There has been a strong earthquake in Kumamoto, Japan. The magnitude was 7.1 which is pretty substantial and would cause widespread destruction in many other countries. There is serious damage but not widespread.
Some elevated roads have collapsed, but the worst damage has been to an Aeon shopping mall where the earthquake caused an explosion, probably gas, and it’s expected that there have been fatalities in the mall.
Kumamoto is on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. It’s not far from Nagasaki.
There are nuclear power stations around there but nothing untoward has happened to them.
So the damage caused by the earthquake was more widespread than I first thought, but in a way that’s a good thing. The damage was spread over a wide area, but entire areas were not destroyed. It seems that some places here and there were damaged, such as temples with very heavy roofs, but neighbouring properties were largely unscathed.
A lot of the linked video just shows the cool, calm and collected manner in which people dealt with the aftermath. Two minutes in it also shows what you get on your phone when an earthquake strikes here, although it should have gone off before it actually started, not at the same time.
At least 13 have been confirmed as dead. I’m quite sure that number will go up.
Haven’t watched the video (or any for that matter) yet. A friend in Osaka told me that Kumamoto castle was further damaged (it is still being repaired from the previous big earthquake from about 10 years ago).
News of the illegal entry to Cueta has just reached our media and maybe it’s quite commonplace in Europe to see this ? But I shudder if a tiny place gets their population almost doubled in a few days. The population must be in shock, if this continues without any concrete action, surely it’s going to cause plenty of issues and also with my limited knowledge of their motivation, surely Cueta or even Spain would be their final destination?
One simple solution to the situation in Cueta is for Spain to give Ceuta, and the other Spanish enclave in Morocco, back to Morocco. Their territory won’t get swamped by immigrants then.
Of course, Spain could then justifiably seek the return of Gibraltar without being seen as hypocrites.
Was it always a big issue for Morocco? I just googled and Cueta has been colonized hundreds of years, is it something they had been fighting with Spain with? At worst, Spain might just retaliate with force on the illegal migrants.
Without understanding the complexities, I don’t understand why there is a need to keep colonies like this which are technically not in your own continent. But of course there is a consideration for the local population who might love the enclave under Spanish rule rather than Moroccan ones but not willing to move to mainland?
Having been a colony before, I do appreciate not under British law now, but it’s quite scary for the locals must be to see the enclave swamped
I wouldn’t really consider Ceuta a colony. It has been in something like its current configuration since 1415, at a time in which Islamic successor states still existed on the Iberian peninsula. It is really just one of those messy border oddities that persisted into the modern world like the bits of Belgium entirely contained by the Netherlands.
In terms of how the Berber residents of Ceuta and Melilla view the possibility of joining Morocco, I suspect it is not that different from how Singaporeans would view joining Malaysia. Lots of shared heritage, but enough distinct history and material advantage to make it unappealing. They have far more autonomy than they did a generation ago, when they were ruled as part of Granada
Ok i am definitely not privy to how the people in the those region feel. But it seems that the “crisis” is over since the Spanish has supposedly escorted most of them back to Morocco. I am also quite bemused by what some of the illegal entrants said in interviews, that they are forced to return because of hunger and violence. While I am certainly against taking your own vigilante violence, what were they expecting as far as hunger is concerned when you invade people private spaces in big numbers? That they feed all of you? And looking at these illegal entrants, they do not seem like some genuinely refugees or migrants needing help but just taking a punt based on some rules they heard would be in their favour? I am sorry but its almost like the way that Europe has been taking in refugees from Africa and Middle East that its now almost an obligation, regardless whether its a genuine case or not and worse still to countries that do not have a robust integration plan?
As a Singaporean, we do not really shout it but yes we are definitely so glad at hindsight that we left Malaysia or rather a hybrid of we left/got kicked out back then in 1965. Having live so long in a multicultural society where we learned to accept and at worst, tolerate, our differences for a common good thats not based on race or religion, I would shudder to think if I have to go live under the current Malaysian government and past ones even.
Rest in power Dr Jason Arday. May his family be given the privacy to grieve their loss.
He was viciously hounded by the UK media who used extreme methods to cause him distress. They should be held accountable. Cambridge University had a duty of care to see if their staff member was alright.
Another big quake, this one in eastern Indonesia with a magnitude of 7.7. There seems to have been a lot of substantial earthquakes of late. We also had a small one here a week ago. Of course, I hope that’s not a sign of things to come.
It is an incredibly ugly story. I suspect he was not entirely innocent, there are too many questions around him, but somehow he became a focus. What may have been minor embellishments became the grist to hound him to his death.
There were other professors at Cambridge who did much more than he did, they never got the sustained vile media he endured which led to his death and are still in their jobs.
We all know how the UK press operate especially the right wing press.
There is a culture of self-entitlement and snobbery at the top of academia. My brother-in-law had a run-in with a senior figure at Oxford who questioned his credentials. The main issue seemed to be that a working-class Irish man had no place being at Oxford.
He was clearly a fabulist and it was a story that deserved coverage. We now know the top higher education publication in the US had been on it for a while, but were advancing very carefully because they dont have the money for litigation and Arday had hired lawyers who were very litigious. But the extent and breadth of the coverage was so disproportionate. It was gleefully covered by people with an axe to grind. The people who think the things they dont like about the world are caused by culture war warriors pushing the world in the wrong direction (hiring unqualified black people) who do nothing but fight their own culture wars.
My friend’s sister went to a state school and was a brilliant student and got into Cambridge. She was miserable for three years. She couldn’t wait to finish her degree. On the plus side, she got alot of interviews after her graduation.
Majority of the students act as if they were self entitled and the foreign lot were from either royal families, rich military, political families or the upper class british elite. She met a few who were from state schools and hanged around with them.
