One of the lesser known criticisms of the recent "Odyssey' film is that parts were shot in the Western Sahara. I believe Emily Wilson herself was critical of this.

It's fascinating. Basically the entire world's phosphate comes from this (it has 70% of the world's proven reserves). No country on earth recognizes Morocco's claims over this Saharawi land. At least they didn't until 2020 when Trump became the first in exchange for Morocco normalizing relations with Israel. The case has been taken to international court multiple times and always ruled against Morocco's claims.

Despite basically the whole world recognizing this unjust occupation, neither the Soviets, the US, Europe, nor China cared to do anything and disrupt this crucial aspect of the global fertilizer industry. The only allies the Saharawi had was Algeria.

Surprisingly, the best researched documentary I've seen on this came from a Youtuber called Cogito: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T2ha4a_AuE

Dakhla is actually pretty tourist-friendly, and spending time there will quickly do away with the notion that nobody lives in Western Sahara. It's well-known for kiteboarding and windsurfing, since it's got pretty consistent wind and surf and a hot-comfortably dry climate. Pretty heavy police presence and you're supporting Moroccan arguable-occupation by heading there, though, so it's a tradeoff.

Not sure if this is some kind of Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or if OP just also did the NYT crossword this morning.

A series of enormous sand walls separate the morocco-occupied region from the sahrawi controlled region. These are one of the largest minefields in the world.

It's impressive to look at satellite images of this. Just a huge sand wall, with hundreds and hundreds of military outposts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Western_Sahara_wall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Western_sahara_walls_moro...

It is interesting that Western Sahara never developed piracy enterprises similar to Somalia. Is it some combination of:

  * stronger government control from Morocco than Somalia has had internally
  * little indigenous sea-faring populations outside of controllable cities
  * sea lanes with less hospitable currents
  * something else?

See also: Morroccan Donald Trump Highway

who submited this to hacker news doesnt seem like a fiting spot