Fans are hoping that yet another contentious decision by the Confederation of African Football does not mar what should be a memorable event
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/ 27 February 2009
A Moroccan court convicted 18 people over a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca six years ago that left 45 dead.
A fire roared through a mattress factory in a poor section of Casablanca, killing up to 55 workers and injuring at least 12 others. A rescue chief said firefighters arrived hours late and that the emergency exit of the building was blocked. The fire broke out midmorning Saturday in an industrial neighborhood outside of sprawling Casablanca, the economic centre of this North African country.
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/ 25 September 2007
Violent protests against the cost of bread have prompted the Moroccan government to annul a 30% price hike linked to soaring global grain costs. Protesters clashed with police and cars were torched and buildings damaged in the demonstrations on Sunday in Sefrou, 200km east of the capital, Rabat.
A Moroccan court sentenced a journalist to eight months in prison on Wednesday and gave a suspended six-month sentence to his boss for publishing secret military intelligence documents. The verdicts came a week after a military court handed down stiff sentences to eight army officers involved.
Two suicide bombers killed themselves in an attack on United States diplomatic offices in Morocco’s commercial hub Casablanca on Saturday in the first such targeted bombings in four years, witnesses said. Two suicide bombers killed themselves in an attack on United States diplomatic offices in Morocco’s commercial hub Casablanca on Saturday in the first such targeted bombings in four years, witnesses said.
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Friday urged North African countries to work together against terrorism following this week’s suicide bombings in Algiers and Casablanca. Two suicide car bombings in Algiers on Wednesday killed 33 people and injured more than 220.
In the single-room shack in Casablanca that has been her home for 27 years, Rachida Raydi laments the loss of two of her seven children, who both ended their lives as suicide bombers. ”I hadn’t seen Ayoub for 10 months and Abdelfettah for nine months. I’m against terrorism,” their 46-year-old mother said.
Moroccan police set up road blocks and barricades on Thursday around the Casablanca district in bid to find accomplices of three suicide bombers who blew themselves up this week. Two men were arrested, including one who entered a house and threatened to blow himself up if he was not given food, a police source said.
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.
A royal birth followed immediately by an amnesty for more than a dozen death-row prisoners, among others, is being interpreted in Morocco as a signal that the country is on the verge of making history in the Arab world by being the first to abolish the death penalty.
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/ 15 January 2007
A Moroccan court on Monday sentenced two journalists who published a list of popular jokes about Islam, sex and politics to suspended three-year jail terms and banned their magazine for two months. Editors and journalists at Nichane, which means ”As it is”, had feared the worst when the state prosecutor said last week the magazine should be banned for good.
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/ 31 October 2006
Visitors to Morocco have often been tempted by pictures with the proverbial palm tree somewhere in the frame. But fewer and fewer of these trees are now around, and at this rate of decline the visitors of the future might not find any at all. The picture is changing; it is now of the Sahara desert advancing into once-green stretches.
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/ 7 September 2006
President Vladimir Putin visited Russia’s main African trading partner, Morocco, on Thursday, seeking to widen his sphere of political influence on the continent beyond Moscow’s traditional Cold War allies. The visit followed a two-day trip to South Africa where Putin pledged billions of dollars of investment.
Scenes of shock and panic filled the streets of Casablanca early on Saturday after a series of suicide bomb attacks in the Moroccan business capital left at least 24 people dead.