Category Archives: Morocco

King asks Moroccans not to kill sheep for Eid al-Adha as drought reduces herds

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First such request in 29 years blames economic hardship and climate crisis for high livestock prices and shortages

King Mohammed VI has urged his fellow Moroccans not to slaughter sheep for upcoming Eid al-Adha festivities as the country grapples with dwindling herds due to a six-year drought.

The request was delivered on Wednesday by the minister of Islamic affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, who read a letter on the monarch’s behalf on the state-run Al Aoula TV channel. He cited economic hardship and the climate crisis as reasons for the rising prices of livestock and sheep shortage in the north African state.

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Europe greenwashing with north Africa’s renewable energy, report says

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Greenpeace argues European-backed projects hamper countries’ ability to decarbonise their own economies

European countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to “greenwash” their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.

Both Morocco and Egypt are aiming to leverage their strategic locations south of the Mediterranean, and their solar and wind power potential, to position themselves as pivotal to Europe’s quest to diversify its energy supply.

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Refugee shot in eye during deadly 2014 crossing into Spain files complaint to UN

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Survivor of Ceuta incident that ended with 14 deaths asks why use of anti-riot equipment was never investigated

A refugee who was almost blinded in one eye during a police operation that ended with the deaths of at least 14 people off the coast of Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta 11 years ago has filed a complaint to the UN Committee Against Torture.

Shortly before dawn on 6 February 2014, about 200 people tried to enter Ceuta by climbing the border fence or by swimming around the breakwater that separates the city from Moroccan territory.

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One of France’s most wanted alleged drug lords extradited from Morocco

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Félix ‘the Cat’ Bingui due to appear in Marseille court on multiple charges including money laundering

One of France’s most wanted suspected drug traffickers was due in court in Marseille after his extradition from Morocco.

Félix Bingui, known as “the Cat” and reportedly head of the notorious Yoda clan, was arrested in Casablanca last March.

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Former Tesco boss wants to send power from Morocco to Great Britain using subsea cable

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Dave Lewis says the near-constant stream of clean electricity could supply the grid as early as 2030

In the south-west of Morocco, a sprawl of wind and solar farms stretching across an area the size of Greater London could soon generate the green electricity powering more than 9m British homes.

This is the unflinching vision of Sir Dave Lewis, the former Tesco boss who is hoping to build the world’s longest subsea power cable in order to harness north Africa’s renewable energy sources and power Britain’s clean energy agenda.

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Breakdown in global order causing progress to stall in Africa – report

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‘Moral threshold coming down,’ warns Mo Ibrahim, as his index of governance reveals widespread decline in 10 years

The global rise of populism and “strongmen” has led to an increase in authoritarianism in Africa that is holding back progress in governance, the businessman and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim has said.

According to the latest edition of the Ibrahim index of African governance, 78% of Africa’s citizens live in a country where security and democracy deteriorated between 2014 and 2023.

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Dramatic images show the first floods in the Sahara in half a century

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More than year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lake that had been dry for decades

Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.

Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

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Football-mad Morocco dreams of a World Cup final in its own ark

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Buoyed by the team’s success in 2022, the kingdom is eyeing a bigger goal

The rendering is dramatic, a vast white stadium inspired by the design of a Maghrebi communal tent, known as a moussem.

The language used to describe it is no less flowery: think of it as “almost like a Noah’s Ark, a place for all nature and animals to come together”, says Tarik Oualalou, head of Paris architecture firm Oualalou + Choi, one of five teams in the design consortium.

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Spanish police boat appears to run over dinghy carrying four people

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Calls for inquiry as video appears to show Guardia Civil boat knocking at least one person out of dinghy bound for Spain

Human rights campaigners in Morocco and Spain have called on Spanish authorities to launch an investigation after a video appeared to show a Spanish police boat briefly mounting a small dinghy carrying people towards the coast of Spain.

The incident took place on Sunday as a vessel carrying four people approached the Spanish semi-exclave of Melilla. The video appeared to show the larger, more powerful Guardia Civil patrol boat veering towards the Zodiac inflatable, making several manoeuvres before skimming over the top of the boat, causing at least one person to fall out of the small vessel.

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Rapidly urbanising Africa to have six cities with populations above 10m by 2035

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Youthful, growing cities expected to create wealth and opportunities but stretch public and utility services

Six African cities will have more than 10 million people by 2035, with the continent’s booming young population making it the world’s fastest urbanising region, according to a report.

Angola’s capital, Luanda, and Tanzania’s commercial hub, Dar es Salaam, will join the metropolises of Cairo, Kinshasa, Lagos and Greater Johannesburg with populations of more than 10 million, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a report on African cities.

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Moroccan authorities pushed asylum seekers into ‘death trap’, NGO claims

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Border Forensics say dozens of deaths in 2022 at EU’s Melilla border was result of antagonistic security policy

Moroccan authorities took a series of fateful decisions that led to the deaths of dozens of asylum seekers attempting to scale the border fence into the Spanish north African territory of Melilla two years ago, survivors and an investigation by an NGO have claimed.

At least 27 migrants and asylum seekers died when up to 2,000 people tried to climb over the fence on 24 June 2022 – the deadliest day in recent memory along the EU land border with Africa – while 70 others are still missing and unaccounted for.

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Revealed: drug cartels force migrant children to work as foot soldiers in Europe’s booming cocaine trade

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Exclusive: Guardian investigation shows white powder trail linking hundreds of vulnerable African minors with ruthless gangs

Hundreds of unaccompanied child migrants across Europe are being forced to work as soldiers for increasingly powerful drug cartels to meet the continent’s soaring appetite for cocaine, a Guardian investigation has found.

EU police forces have warned of industrial-scale exploitation of African children by cocaine networks operating in western Europe in cities including Paris and Brussels as they seek to expand Europe’s £10bn cocaine market.

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Extra virgin olive oil prices tipped to top £16 a litre next month

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Price rise for mass-market types expected as global production falls to lowest level in more than 10 years

Olive oil prices are set to climb further this year – heading to more than £16 a litre for a bottle of extra virgin – amid a drop in global production to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Lower production in Greece, Morocco and Turkey as part of the natural cycle of olive growth is expected to offset an improving situation in Spain and Italy, where trees have suffered from extreme heat and drought in recent years as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on harvests.

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Scientists unearth mysteries of giant, moving Moroccan star dune

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Parts of the structure are younger than expected while an east wind blows the whole thing across the desert, researchers find

They are impressive, mysterious structures that loom out of deserts on the Earth and are also found on Mars and on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan.

Experts from universities including Aberystwyth in Wales have now pinpointed the age of a star dune in a remote area of Morocco and uncovered details about its formation and how it moves across the desert.

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Refugee files complaint to UN against Spain over 2014 border deaths

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Country accused of violating torture convention in hope of finding justice decade after incident in which at least 15 people died

A 25-year-old from Cameroon has filed a complaint to the UN against Spain, accusing the country of multiple violations of the convention against torture in hope of seeking justice after an incident in 2014 during which at least 15 people died while trying to enter Spanish territory from Morocco.

“A decade has passed and still not a single person has been held accountable for the death and injury of so many,” said the man, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym Ludovic.

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Spanish police investigate deaths of four migrants forced off speedboat

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Vessel was near Andalucían shore when passengers, believed to be from north Africa, were apparently pushed overboard

Spanish police have opened an inquiry after four people were killed as a result of being forced out of a moving speedboat into the sea just metres from the southern shores of Andalucía.

In a tactic the EU border agency has said is becoming increasingly common, the people who died on Wednesday were among 27 passengers apparently forced off the fast-moving vessel by its drivers near Camposoto beach in the province of Cádiz, officials said. Another eight were left near Sancti Petri beach.

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Israel faces blame from regional allies over Gaza hospital deaths

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Several Arab states condemn Israel for explosion, which it blames on failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Israel is using media and diplomatic channels to try to convince leaders of Arab countries that Tuesday’s blast at a Gaza hospital was caused by a misfiring jihadist missile, after even its regional allies rushed to blame it for the explosion.

Tuesday’s explosion, which killed hundreds, was blamed by Palestinian officials on an Israeli airstrike. Israel said it was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denied blame.

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More protests expected across Middle East after Gaza hospital blast

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Hezbollah calls for ‘day of rage’ as both sides in war continue to trade blame for deadly explosion

Further furious rallies and protests are expected across the Middle East and north Africa on Wednesday after the blast at a Gaza hospital that left hundreds dead and injured.

Hamas has blamed Tuesday’s explosion at al-Ahli Arab hospital on an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military says the hospital was hit by a rocket barrage launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which has denied responsibility.

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IMF clings to a hopeful agenda as crisis follows crisis

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At the fund’s annual meeting this week in Morocco, ambitions for climate and debt relief may be overwhelmed by events – again

Last week’s turmoil in the global bond markets will be playing on the minds of finance ministers and central bank governors when they gather in Marrakech this week for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

After the triple shocks of the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the surge in inflation, the mood may be less febrile than it was a year ago, but few if any of those travelling to Morocco – which suffered a devastating earthquake last month – would dare say that the crisis era is over. Most will be wondering what might go wrong next.

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‘We need to start again’: Morocco’s earthquake puts girls’ education at risk

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Charity that runs boarding houses to help girls in remote Atlas mountains get to school scrambles to find out what facilities remain

When a powerful earthquake struck deep below Morocco’s Atlas mountains last Friday night, the school year had only just begun. Staff from a girls’ education charity who had stayed late at work suddenly found themselves jolted by the force of a 6.8 magnitude quake as the walls of their offices crumbled around them to expose the cold mountain air.

“Many of the girls who we know are at least alive have lost mothers, brothers, fathers, family members and it looks like many of their houses have also been completely destroyed,” said Sonia Omar, the head of Education for All Morocco, her voice cracking. The charity supports a network of six boarding houses for girls across the Atlas, all situated in villages around the epicentre of the quake.

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