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As the death toll from the powerful earthquake in Morocco rose on Saturday, questions mounted about the vulnerability of buildings in the seismically active North African country. Moroccan architects said that the hardest-hit areas were rural zones with many earthen houses that were unable to withstand the shaking. “Given the state of the buildings in the country, this death toll was kind of expected,” said Anass Amazirh, an architect in the northern city of Casablanca. Image Rescue workers searching for survivors in a collapsed house in Moulay Brahim, in Morocco’s Al Haouz Province, on Saturday. “These more extreme risks occur regularly in other countries,” the report said, “and Morocco cannot avoid taking them into account.”

Persons: “, ”, Anass Amazirh, Omar Farkhani, Fadel Senna, Mr, Farkhani, Al Hoceima, Al, Haouz, Amazirh Organizations: Morocco’s, of Architects, ., Agence France, Moroccan, Organization for Economic Cooperation, Development Locations: Marrakesh, Morocco, Moroccan, Casablanca, Al Haouz, Moulay Brahim, Morocco’s Al Haouz Province, Al, Al Hoceima, “

Residents of Morocco who experienced the earthquake firsthand said that confusion had quickly turned into chaos when their walls started shaking and objects started crashing to the ground. In Amizmiz, a town about 30 miles southwest of Marrakesh that is near the epicenter, Yasmina Bennani was about to go to sleep on Friday night when she heard a loud noise. “I felt terrorized,” said Ms. Bennani, 38, a journalist who, like many people in the area, lives in a house made of clay bricks. “It didn’t last long but felt like years,” Ms. Bennani said. “The adrenaline took over,” Mr. Kourkouz told BFMTV.

Persons: Bennani, ”, ” Ms, “, “ Mustapha, Hassan, Ilhem, Maftouh, ” Yacine, France’s, Mr, Kourkouz, BFMTV, ” Raja Bouri, Ms, Bouri Locations: Marrakesh, Saturday, Morocco, Moroccan, Agadir

African leaders allied with Russia had grown used to dealing with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the swaggering, profane mercenary leader who traveled the continent by private jet, offering to prop up shaky regimes with guns and propaganda in return for gold and diamonds. But the Russian delegation that toured three African countries last week was led by a very different figure, the starchy deputy defense minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. Dressed in a khaki uniform and a “telnyashka” — the horizontally-striped undergarment of Russian armed forces — he signaled conformity and restraint, giving assurances wrapped in polite language. “We will do our best to help you,” he said at a news conference in Burkina Faso. The contrast with the flamboyant Mr. Prigozhin could not have been sharper, and it aligned with the message the Kremlin was delivering: After Mr. Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash last month, Russia’s operations in Africa were coming under new management.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Yunus, bek Yevkurov, —, ”, Prigozhin, Prigozhin’s Locations: Russia, Burkina Faso, Africa

☆ In Push to Modernize Cairo, Cultural Gems and Green Spaces Razed
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-26 | by ( Vivian Yee | More About Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gardens have vanished, and with them many of Cairo’s trees. Few cities live and breathe antiquity like Cairo, a sun-strafed, traffic-choked desert metropolis jammed with roughly 22 million people. But President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is modernizing this superannuated city, fast. And he considers the construction as one of the major accomplishments of his tenure. “There is not a single place in Egypt that has not been touched by the hand of development,” Mr. el-Sisi proclaimed in a recent speech.

Persons: Abdel Fattah el, Mr, Sisi Locations: Cairo, Egypt

Dozens of countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS, a group encompassing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa that views itself as a counterweight to the West, and is meeting this week in Johannesburg. Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are thought to be among those most likely to be admitted. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India is said to be concerned about adding nations close to Beijing; India and China have border disputes and tend to consider each other potential adversaries. Here is a look at some of the nations vying to join. Saudi ArabiaThe addition to BRICS of Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s leading oil producers, would add economic clout to the group and bolster its chances of positioning itself as a rival to the U.S.-led financial order.

Persons: Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi Locations: BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Johannesburg, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Beijing, U.S

☆ In Egypt, Public Classrooms Are Empty as Private Tutors Get Rich
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( Vivian Yee | More About Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Asked what classes were like in her last year of high school, the fateful period when students across the country cram for Egypt’s life-defining national exams, Nermin Abouzeid looked blank for a second. “We don’t actually know because she never went to high school,” explained her mother, Manal Abouzeid, 47. A child of the dusty alleyways of a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Cairo, she was determined, by middle school, to become a cardiologist. But medical schools accept only the top scorers on the national exams. She abandoned Egypt’s chronically overcrowded and underfunded schools midway through middle school, joining millions of other students in private tutoring, where the same teachers who were paid too little at school to bother teaching could make multiples of their day-job salaries on exam-prep classes.

Persons: Nermin Abouzeid, ”, Manal Abouzeid Locations: Cairo

When the government in Iran ordered the nation to shut down for two days starting on Wednesday to conserve energy and protect public health because of “unprecedented” broiling summer heat, Iranians and experts alike quickly discerned another, unspoken reason for the enforced holiday. Iran simply does not have enough natural gas, or a strong enough power grid, to keep all the lights on despite sitting on the second-largest reserves of natural gas in the world. And, as skeptical residents pointed out, much of Iran experiences blistering heat every year, especially in the south, which has already endured debilitating temperatures this summer. “I don’t feel any temperature difference at all,” said a 42-year-old bookstore worker named Nima in Tehran, the capital. “This is not unprecedented at all.”

Persons: ”, Nima Locations: Iran, Tehran, “

Wildfires devouring swaths of Algeria’s Mediterranean coast have killed 34 people over two days, the Algerian authorities said on Tuesday, as an extreme heat wave sears North Africa, Southern Europe and the sea between them. The dead include 10 soldiers who were aiding rescue efforts across Algeria’s forested Kabylia region, the Algerian Interior Ministry said. Another 16 people died in the fires in the village of Ath Oussalah, according to Berber TV, a local broadcaster. “I wish her home burned down but she was still alive,” the woman told onlookers in the village. Plumes of smoke rose from at least 16 cities east of the capital, Algiers, including Bejaia, Jijel and Tizi Ouzou.

Persons: “ Organizations: Algerian Interior Ministry Locations: North Africa, Southern Europe, Kabylia, Algerian, Ath Oussalah, Algiers

☆ It’s Scorching in Iran, and There’s Less and Less Water to Help
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-23 | by ( Vivian Yee | More About Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For a month and 10 days of unrelenting summer heat, Sepideh, a physician in southern Iran, and her dentist husband have left the house only for work (and only in the mornings) and for groceries (and only when the fridge is utterly bare). At one point last week, her car’s dashboard thermometer read 57 degrees Celsius, about 135 degrees Fahrenheit. “Only 57 degrees!” she posted. A combination of widening poverty and rising heat is crushing much of southern Iran, where sprawling desert, joined with the humidity of the nearby Persian Gulf, is especially prone to heat waves and droughts intensified by climate change. Although the mercury was lower elsewhere in the country, the misery has still been great.

Persons: Iran’s, Kaveh Madani Locations: Iran, Persian, United Nations

☆ Stranded in a Strange Land, and Waiting for Death
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Vivian Yee | More About Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For nearly three weeks now, more than 1,000 men, women and children from Africa have been clinging to survival in the no-man’s lands at Tunisia’s borders. A few scrubby trees offer fitful shade, videos taken by migrants show, and border guards from neighboring Libya and Tunisian aid workers occasionally drop off water and a bit of bread. Over and over, they sent pleas for help from the dwindling number of phones they managed to keep charged:“Please help us. We are dying,” one wrote to The New York Times on Saturday. If there’s any way you can help us …”By Sunday, the text messages had stopped.

Persons: ” Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Africa, Tunisia’s, Libya, Sfax, Europe, North Africa

☆ Egyptian Graduate Student and Rights Advocate Is Jailed by Egypt
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Vivian Yee | More About Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An Egyptian graduate student and human rights advocate accused of spreading “fake news” was sentenced to three years in prison in Egypt on Tuesday, a harsh conclusion to a case that had inspired a mass outpouring of support in Italy, where he studied, and in Egypt. Just recently, the student, Patrick Zaki, had earned a master’s degree with distinction, defending his thesis to professors at the University of Bologna by videoconference because Egypt had barred him from traveling. Mr. Zaki was convicted of disseminating fake news — a charge prosecutors routinely bring against Egyptians who speak up about political matters — for a 2019 article he published online describing his experiences as a member of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. As soon as the verdict was announced, Mr. Zaki, who was released from pretrial detention in December 2021, was rearrested in the courtroom, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the rights group where he had worked as a researcher.

Persons: ”, Patrick Zaki, Zaki Organizations: University of Bologna, Christian, Egyptian, Personal Rights Locations: Egypt, Italy, videoconference

On Tuesday, Phoenix was poised to break its own record for consecutive days of high temperatures of at least 110 degrees. “We see people passing out from full-blown heat stroke with a core body temperature of 104 degrees,” he said. The persistent heat in the Southwest is the result of a high-pressure system that has been parked over the region for weeks. Credit... Go Nakamura/ReutersIn Texas, the heat this year has prompted cotton plants, especially in the southern parts of the state, to bloom early. The spot where he stood was already under a heat advisory, with heat indexes forecast to reach around 110 degrees on Tuesday.

Persons: Phoenix, ”, Mazey Christensen, Matt Salerno, “ We’re, Alex Guerrero, Adriana Zehbrauskas, Ramsay de, Charles Outen, Zach Stone, Rocky Martinez, Rebecca Noble, Dee Lee, Brandon Bell, Jerald Moser, Moser, Michael Crimmins, Go Nakamura, “, Josh McGinty, Mr, McGinty, Ralph Horton, Horton, Maggie Miles, Jack Healy, Sheryl Kornman Organizations: Sweet Republic, Phoenix . Business, National Weather Service, Phoenix Fire Department, The New York Times, Weather Service, Demuth Community Center, Salvation Army Tucson Hospitality House, Tucson Medical, University of Arizona, Houston ., Reuters, Texas Locations: Phoenix, Phoenix ., Santa Fe, New Mexico, Arizona, Northern, Michigan, New York, Vermont, Palm Springs, Calif, Southern California, Tucson, Ariz ., Ariz, Maricopa County, Ironwood, Marana, Houston, Reuters In Texas, Corpus Christi, Southern, Jackson, Miss, Montgomery, Ala, Tallahassee, Fla, Vicksburg, Texas, Mississippi

Iran is once again deploying police officers on the streets to enforce its conservative dress code for women, which many have flouted since the protest movement that rattled the country began last fall, according to state news media and social media posts. Months into the protests, Iran quietly withdrew the morality police from the streets in an apparent concession to try to calm the nationwide upheaval against the government. The protests began last September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in custody after the morality police accused her of violating the dress code and arrested her on a Tehran street. A spokesman for Iran’s police force, Gen. Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, said on Sunday that effective immediately, police officers would begin patrolling to “deal with those who, unfortunately, regardless of the consequences of dressing outside the norm, still insist on breaking the norm.” He added that the patrols would “expand public security and strengthen the foundation of the family.”He said the police would first warn people caught breaking the hijab law governing dress, which requires women to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing that hides the shape of their bodies. Those who still refused to comply, he said, would be prosecuted.

Persons: Mahsa Amini, Saeed Montazer al, Mahdi, ” Locations: Iran, Tehran

☆ In Tuna-Obsessed Tunisia, a Favorite Food Becomes a Lot Less Affordable
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Perhaps you are one of the more than 5,000 subscribers to “Popping Tins,” an email newsletter devoted exclusively to tinned seafood. Perhaps you belong to a tinned-fish-of-the-month club, or have leafed through a tinned-fish-focused cookbook that tells you how best to cook a food already cooked. Perhaps you, like some TikTok users, even hold a weekly “tinned-fish date night” with your spouse. The Tunisians put canned tuna on salads. Pizza arrives with a handful of canned tuna in the middle.

Persons: Pizza, “ Locations: Tunisia, Italy, brik

☆ What’s In Our Queue? ‘The Silences of the Palace’ and More
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

What’s In Our Queue? ‘The Silences of the Palace’ and MoreI’m The Times’s North Africa bureau chief. Based in Cairo, I’m always trying to better understand my region while staying connected to home in America. Here are five things I’ve read, seen and watched lately →

Persons: I’m Locations: North Africa, Cairo, America

☆ Egypt Spars With Dutch Museum Over Ancient History
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-18 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A new Dutch museum exhibit declares, “Egypt is a part of Africa,” which might strike most people who have seen a map of the world as an uncontroversial statement. But the show at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden goes beyond geography. It explores the tradition of Black musicians — Beyoncé, Tina Turner, Nas and others — drawing inspiration and pride from the idea that ancient Egypt was an African culture. The exhibit is framed as a useful corrective to centuries of cultural erasure of Africans. And some feel that it is their culture and history that are being erased in the Western quest to correct historical racism.

Persons: — Beyoncé, Tina Turner, Nas Organizations: National Museum of Antiquities, Facebook Locations: Egypt, Africa, Leiden, African, United States, Netherlands, East, North Africa

☆ Tunisians Mourn a Hard-Fought Freedom Rapidly Slipping Away
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mosaïque FM, Tunisia’s most popular radio station, comes to life each morning around 5:30 a.m. with the martial strains of the national anthem. The show’s host, Hajer Tlili, says she specializes in catching politicians out in their inconsistencies and hypocrisies. But lately, it has been Ms. Tlili who has had to consider what she says. One of its reporters has been sentenced to five years in prison; two more have been interrogated over criticizing the government. “Every day I’ve thought, ‘I could be next,’” said Ms. Tlili, 36.

Persons: Hajer Tlili, Tlili, ‘, ’ ”, I’ve, ” Locations: “

☆ Facing Crisis, Egypt’s Leader Tries New Tack: Talking to Opponents
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Facing a ruinous economic crisis, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi recently decided it was time to hold talks with what was left of Egypt’s political opposition, giving them a seat at the table after nearly a decade of repression, prison and exile. But to an authoritarian leader like Mr. el-Sisi, reconciliation only goes so far. Islamists were barred from the dialogue, and much of the secular liberal opposition was not invited. Crucial topics, including anything to do with the ill-defined matter of national security, were off limits. ‌Yet the economic overhaul the government promised has added up to mostly talk and little action.

Persons: Abdel Fattah el, Sisi, Mr, hemming Locations: Egypt

☆ Their Reports About a Woman’s Death Set Off a Revolt. Iran Put Them on Trial.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Vivian Yee | Leily Nikounazar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“They are both full of life and passion, and they were fighting with their journalism to improve women’s lives and status in Iran,” said Amir Hossein, a Tehran-based journalist. “Instead of investigating the causes and the people behind Mahsa Amini’s death,” he added, “the regime began blaming the journalists who brought it to light in the first place.”“What can I say?” Mr. Hossein said. But for many of those involved, an official reckoning goes on: The authorities have executed seven protesters, and at least eight more are on death row. At least 95 journalists have been arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “We rarely hear the details” of the abuses of Iranian citizens by the authorities, the citation read.

Persons: ”, Amir Hossein, “, Mahsa, Mr, Hossein, Hamedi, Mohammadi Organizations: Protect Journalists Locations: Iran, Tehran

☆ Whose Queen? Netflix and Egypt Spar Over an African Cleopatra.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On this much, at least, everyone can agree: Cleopatra was a formidable queen of ancient Egypt, the last of the Macedonian Greek dynasty founded by Alexander the Great, who went on to even greater posthumous fame as a seductress, immortalized by Shakespeare and Hollywood. Beyond that, many of the details are fuzzy — which is how one of the world’s dominant streaming services ended up in an imbroglio with modern-day Egypt recently, called out by online commenters and even the Egyptian government for casting a Black actress to play Cleopatra in the Netflix docudrama series “African Queens,” which airs on Wednesday. Soon after the show’s trailer appeared last month, Netflix was forced to disable comments as they turned into a hostile, and occasionally racist, pile on. For the show’s makers, the four episodes about Cleopatra were a chance to celebrate one of history’s most famous women as an African ruler, one they portray as Black. But for many Egyptians and historians, that portrayal is at best a misreading, and at worst a negation, of Egyptian history.

☆ Arab League Votes to Readmit Syria, Ending a Nearly 12-Year Suspension
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Arab nations agreed on Sunday to allow Syria to rejoin the Arab League, taking a crucial step toward ending the country’s international ostracism more than a decade after it was suspended from the group over its use of ruthless force against its own people. Now, the region is normalizing relations, increasingly convinced that Arab countries are gaining little from isolating Syria, as the United States has urged them to. Refusing to deal with Syria means ignoring the reality that its government has all but won the war, proponents of engagement argue. That leaves Syria poised for a triumphant return this month in Saudi Arabia at the Arab League’s next summit — perhaps represented by President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader accused of committing war crimes against his own people over the past decade. Syria’s rehabilitation could unlock billions of dollars in reconstruction projects and other investments for its tottering economy, further propping up Mr. al-Assad.

☆ Iran Targets Businesses to Stop Women Defying Hijab Law
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Vivian Yee | Leily Nikounazar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The cafe had run afoul of Iranian law by serving women who were not covering their hair with head scarves, they said. Since then, the cafe’s management has been summoned repeatedly by the authorities and ordered to warn customers to wear their scarves. Mohammad, the owner, grudgingly did the bare minimum, putting a sign on the wall telling women to respect the hijab law. Emboldened since the women-led protests that broke out last fall, which turned into nationwide demonstrations against the Islamic Republic, growing numbers of Iranian women have started going around without head scarves and wearing Western-style clothes. In Iran, Mohammad said, forcing women to wear the hijab is a lost cause.

☆ An Exodus by Bus From Sudan: Sniper Fire, Desert Journeys and Fear
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

ASWAN, Egypt — It was the middle of the night, but the first thing Mawahib Mohammed did was make a beeline for the shower, the first she had taken in a week. As one of the thousands of Sudanese who had crossed the border to Egypt in recent weeks, she had barely slept in six days and used a bathroom only once, she said. When she got out of the shower, she still felt filthy, she said. When Ms. Mohammed, 47, returned to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, from Dubai four years ago, she had imagined something different: Helping to build a modern, democratic society after a revolution brought down Sudan’s longtime dictator. Instead, over the last week, she and her family found themselves running pell-mell from Khartoum as it veered toward civil war.

Many other hospitals were also reported to have come under attack on Monday, the third day of fighting in Sudan. Russia has also been trying to make inroads in Sudan, and members of the Kremlin-affiliated Wagner private military company are posted there. Leaders from around the world called for a cease-fire, but it was not clear who, if anyone, was in control of Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country, by area. “Everyone is afraid,” said Ahmed Abuhurira, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer who went out to try to charge his cellphone. “The humanitarian situation in Sudan was already precarious and is now catastrophic,” he said.

☆ Tunisia Arrests a Leading Opposition Figure
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Vivian Yee | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That unpopularity has made Ennahda a convenient target of Mr. Saied’s campaign against political rivals, with Mr. al-Ghannouchi the most prominent opponent to be targeted so far. Ennahda said about 100 plainclothes police officers raided and searched Mr. al-Ghannouchi’s home in the capital, Tunis, taking him and another party member to a military barracks. The authorities then raided Ennahda’s Tunis headquarters, arresting two other prominent party officials, and searched the home of Mr. al-Ghannouchi’s daughter, according to Ennahda and Tunisian prosecutors. “The Ennahda movement condemns this very dangerous development and demands the immediate release” of Mr. al-Ghannouchi, the party said in a statement posted on the leader’s Facebook page. “It also calls on all liberals to stand together in the face of these oppressive practices.”

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