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An Afghan woman stands next to her house after a recent earthquake in Chahak village in the Enjil district of Herat province, Afghanistan. Three deadly quakes have plagued the region this month.
Hard Numbers: Quake hits Afghanistan again, Venezuela’s opposition field narrows, Oz rejects “The Voice,” antisemitic attacks on the rise
11: The field is narrowing slightly ahead of the opposition primary in Venezuela next week, the winner of which will face off with Nicolás Maduro in 2024. Freddy Superlano, of the Voluntad Popular party, withdrew from the race on Friday, throwing his support behind frontrunner Maria Corina Machado, a neoliberal from the Vente Venezuela party who supports privatization and reducing the size of the state. Machado is the leader of the remaining 11 candidates, and while she has been disqualified from running by Chavista-controlled courts, that isn’t stopping her – or her supporters.
60: Australians decisively voted “No” on Saturday to a proposal to amend the constitution to allow Indigenous people to create a body that represents them in government. Dubbed “The Voice,” the proposal was rejected by 60% of voters, while 40% voted yes. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, while disappointed by the result and divisiveness of the campaign, said he respected the results and the democratic process.
50: With war raging between Hamas and Israel, there has been a shocking rise in antisemitic attacks around the globe. In the UK, there was a fourfold increase in antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7 and 10 – a total of 89 episodes – compared to 21 from the same period a year ago. In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, there were 50 antisemitic acts last week, and in the US, where hate crimes have already been on the rise, there is fear of a spike in antisemitic attacks linked to the violence in the Middle East.
An early warning system from the UN to avert global disasters
Imagine a world in which all climate catastrophe's are preceded with an early warning system. That is exactly what the UN's "Early Warnings for All" initiative intends to provide for the world by 2027.
"If you have a 24-hour before-the-disaster warning, you can save up to 30% of economic loss, and more importantly, mortality is eight times less," says Mami Mizutori who works on the Disaster Risk Reduction team at the United Nations.
Mizutori highlights how 30 countries have already joined the initiative and there was wide support at the recent Climate Ambition Summit at UNGA78.
The discussion was moderated by Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic and was held by GZERO Media in collaboration with the United Nations, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, and the Early Warnings for All initiative.
Watch the full Global Stage conversation: Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer?
The history of disasters
It's easy to judge the Pompeiians for building a city on the foothills of a volcano, but are we really any smarter today? If you live along the San Andreas fault in San Francisco or Los Angeles, geologists are pretty confident you're going to experience a magnitude 8 (or larger) earthquake in the next 25 years—that's about the same size as the 1906 San Francisco quake that killed an estimated 3,000 people and destroyed nearly 30,000 buildings. Or if you're one of the 9.6 million residents of Jakarta, Indonesia, you might have noticed that parts of the ground are sinking by as much as ten inches a year, with about 40 percent of the city now below sea level.
The fact is, human beings just aren't all that great at learning from past disasters, and that includes the ones we can see coming, like those caused by climate change. Firefighters in the American West, for instance, are bracing for the worst wildfire season in recorded history, thanks to protracted drought and record-high temperatures. And yet, a June report found that California state and local officials are encouraging rebuilding in areas destroyed by wildfires.
After more than a year of enduring the greatest calamity of our lifetimes in the COVID-19 pandemic, it's time we learned a lesson or two from the disasters of the past.
Watch the episode: Predictable disaster and the surprising history of shocks
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Earthquake of magnitude 6.1 hits Mindanao, Philippines
The earthquake, which is tectonic in origin, will trigger aftershocks.
Earthquake of magnitude 6.3 strikes near Mindanao, Philippines: USGS
MANILA (REUTERS) - An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck 82km east-northeast of General Santos in Mindanao, the Philippines, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said on Sunday (Sept 6).
'Overstated magnitude' caused quake alert that set Tokyo on edge
TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) - Tokyo residents were rattled on Thursday (July 30) morning after an alert broadcast to smartphones across the capital warned of an impending magnitude 7.3 earthquake about to hit the capital - only for no quake to arrive.
Earthquake of 7.5 magnitude hits remote area of Indonesia, no tsunami warning
JAKARTA (REUTERS) - An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 struck in a remote area of Indonesia in the Banda Sea on Monday (June 24), the USGeological Survey (USGS) said, but there were no initial tsunami warnings.
Magnitude 5.5 quake hits eastern Japan, no immediate damage
TOKYO (REUTERS) - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 hit eastern Japan on Monday morning (June 24), the Japan Meteorological Agency said.