Noureddine Boutayeb, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Interior, has revealed that since 2017, the Moroccan government has begun preparing a draft of a national action plan for natural hazards management. This plan is in response to the royal instructions and in accordance with objectives of the international “Sendai Framework” to reduce the risks of natural disasters.

On Thursday, February 4, 2021, the National Action Plan for Natural Disaster Risk Management (2020-2030) was announced, aiming to protect the lives and property of citizens from the effects of natural disasters, and to reduce the risks of such disasters, consolidate the capacity of councils of regions in Morocco as well as the citizens, and to face natural disasters so that sustainable development would continue.

The Minister Delegate further added that the National Action Plan for Natural Disaster Risk Management includes 18 programs within 5 parts related to strengthening the governance of natural risk management, providing information on natural hazards, enhancing flexibility in dealing with  disasters, and preparing for disasters in order to have a rapid return to normal life, reinforcement of scientific research, international cooperation, and provide human competencies in managing natural hazards.

According to Boutayeb, the action plan is based on 4 basic pillars, which are the involvement of all collaborators, both in central and local level, diversification of funding sources for projects related to the prevention of natural hazards, the encouragement of scientific research in the field of prevention of natural disasters effects, increase forms of international cooperation in this purview .

The government’s official indicated that in order to ensure the optimal application of the various programs of the national plan, a number of related projects have been launched to assure effective care of the natural hazards that threaten Morocco, such as floods, soil erosion, earthquakes , etc. Moreover, the government has put in place a monitoring and evaluation system that aims to control the steps of management and implementation of the national plan programs as well as evaluating the degree of its effectiveness through a set of indicators that have been carefully defined according to international standards.

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Beirut will see the daylight again thanks to the pharaonic donation plan. Institutional donors yesterday, Friday, unveiled a program to rebuild Beirut and help its population after the explosion at the port in early August, which killed more than 200 people, estimating the necessary funds at 2.5 billion dollars over eighteen months.

The “reform, recovery and reconstruction” or “3RF framework” plan was designed by the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank. It is a roadmap to help the most vulnerable through international grants and to guide reconstruction funds, in parallel with far-reaching reforms.

The “priority needs” concerning the population “amount to 584 million dollars (about 480 million euros), of which 426 million are expected in the first year”, according to the report on the “3RF framework” published Friday. The costs of reform and reconstruction “are estimated at $ 2 billion” (around 1.6 billion euros).

A plan subject to the progress of reforms

The three authorities warned that international support for the reconstruction of the Lebanese capital would depend “on credible progress in terms of reforms that the government can put forward”. These efforts should relate in particular to “the audit of the central bank, reform of the banking sector, capital controls and the unification of the exchange rate”, or even the definition of a “trajectory credible and sustainable towards fiscal sustainability”.

“Progress on these reforms will be fundamental in order to allow the mobilization of private financing or public loans (…) important for the implementation of major reconstruction projects”, they noted. The institutional trio drew up a long list of urgent measures, including a “transparent investigation” to determine the causes of the explosion of August 4 and the promulgation of a “port law governing the operations of the port authority as well as the customs”.

The explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse housing, according to the authorities, tons of ammonium nitrate without precaution. The tragedy also left more than 6,500 injured and devastated the entire neighborhoods.

An investigation by Lebanese authorities resulted in the arrest of 25 people, including port and customs officials, but no findings have been released at this stage. Lebanon has been stuck for over a year in a deep economic, social and political crisis. In addition to a historic depreciation of its currency and hyperinflation, the country has been without a government for more than three months.

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It has been now two days that Joe Biden was projected to be the 46^th president of the United States although Donald Jr Trump has not yet conceded defeat. The later has been quite silent regarding the whole situation with one thing in mind: the election has been rigged. Since the different media outlets have started displaying and confirming Biden as the next POTUS, his opponent has only made two significant tweets (and Facebook posts) on the matter – though, they are both pretending a fraud in the election. “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” he wrote on November 7^th, 2020 on Twitter and few hours later he wrote that the observers were not allowed into the counting rooms. He even supposed he has won the election with 71,000,000 legal votes. In these conditions, it’s clear that he’s not ready to back down from this and he’s preparing something big on the coming days.

The Supreme Court confirmation

Even though every appeal Donald Trump has made so far ended up being ruled out by states authorities for lack of evidence, it’s obvious that the President is likely gathering more proofs (if any) in order to go to the Supreme Court, the only institution that can actually turn the table in his favour. A similar situation happened after the elections of 2000 which indeed ended up producing different results. Trump is hoping to go to court and have the judges rule out Biden’s votes that are according to him fraudulent or might have been taken from his votes. The battle in the supreme court will be his last stop and he’s confident he will win the election after the verdict from the judges.

It’s important to note that the president has nominated 3 judges in the court and that means things are going to heat up a little bit. Still, without solid evidence, it’s hard to foresee any other outcome out of the allegations Trump has been making since the beginning (even before the election day). Given how calm and relaxed he has been, it will be a mistake to believe that he does not have anything concrete because he knows he will fail (again) in the Supreme court if he brings unacceptable evidence. In events he still does not have such proofs, it’s possible that he’s trying to find another way to give up the chase and accept his lost. Since he has already supposed that election has been stolen, it’s going to be hard for him to pretend the opposite, for the sake of his supporters and his dignity. However, that’s what will likely happen.

A nation towards autocracy or even worse

By simply following Trump supporters’ reactions on social media, it appears that most of them are ready for anything to keep him in the White House. Facebook has been taking down groups of the supporters where calls for violent reactions are often made. The worst-case scenario that can come out of this already divided nation is a civil war first. It’s too premature and possibly phantasmagorical to even pretend this will happen but many non-negligible roads can lead to a series of violent encounters between both sides. In case Trump does not win the court’s appeal, it’s possible his supporters will still choose him anyway as stated by this conservative here. If that happens, the US will be leading to an autocracy with a self-proclaimed president – really one that doesn’t want to back down. But of course, on January Trump will be literally forced to leave the White House if the Court confirm Biden Presidency. Still, some will continue to refuse Biden as the president rightfully seated.

On the other hand, if the election results are flipped in favour of Trump by the Court, there is ultimately going to be an unavoidable flounce throughout the country from Biden supporters and Trump will be this time accused of power abuse and possibly a coup he has prepared way before the election day. By the look of it, Trump seemed to have been aware of his defeat before the vote and the Supreme Court move has been prepared as a backup plan.

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