When rumours of a ”gay wedding” spread through the town of Ksar el Kebir, the only evidence produced was a video on YouTube of a man dancing in women’s clothes. Four people are now in prison accused of homosexual acts, Islamists are decrying a decline in morals and liberals are warning that the kingdom risks sleep-walking into extremism.
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/ 12 December 2007
Ecologists say a tragedy is unfolding in North Africa where construction firms are moving in on some of the last unspoilt stretches of Mediterranean coastline in the search for profits. With Spain trying to preserve what remains undeveloped on its built-up shoreline, Morocco has stepped forward as a willing host for large-scale tourism development.
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/ 10 October 2007
In his Saharan robes the tanned Frenchman passed unnoticed in Nouadhibou, a chaotic Mauritanian fishing port with an iron ore terminal and a lucrative second line in drug and people smuggling. Those he befriended knew Dominique Christian Mollard as an undercover worker with a non-governmental organisation.
Sub-Saharan Africa must urgently impose power rationing on companies and populations to limit the effects of a worsening energy crisis, industry and government experts said. Decades of underinvestment in electricity networks and growing populations mean the poorest 20% in the region have no access to electricity.
Divided for three decades by Africa’s longest territorial dispute, a Sahrawi family comes together in a drab courtyard and the women break into ecstatic singing, their bright robes shimmering in the Saharan sunlight. Most are too young to remember the events of 1975 when Morocco annexed Western Sahara and the indigenous Sahrawis took up arms in a guerrilla war.
Three suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up on Tuesday following a police raid on a house in a Casablanca slum in which a fourth man was shot dead, police sources said. Police have been looking for up to 12 suspected suicide bombers since March 11 when the alleged leader of a suicide squad detonated his explosives belt in a cybercafé to stop police arresting him.
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/ 7 February 2007
Morocco’s multibillion-dollar cannabis crop, the biggest in the world, has shrunk by almost half over three years due to a government eradication campaign and drought. But the next step — convincing farmers in the poor northern Rif region to seek other livelihoods — needs heavy support from the European Union.
European and African ministers said on Monday that the waves of illegal migrants seeking a better life in Europe would never be stopped until Europe helps Africa fight poverty. The ministers, meeting in Rabat to reach a plan on migration, were from 50 nations — grouping for the first time countries where migrants start out from, transit countries and the destinations.