RABAT

Morocco complained on Thursday that international aid to help it fight off a plague of locusts threatening its crops has fallen far short of what is needed. Since June 30 on average 106 000 hectares a day have been infested and swarms are heading south, in particular to Mauritania, Mali and Senegal.

Five Moroccan left-wing parties have set up a new grouping called the Rally of the Democratic Left (RGD), the main aim of which is to lay the groundwork for a fully-fledged political party, the group said on Wednesday. ”A left-wing party … based on a multiplicity of ideologies has not yet been tested in our country,” an RGD spokesperson said.

More than 20 aftershocks rattled northwestern Morocco through the night and into Wednesday morning in the wake of the killer earthquake on Tuesday that claimed more than 560 lives in the region of Al Hoceima. One of the aftershocks measured 4,2 on the Richter scale, after the primary quake that registered 6,3.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=31755">Flouting of building law blamed</a>

A powerful earthquake measuring more than six points on the Richter scale struck northern Morocco overnight on Tuesday, killing at least 300 people. Local rescue workers and medical staff said several hundred people were injured. The death toll was expected to rise throughout the day, the Interior Ministry said.

A parliamentary commission in Morocco has unanimously recommended a new family code putting wives on a more equal footing with their husbands, officials said on Thursday. The legal age at which girls can marry will be raised from 15 to 18 and polygamy will be permitted only under highly restrictive conditions.