Sep 11 update

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, will meet President Vladimir Putin in “the coming days”, according to the Kremlin. Mr Kim appears to be travelling by armoured train to Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, according to Yonhap, a South Korean news agency. Last week American officials reported that the two leaders planned to discuss the provision of weapons by North Korea to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Rescue teams struggled to reach remote villages in Morocco after a devastating earthquake on Friday night struck a cluster of villages south of the city of Marrakesh. The 6.8-magnitude tremor killed at least 2,100 people and injured nearly 2,500, making it Morocco’s deadliest quake since 1960. On Saturday King Mohammed VI declared three days of national mourning.

Growth in the euro-zone economy is expected to slow to 0.8% in 2023, and 1.3% in 2024, the European Commission forecasts, in a downward revision to its estimate published in May. Weak demand and increasing consumer prices have taken a heavier toll than expected, despite a strong tourism season in many parts of the continent.

President Joe Biden said China’s economic woes made an invasion of Taiwan less likely. He also said that he had not met Xi Jinping recently because the Chinese president had “his hands full” at home. Mr Biden was speaking during his state visit to Vietnam, following which Vietnam Airlines signed a $7.8bn aviation deal with Boeing.

Gabriel Boric and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively the presidents of Chile and Mexico, urged Latin American countries to strengthen their democracies. The joint address on Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of a coup in Chile that resulted in 17 years of brutal military rule under Augusto Pinochet. Hours earlier, a march commemorating the anniversary ended in violence, as groups intent on disrupting the procession battled police.

The yen rose against the dollar after Ueda Kazuo, the Bank of Japan’s governor, suggested he may reconsider the central bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy at the end of the year. By then there may be enough information to assess if wage growth will continue, Mr Ueda said. A sustained increase in wages would allow the bank to tighten policy.

Luis Rubiales, who provoked controversy by kissing a female football player after Spain’s World Cup victory, resigned as president of the Spanish Football Federation. Mr Rubiales said the kiss was consensual; something that the player, Jenni Hermoso, denied. “I cannot continue my work,” Mr Rubiales told an interviewer.

Figure of the day: 7%, Chile’s poverty rate in 2022, down from 68% in 1990. Read the full story.

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PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

America remembers 9/11

“Will anything ever be the same?” The Economist asked after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. On Monday, 22 years on, Americans will remember the roughly 3,000 people killed (19 hijackers also died) and reflect on how much changed starting with that day.

The “Tribute in Light”, an art installation presented on every 9/11 anniversary, will beam searchlights into the sky over Manhattan to represent the fallen twin towers. Kamala Harris, America’s vice-president, will attend a ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which on the anniversary is open only to victims’ families and dignitaries such as Ms Harris. Joe Biden, who will be heading back from Vietnam, will mark the day with a ceremony at a military base in Alaska. George Pataki, New York’s Republican governor at the time of the attacks, has fiercely criticised the president’s unusual absence from the commemoration in the city. The attack initially united Americans. Now, sometimes, it divides them.

PHOTO: REUTERS

A mixed picture for Russia’s economy

The past month has been difficult for Russia’s economy—perhaps the toughest since March 2022, when foreign investors fled the country and the rouble collapsed. Russia’s currency is once again losing value as Western sanctions hit exports. Higher interest rates have failed to support it. Data published on Monday will probably show that the country’s trade surplus is continuing to decline, partly because exports are weak.

But not all the signs are negative. Despite the plunge in the currency, economic activity is holding up, according to a range of “real-time” economic data tracked by The Economist. The deteriorating trade surplus is in part caused by higher imports—a sign that the economy has reoriented itself away from Western suppliers. The Russian economy has a weak pulse, but its heart is still beating.

PHOTO: AFP

Morocco digs through the rubble

The earthquake lasted mere seconds; the cleanup could take months. The death toll from Friday’s quake in Morocco, which had a magnitude of 6.8, has climbed above 2,100. That makes it the country’s deadliest since 1960. Workers have another day or so to find survivors. After that, rescue shifts to recovery. Some Moroccans believe that the response has been too slow. The king, who spends much of his time in Paris, took almost a day to issue a statement on the disaster.

Much attention has focused on Marrakech, a historic city popular with visiting foreigners (it is supposed to host the IMF’s annual meetings next month). But the bigger challenge for rescuers is to reach villages near the quake’s epicentre, high in the Atlas mountains. Roads are blocked and broken, making it hard to bring in heavy equipment. Villagers will be short of food and medicine. They will need prolonged support.

PHOTO: ALAMY

American troops on Russia’s doorstep

American soldiers are in Armenia for military exercises, which start on Monday and continue for ten more days. The drills are supposed to prepare Armenian troops for international peacekeeping operations. They are small scale, involving just 85 American soldiers. But their presence has upset Russia, which has historically positioned itself as Armenia’s main regional ally. It has also rattled Azerbaijan, which has fought two bloody wars with Armenia in three decades.

Russian officials say that the exercise furthers American efforts to draw Armenia into the West’s sphere of influence. Armenia is increasingly unhappy about the influence that Russia has. Earlier this year Armenia cancelled drills with Russia and other members of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation. Its government says that Russia has failed to defend Armenia against Azerbaijan, which has reportedly begun to amass troops near their border. If Armenia is indeed gravitating towards the West, Russia has only itself to blame.

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

The harmful side of ecotourism

Overfishing has caused the number of sharks and rays to shrink by 71% since 1970. Ecotourism companies say that, by arranging for people to dive with wild sharks, they are raising awareness of the risks that the animals face. Around 590,000 shark watchers pay an estimated total of $300m a year for the experience. But a new paper in Scientific Reports, a journal, shows that such activities may harm the very creatures they purport to be helping.

Researchers who tracked whale sharks in Mexico found that swimmers caused the animals to move abnormally, as if they were fleeing a predator. That forced them to expend energy that they could have used for reproduction and migration.

These findings add to a growing list of criticisms of some types of ecotourism. Tourists stress out animals, which can lower their defences against disease. They can also infect animals with diseases, especially when they feed them, or catch diseases from animals. As the ecotourism industry grows, its justification seems to shrink.