have been suspected because they’re currently run by military juntas—was added to the G20 intergovernmental forum as a permanent member at this year’s summit in India.
Context: This move is expected to add more visibility to concerns held by African nations, as previously only South Africa was a G20 member, and it may require that the forum change its name, as previously it consisted of 19 nations and the EU; the G20 is an important symbolic body because, before the addition of the AU, it encompassed about 80% of the world’s income, 75% of international trade, two-thirds of the global population, and 60% of the world’s land area; those figures will increase as the African Union’s numbers are incorporated, since Africa is the fastest-growing continent by many metrics.
—The Guardian
Maldives presidential election heading for 2nd round after no clear winner emerges
Summary: The presidential election held in the Maldives this weekend ended without an outright winner, making a second round of highly contentious voting all but certain.
Context: The leading candidates in this election present diametrically opposed paths for the island archipelago nation, with one favoring a lean toward China, the other supporting a bias toward India; there are eight other candidates in the running, too, which complicates things a bit, but the meta-narrative pervading this vote is that one of the main candidates would put the Maldives more firmly in India’s orbit while his opposition would do the same for China at a moment in which the India Ocean is being geopolitically carved-up for a stand-off between China and the West.
—The Associated Press
Research by McKinsey suggests that the impact of generative AI will be a lot more substantial on some professions than others, with educators and training professionals seeing a lot of automation because of these technologies, while builders and repair professionals may see relatively little (compared to a scenario in which these technologies were not deployed at their current scale).
—McKinsey
17
Number of people who have been arrested in Cuba for allegedly recruiting citizens to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
The recruited Cubans were reportedly told they would be given civilian jobs (in construction) in Russia, but were actually intended for the front lines of the invasion (other Cuban citizens have already been deceived in this way, and their families don’t know where they are or if they’re okay—only that they were tricked).
The Cuban government has great relations with Russia, but has said they are working to break up this network of recruiters because they are not involved in the invasion of Ukraine, and would not abide this kind of bait-and-switch approach to recruitment even if they were.
—The Associated Press
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