One way to prevent the destruction wrought by a devastating earthquake – like the one that hit Morocco in September 2023 – is to construct resilient homes and buildings.
Photograph from 2022 shows how buildings in Homs, Syria, remain in ruins years after destruction.
Provided to author with request of anonymity.
Wars are no longer fought in the trenches, they’re fought in the streets and civilians are on the frontline.
Face masks depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin displayed at a souvenir shop in St. Petersburg, Russia. Prigozhin reportedly died in a plane crash on Aug. 23.
(AP Photo, File)
Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, reportedly died when a private jet he was said to be on crashed on Aug. 23, 2023, killing all 10 people on board.
Kurds and their sujpports demonstrate in Lausanne to protest the 100th anniversary of a treaty which denied them a homeland.
EPA-EFE/Jean-Christophe Bott
Despite initiatives which appear to be normalising Suria’s relations with Arab states, Damascus remains isolated and insecure.
Technicians working to destroy the United States’ chemical weapons stockpile at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot on June 8, 2023, in Pueblo, Colo.
AAP Photo/David Zalubowski
February earthquakes wreaked havoc across Turkey and Syria, killing tens of thousands of people. An engineer originally from Turkey describes what kept some buildings functional while others collapsed.
An unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night several years ago. Drone strikes are now a major feature of modern warfare, including in Ukraine and Syria.
(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
As Russia’s war in Ukraine illustrates, the use of lethal automated weapons, or LAWS, can always be justified. Their ability to desensitize their users from the act of killing, however, shouldn’t be.
A woman and a child stand in a detention camp in northeast Syria in 2022. Tens of thousands of ISIS-affiliated foreign nationals are in the camps, including four Canadian men.
(AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
Brian L. Cox, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
A Federal Court justice ruled four men, suspected ISIS members, must be repatriated to Canada from a Syrian detention camp. Here’s why the decision is flawed and an ongoing appeal is justified.
A woman does laundry at a tent city after the Feb. 6, 2023, earthquake in Turkey.
Omer Urer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
When government responses to a natural disaster do not address the specific needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls, women tend to lose trust in the institutions.
A scholar who visited Syria after the earthquake observes that as the war has dragged on, a humanitarian organization she’s researched for 10 years has branched out.
A placard placed by local activists in Calais, northern France, March 8, 2023. Rhetoric about the threat posed by climate-induced displacement does not accurately portray the reality for most of those affected.
(AP Photo/Michel Spingler)
Recognizing the challenges posed by climate-induced displacement is important. But officials must avoid rhetoric about displaced people that can fuel xenophobia.
Temporary shelters have been set up near neighborhoods in the Idlib province demolished by the Syria-Turkey earthquake.
Omar Haj Kadour/ AFP via Getty Images
The earthquake that struck Turkey and neighboring Syria on Feb. 6, 2023, was a natural disaster, but its consequences have been shaped by the human tragedy of the Syrian civil war.
This form of skilled labour migration should be rethought.
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Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University
Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation; Scholar -In-Residence Asia Society Australia, Deakin University