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FOM Monthly Electronic Rolling Newsletter
December 2002

    Almanac: Calendar information about cultural and community events in Morocco.   Events in Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, Tangier and throughout Morocco of possible interest to readers are included.  Updated weekly each Thursday.  Compiled as a community service by Mark Parkison of AMIDEAST.  Contact Mark to be included on the mailing list.

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    12/28 Week in Review:  News clips from Morocco
    12/21 Week in Review:  News clips from Morocco
    12/14 Week in Review:  News clips from Morocco
    12/07 Week in Review:  News clips from Morocco
    11/30 Week in Review:  News clips from Morocco

Compiled weekly by Mhamed El Kadi in Morocco and posted each Saturday on this site

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An Amazigh customary legal system has been set up over thousands of years in North Africa covering all aspects of life. In fact, there were customary laws regulating the individual, collective, cultural and political life, and the system of ownership of lands, forests, water and minerals. The Amazigh tribes were organized in confederations according to lands owned jointly, to the geographic space or natural boundaries that allow mutual defense

Thursday, March 8, 2001 By WINDA BENEDETTI  SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

OUARZAZATE, Morocco -- Ung-chigga, ung-chigga, ung-chigga, ung-chigga, ung-chigga. The sound is so loud that, although we're nearly a mile from the source, I can feel the vibrations tickle the soft place where my spine meets my bum. Ung-chigga. It thumps all night long. Ung-chigga. All day long. Ung-chigga. It shanghais the body's rhythms and demands they step up to the tempo. Ung-chigga! Did I mention LOUD?

Wednesday, January 3, 2001 By JOAN BRUNSKILL THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - The 30-plus years since Claudia Roden wrote her landmark "A Book of Middle Eastern Cooking" have been full of further discovery and change, she said. What this book is all about," she said, "is that during the years I've gone on following up, finding out more and better ways people can do these dishes

James Buchan is enthralled by Tim Mackintosh-Smith's edition of The Travels of Ibn Battutah, a Moroccan view of the 14th-century world

Saturday December 21, 2002 The Guardian

The Travels of Ibn Battutah edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith 325pp, Picador, £20

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With only 20 kilometers separating Casablanca from Spain, Morocco is the closest Arab country to the European Union. Nor is the proximity only geographical. More than 200,000 Moroccans work in Spain alone, with even greater numbers living elsewhere in Europe. The majority of Morocco's foreign trade is with the EU. Generally peaceful relations between Morocco and the EU as a whole, and Spain in particular, have characterized this closeness, but the last few

Tuesday, 10 December, 2002, 08:57 GMT By Stephanie Irvine BBC, Rabat

The trial in Morocco of three Saudis and seven Moroccans accused of being part of an al-Qaeda plot has shaken the image many Moroccans hold of their country as a peaceful, tolerant Muslim state.....

    More Alike Than Different: GW's Muslim and Jewish Students Share A Ceremonial Meal at Sundown

As the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Marvin Center Ballroom framed a magnificent dusk slowly blanketing Foggy Bottom, a warm feeling of brotherhood and understanding emerged inside. Muslim and Jewish students filled the room to capacity to share in an Iftar, the ceremonial meal at sundown, breaking the daily Ramadan fast.

They had traveled to Morocco last month to visit development projects, old haunts and long-lost friends and to revive ties to a land they can never forget. They are "Friends of Morocco."....................

Dry: we think we know dry. It's when your lawn needs watering, or when you're thirsty and resent spending £2.50 on a bottle of water. No, that's not dry. Dry is when every drop of water is a struggle in a land strewn with rocks and sand, where river beds haven't seen the flow of water for months.  Travel beyond the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, along the valley where the Dra runs (when it does run

Traveling in Morocco for two weeks, my partner and I decided that the Medina or the ancient, walled city in Fez was our best chance to shop for traditional Berber handicrafts.

The Daily Astorian  tbennett@dailyastorian.com  

Edina Butler was searching for a "drastic, dramatic change in my life" when she signed up for a two-year stint with the Peace Corps teaching health education in the west African nation of Mauritania......

Annapolis Fourth-Graders Travel Depth and Breadth of Islamic Culture in the Footsteps of a 14th-Century Moroccan Man

First came the exotic locales, the distant geographies: Tangier. Alexandria. Damascus. Baghdad. Then came mention of luxurious goods: Ripe tangerines. Green cardamom. Burnt-orange turmeric. Next, these fourth-graders at Annapolis's Key School were stepping into the dusty shoes of 21-year-old Ibn Battuta as the 14th-century Moroccan man made his hajj across North Africa, to Mecca, and then kept going. By the time he returned home, he was a 64-year-old man............

A Muslim country on the fringes of Europe gives the former gangster the scope to wander with uncharted past or future, and the peace to work on his new novel, finds JEAN WEST

IT'S a romantic notion: the tortured scribe poring over his novel beneath a starry African sky. Somewhere in Marrakesh, hidden in the maze of souks in the heart of the medina, the former Gorbals gangster turned sculptor, Jimmy Boyle, has been fashioning his future as a writer.

U.S. officials directing the latest drive to sell America's image to the Muslim world might learn something from students at a youth center in rural Morocco.  While I was a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English to teenagers and young adults in Morocco from 1998 to 2000, I decorated my makeshift classroom with the only pictures around: posters of life in the United States designed by the U.S. Information Service

Peggy Markel fell in love with North African cuisine on a visit to Morocco two years ago. Today her Marrakesh cookery courses explore the country's spices and ingredients. Lori Zimring de Mori joined her to sample everything from sweet mint tea to saffron-scented seafood tagine.

    Grand tours: Paul Bowles travels back in time in Morocco Out in the desert, armed to the teeth

Sex, drugs, fantasies and the machinery of derangement" - the preoccupations of the writer Paul Bowles are well known, as is his connection to Morocco and the Sahara. Indeed, Bowles is to north Africa what Byron was to Greece: he lived in Tangier for most of his life,

Numerous evidence suggests that Moroccans arrived to the Americas at least five centuries before Columbus:..........................

Steve Keenan takes on the mighty Atlas Mountains THE final, steep climb over snow-covered rocks to an icy ridge 1,800m (6,000ft) up the Atlas Mountains was no problem for Gruff. A Super Furry Animal presumably doesn't feel the cold

Paul Mansfield steels himself for the toughest but most rewarding drive in southern Morocco  The Tizi-n-Test is simultaneously the most demanding and most spectacular drive in Morocco. An irresistible challenge - and a bit of a nightmare..................

Not content with an ordinary marathon, Tarquin Cooper took part in a punishing 150-mile ultra-race in the sweltering heat of the desert Running a marathon is supposed to be the challenge of a lifetime. It requires months of training, and to succeed you have to push yourself to the limit and overcome great obstacles - usually agonizing seizures at about mile 20.

Our regular look at countries which rarely feature prominently in the international news. This week: The appointment of Morocco's new government was overshadowed by a fatal prison fire and P Diddy's big birthday bash

Away from Marrakech's hustle and bustle, Carla Grossetti finds tea, tagine and tranquility in the sleepy Moroccan fishing village of Taghazoute Tuesday November 12, 2002

Tourists may be scarce, but north Africa is still the wild, kaleidoscopic, beautiful maelstrom it always was. Andrew Gilchrist gets happily lost Holidays in the Muslim world

A drive across the Sahara desert in a convoy of Land Rovers gave Anthony Browne access to a Morocco normally off the tourist trail. But this is no trip for the faint hearted

Shades of history fall theatrically across Essaouira's pink walls, from Othello the Moor to Sixties hippies, as Euan Ferguson discovered

Cool and stylish, these Moroccan palaces of peace are the perfect antidote to the noise, crowds and clamour of the city's streets. Jill Crawshaw visits eight of the best

One day Morocco was top of the tourism charts. The next it wasn't. Liz Bird went last week to find out if fears of travelling in a Muslim country are well founded

Its mix of the exotic and the downright bizarre make Marrakech the perfect weekend escape. Katharine Viner tries its top hotel

Tangier has always attracted an eclectic artistic community, from William S.Burroughs to Joe Orton. Novelist Jake Arnott gets a taste for its languid friendliness

It's close, but about as different from Europe as you can get. Lisa Sykes walks through the High Atlas with Berbers and soaks up the atmosphereMarrakech's souks

Rory Bremner settles in at an Aman resort, the holy grail of luxury hip hotels, where he's given a naked scrub down with olive soap in the steam room followed by a four-hand massage.But another hour's flying takes you to Morocco, and another world. While the Moors played away in Andalucia, home was Marrakesh, Fez or Tangier. Forget Casablanca: its romance faded with the departure of the last DC3. The airport no longer bears the name Casablanca.............

DNA tests have confirmed that a Moroccan mule did give birth to a foal. Veterinary experts say the foal's father was a donkey and its mother a true mule...............Monday, 4 November, 2002,

I had spent two days at another Peace Corps volunteer's site in the High Atlas, Morocco. He lived in a one-room house without electricity or running water. We collected water from a nearby natural spring. Isn't it strange that I should have to categorize the stream as "natural?" Perhaps that is a reflection of just how "urbanized" I was: down in the provincial capital, where I was living, I could access the internet and listen to the BBC before going to bed every night. The people in this village were farmers, growing wheat, corn, apples, and walnuts............................

King Mohammed of Morocco has announced the line-up of the new coalition government, but there are no posts for the Islamic party that trebled its vote in September elections.................

Looking for an exotic sofa? You've come to the right place. Bring cunning, though--and cash. The lowest dregs of today's popular "North African look"--crude iron lamps and sconces, jewelry with plastic stones, ham-handedly hewn tables--can be had cheaply and easily enough.....................

    Adventures in the sands In Morocco: Mending a broken heart at the world's tallest dunes

MERZOUGA, Morocco -- There are things that awe us to rapture--grand canyons, wild cascades, the immense rolling ocean. And there are other things--cool-rooted flowers, sunrise .............

    MELTING POT One student experiences the sights, sounds and smells of a traditional Moroccan dinner

After tea in the cafe overlooking the Atlantic, I felt keyed up. It probably had something to do with all the sugar in the tea; or maybe my own nervousness in a conversation that kept switching from French to Arabic and back again that caused me to drink more tea than I needed.........................

Human rights groups in Morocco have condemned conditions in the country's overcrowded prisons after a fire killed at least 50 inmates and injured dozens more at a jail in El Jadida.......

    Morocco: democracy denied: THE GAP BETWEEN IMAGE AND REALITY.

Democratic reforms in Morocco were among the few positive findings in a recent United Nations report on development in the Arab world. But the country's most popular Islamist party, Justice and Charity, was banned from September's elections.

UNLIKE other North African nations, Morocco has been consistently occupied by one group of people for as long as recorded history can recall. The Berbers settled the area thousands of years ago and at one time controlled all of the land between Morocco and Egypt. Today Berbers still make up 80 percent of the population....

After over 24 hours of travel, I finally arrived in Casablanca, tired but anxious with anticipation to see two of my closest friends, Janet and Tiina. We were all converging upon Morocco, invited by our friend, Antoine, who was working on the film set of Black Hawk Down, a new film directed by Ridley Scott......

We awoke that morning to find ourselves in the middle of the Sahara Desert. How we had come to arrive there is still a bit of a mystery. I remember something about myself, my girlfriend Johanna and our friend Regan being accosted at a bus terminal, taken to a hostel and being convinced to climb on to the Meanest, most Uncomfortable, Gas infested, Stank-ass animal in the world. I believe they call this animal.....

By Melissa Vinitsky

Let me begin this story with a little bit of advice - no matter what anyone tells you, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, do the Toubkal trek in the Moroccan High Atlas mountains!!! My guidebook says all you need are some good hiking shoes. Let me tell you, that is a load......

In November 2000, the Dublin Simon Community  organized a "Hike For The Homeless" of100km across the Sahara Desert. Nearly a hundred people signed up for this incredible experience and most of them, or rather most of us met for the first time in Dublin airport on the day of ....

The day started well, what with the Alien Registration (Yes, that is the actual name of the department) people's timely stamping of my passport, validating my right to live/work in Eire "til the following May (thus avoiding Immigration hassle en route), followed by another prac test with X Advertising, thereby landing me a new job (despite instilling mammoth fear in having to return to work to resign just hours before I leave)...............

Travel through Morocco for any length of time and you'll uncover a land fiercely traditional and full of daily change, a land of harsh desolation shadowed by lush oasis, and a land where earnest well wishers stand toe to toe with the desperate, impoverished, and outright swindlers. In short, Morocco is a world of contrasts both..............

In Morocco, up in the Atlas Mountains we were heading from Marrakech to Ceuta, and it was very hot and dusty! Down below was a gorgeous blue lake about an hour's drive away. We couldn't wait to hit that water......................

It was on a brief four-day stopover in Istanbul in the late eighties that I first experienced the pleasure of the ancient Islamic 'hammam'. Hammam is derived from the Arabic for "spreader of warmth" and is the ritual Turkish hot-steam room that is combination cleansing spot; social gathering and gossip place; and a relaxing brief getaway from the modern world. Hammams go back to the 7th century and ...............

DEWHIRST workers have lost their jobs to foreign workers paid just 50p an hour, it was revealed last night. The news is the final insult to more than 500 staff at the company's last remaining factories in Wales who will lose their jobs next month.......

MADRID, Oct. 6 (JTA) - Growing anti-Semitism and poor economic prospects are threatening to extinguish two Jewish communities on the North African coast......

Blending two worlds - Europe and Africa - and bathed by two seas, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Morocco is a cultural melting pot which promises the holiday traveller a truly original vacation......

RABAT, Morocco (AP) - As afternoon heads into evening, a haunting call to prayer echoes from the mosque. Women covered with headscarves and veils shop for supper. Here, amid the spice shops and backstreets of the Moroccan capital, one thinks it would be easy to find Muslims furious at the prospect of a U.S. attack on Iraq.

    NEW HOPE, OLD FRUSTRATIONS Morocco: the point of change

"In Morocco, government is all about rain", Maréchal Lyautey is claimed to have said. The truth of his aphorism is dramatically clear this year as a persistent drought grips the land, worrying city-dwellers and obsessing the government. Morocco remains an agricultural country.......

Friday's balloting for Morocco's House of Representatives (the lower house of its parliament) may have seen less fraud and less money thrown about to buy votes than was the case in former.......

Wednesday, 2 October, By the BBC's Katty Kay

A mule has given birth to a male foal in a hamlet deep in rural Morocco. No big deal, you may think, but in fact the birth was a minor scientific miracle.A mule is the hybrid of a horse and a donkey and should be sterile -except in this instance.

Spain's Muslim converts reach out to Moroccan immigrant women and children. By Sara B. Miller | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

MADRID - As a teenager, Elena Rodriguez Arteaga visited the Alhambra, Granada's great Moorish citadel, and became intrigued with Spain's Muslim past. She studied its role in her overwhelmingly Catholic country, and the more she learned, the more she wanted to know.

Moroccan dishes with their spicy exotic flavours are perfect for autumn, says Jennifer Joyce - and they can be made in advance

(Filed: 24/04/2001) Edited by Elfreda Pownall

You can taste the calories in amlou - its three ingredients are Moroccan almonds, argan oil and honey - but that didn't stop Omnivore spooning it from the jar with gay abandon..........................

Moroccan or Corsican, apple or ginger? Edited by Elfreda Pownall. There are more than 100 varieties of mint, but only some are suitable for cooking. 'The best mints to grow are spearmint - chefs use it as a garnish for its neat, flat leaves - and Moroccan mint, which is good and strong for rubbing around a salad bowl to perfume it,.....

Rowley Leigh takes a cook's tour of Moroccan food I SHOULD have gone to Morocco in the Sixties, in my hippie days, but although Crosby Stills & Nash sang entrancingly about the Marrakech Express, they were never my favourite band, so I took the hippie trail to India instead.

In the first of a four-part series Diana Henry embarks on a cook's tour of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and north Africa Places, as well as tastes, are locked up in food. The clear perfumed stillness of a bottle of rosewater, the velvety skin of a fig, the sunburnt colour of cayenne... Our love of foods has as much to do with what they represent as with their taste. Nearly all the ingredients and dishes that, for me, have this other-worldly quality are from Spain, Portugal, the southern regions of France and Italy, the Middle East and north Africa........

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Morocco's second film festival took place last week, attracting Hollywood stars and its share of controversy. David Gritten reports ........

    Local female leaders aid effort to elect women in Morocco.

Kathy Kreiter will climb aboard a plane Tuesday to embark on a trip that will take about 24 hours to deliver her to her final destination -- Morocco. It's the culmination of nearly two years of work by a group of female political advisers from Washington who have traveled to the country in North Africa to advise and train female candidates on the ins and outs of running for elected office and joining government service.....................

Moroccan voters go to the polls on 27 September to vote in general elections. They are the first since King Mohammed VI came to the throne in 1999 amid local media coverage that spoke of hope for a new era of openness and democracy......

A dizzying array of 26 parties are standing, ranging from former Marxist revolutionaries to the one legal Islamist party...........

Morocco's reforms are paying off but the country needs step up the pace of economic growth to deal with poverty and unemployment, according to the International Monetary Fund......

Mohammed Khatiri looks every inch a Euro-Moroccan yuppie as he sits in a stylish Casablanca café. Five months ago he returned to the country he left as a child in 1970, to run a local building renovation business he had acquired with his brother........................

The second Marrakesh international film festival opens on Wednesday in Morocco's southern city. Leading Hollywood film directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola....

Morocco or Tunisia? Suddenly it has become a tough choice, but visitors who love one have always assumed that they would loathe the other. They're in for a surprise, says Sophie Roberts

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September 02, 2002  From David Sharrock in Madrid

THE latest wave of illegal African immigrants to arrive on the shores of Spanish territory is threatening to overwhelm the authorities and aid agencies in the Canary Islands......

Stimulating, mystical and steeped in ancient history and Islamic culture, the North African nation of Morocco tantalizes all who visit its wonders...................

By Michale Carr October 4, 2000

"Psss!" the men hissed conspiratorially, or, "Excuse me! Excuse me!" and "Come see. Only today!" I threaded my way through alleys clogged with hundreds of tiny markets. Canvas tents like those of Berber nomads shielded them from the sun.......

Joe Kuhl, a former Peace Corp volunteer in Morocco, teaches English and linguistics at the University of Georgia............... The old man across the aisle, a shamali from the north, he figured, by the brown-and-white-striped djelleba and the yellow rizah...............

August 1992 by Robert D. Kaplan

For Jack McCreary, it was a moment of sweet satisfaction. A self-described "child of the sixties," who had spent nearly two decades of his life in the Arab world, McCreary was the U.S. embassy's press and culture officer...............

By Mary D. Scourtes of The Tampa Tribune Published: September 4, 2002

TREASURE ISLAND - Whether there's a radiant sunset or the pyrotechnics of a summer storm outside, Karim's Bistro, with its Gulf-side vista, offers a cozy environment................

    Spellbound by Morocco: Dan Neil immerses himself in the fantasia of Marrakech and Fès."

Khalid the herbalist stumps in a circle, pivoting on his withered leg, lecturing. "Cumin, good for stomachaike; sweet curry, for headaike..." We are in his herboristerie on the Derb Zaouia, a narrow stone alley in the medina, the old city of Fès (also spelled Fez), where the ancient buildings lean on one another like.............................

    The Restaurant Owner: He has no taste for hate, even when he's a target of it.

By Laura Coleman Noeth  noeth@gomemphis.com 

When you have the kind of outlook that Aimer Shtaya has, hatred's venom loses some of its sting. Even when it's directed at your religion and spray-painted on your restaurant wall, as it was Shtaya's Morocco Cafe shortly after terrorists attacked the United States a year ago today....

By Geoffrey Moorhouse August 25, 2002, 

Sunday BOOK REVIEW DESK  TRAVELS WITH A TANGERINE: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah.

By Tim Mackintosh-Smith.  Illustrated by Martin Yeoman.  351 pp. New York:  Welcome Rain Publishers. $30.

THERE'S little doubt that Ibn Battutah was, and remains, the greatest traveler of all time. He left his home in Tangier (whose inhabitants are, as the title of Tim Mackintosh-Smith's new book reminds us, called Tangerines) in 1325, at the age of 21, and over the next 29 years journeyed some.......

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- President Bush has proposed doubling the size of the Peace Corps -- to help, he says, "spread the good story" of American values and ideas to the Muslim world. From my perspective as a Peace Corps volunteer in a Muslim village in Africa, the plan seems whimsical at best.......

From the fiery brick-red of Marrakech to the lemon tints of Meknes, Morocco's older cities seem almost to be colour-coded.. The sleepy Atlantic port of Essaouira is a huddle of whitewashed cubes, trimmed in Mediterranean blue, an arresting yet restful combination and reward enough for the two-hour journey from bustling Marrakech.

According to local lore the name "Marrakesh" comes from two ancient Berber words meaning "Get out of here fast!" But in the thousand or so years that desert caravans, warriors, tourists and international diplomats and leaders have been coming here to find an excuse to linger in cool gardens and pleasant, earth-red edifices that sprawl inside and outside the ancient walls, they have found no need to worry about ambuscades of brigands that once made the oasis notorious in forgotten history.

Friday, August 02, 2002 - Jean Godden / Seattle Times staff columnist

CASABLANCA, Morocco - I flew into the Casablanca airport two weeks ago with Jessie Israel of the University........Jessie, fluent in French after her Peace Corps years in Ghana, explained about the T-shirts and mugs....

Moroccans are bewildered by the decision of their new king, Mohammed VI, to choose the night before his wedding to prove his manhood on the battlefield. A few hours before the long-delayed nuptial ceremony last Friday, Rabat dispatched its troops to plant Morocco's Star of Solomon flag on the barren island of Parsley........

    Speech of HE The Ambassador to the “FRIENDS OF MOROCCO” at residence in Celebration of 40+1 years of Peace Corps on June 21, 2002

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In Morocco's first public celebration of a royal wedding, thousands of well-wishers from all over the kingdom thronged the streets to congratulate King Mohammed VI on his marriage to 24-year-old

Marrakesh: What do Lawrence of Arabia, Othello, Star Wars, Tea in the Sahara, Hideous Kinky, Spy Game and Gladiator have in common? The answer is that they were all shot in Morocco.......

The festivities to mark the king's marriage began with the Royal Guard, mounted on horseback and in white robes and turbans. They led a procession from one of the old gates in the city walls, past the crowds lining the central streets, and into the grounds of the Royal Palace. .....

    The Evolution of Food Patterns of a Migratory Moroccan Population is the study of an Anthropology student who is seeking Moroccan informants

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John Mortimer, writer  Interview by Tim Wapshott Saturday June 29, 2002  The Guardian

Why? It is the most incredibly beautiful town. It has white walls, bright blue doors, a huge, sandy beach, and the little coloured fishing boats look just like a Van Gogh painting......

It sounded too good to be true.  When Saed, 25, heard on the grapevine that Gulf-based Al-Najat Marine Shipping wanted to hire 30,000 Moroccans to work on cruise ships, it was a chance not to be missed.............

 RABAT, Morocco - Morocco has dismantled a group that has been linked to al Qaeda and suspected of preparing suicide attacks on U.S. and allied warships in the Strait of Gibraltar, government and security service sources said yesterday........

RABAT: It took the lady in veil and djellaba exactly three minutes before she began swaying to the sound of the band's drums. She wasn't the only one. Her four trailing youngsters and husband shook their hips as they tried to imitate the frantic movements of the bare-bellied dancer on stage.....

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Among the many reflections on the events related to September 11, two of the most profound insights come from Christian thinkers who have focused their analyses essentially on the cultural aspect of the crisis.......

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    Rekindling the magic of marriage.

Sarah Sands gets into the rhythm of Marrakesh.  Marrakesh in May is about 77F (25C). It is also the month when the roses are in bloom, outside the mosque, in the gardens and floating in stone troughs in hotel courtyards. The riad concept suits the hidden glories of Morocco. ......

I am in Morocco to see, and perhaps cross, the Western Sahara. Throughout history, there have been but a handful of land routes connecting the Mediterranean coast to western Africa.  In the east, there is the Route du Hoggar,

    Bush Gets Moroccan View of the Middle East

Nora Boustany  Washington Post Wednesday April 24, 2002 A18

After postponing his wedding and planned public festivities this month as a gesture of sympathy for the recent loss of life in the West Bank, Morocco's King Mohammed VI arrived Sunday on a state visit to Washington without his intended bride.

He lunched at the White House yesterday with President Bush, who sounded out the 39-year-old monarch on an Israeli-proposed Middle East peace conference. Bush plans to hear the views of other U .S. allies when Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah visits Crawford, Tex., this week and when Jordan's King Abdullah arrives in early May, Moroccan sources disclosed.     MORE

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    President Calls for Free Trade Agreement with Morocco.

Office of the Press Secretary April 23, 2002

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Nick Trend returns to Marrakesh and is surprised to find courses that are not only beautiful but empty.

When Morocco's King Mohammed VI arrives in Washington this weekend, he will not be received as the dashing "king of hearts".....

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    Hardworking Upper Darby senior living his American dream with football honors.

Rachid Stoury, an immigrant from Morocco, said his family taught him how to succeed.

By Shannon Ryan, Inquirer Suburban Staff, The Philadelphia Inquirer

After running six marathons in costume to raise money for Save the Rhino - three in New York, three in London - this seemed like a natural progression..........

NEW YORK, Feb. 26 (JTA) -- "When most Americans think of Morocco, they envision Casablanca," says Dani Moyal, discussing the mix of Muslim and French cultures among Jews in her homeland.....

WHEN Moroccans opened their newspapers last Thursday, they could hardly believe their eyes. Across their front pages were large photographs of the striking young redhead who that afternoon would become the bride of their monarch, King Mohamed VI, at a low-key family ceremony behind closed doors in the Royal Palace in Rabat.....

Tourism chiefs in the Moroccan city of Fez are seeking to win back lost trade from holidaymakers who were put off travelling by the events of 11 September........

he Kingdom of Morocco is the most westerly of the North African countries known as the Maghreb........

Tyour Gnaoua is not a person -- it is a performance collective based in Morocco. Like all gnaoua (or gnawa) groups, it consists of musicians, dancers, fortunetellers, and their students -- all the descendants of former slaves from all over the sub-Saharan region........

    Memories of Morocco: For Sephardic Jews, Passover means luscious scents and flavors.

In spring, the breezes that blow through Morocco are warm and dry and laden with heavy perfume from the many Seville orange trees that are in bloom.........

Roasted Lamb Shoulder, Passover Fava Bean Soup, Danielle's Roasted Bell Peppers etc.....

MOROCCO'S King Mohammed VI is more celebrity than monarch. Young, good-looking and fashion conscious, he prefers sharp suits and wrap-around sunglasses to flowing robes and a fez.

TASTING the excitement of a Moroccan bazaar has been made easier with the opening of a new shop in Wellingborough..........

I have to admit even I was nervous about visiting Morocco earlier this month. I wondered whether it was safe to visit a Muslim country just now, not to mention getting on a plane heading hassle of visiting a place where everyone was going to hate me. I'm here to say I not only survived the trip, but was absolutely astonished by what I found......

A traveler finds beauty in the desert of Morocco, from the changing light on its sands to the kindness and curiosity of its people. ..

11 FEB 2002  AAP

Incentives for investors highlight the constraints placed upon the democratically elected government, writes James Drummond

MONTREAL, Jan. 28 /CNW/ - CDP Capital has partnered with the Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion du Maroc (CDG) and other major Moroccan institutions to create a US$30 million fund for Morocco. This venture capital fund, known as Accès Capital Atlantique SA (ACASA), will invest in Moroccan manufacturing- sector SMEs involved mainly in telecommunications, information technologies, agri-business, fishing and tourism.

The Moroccan authorities have stepped in to block a conference being organised by a campaign group which alleges that the Spanish army used toxic gas to quell a Berber uprising in the 1920s.

    A strong, strange scent of history: The alleys of Fez - the most complete medieval city in the world - leave Paul Mansfield both enchanted and exhausted.

On my way to see the herbalist about a miracle cure, I popped into Khayar's for a shave. In his tiny shop, under magazine photographs of chubby Moroccan starlets, Khayar lathered my face and shaved it with a cut-throat razor .....

    Morocco welcomes Polisario's release of POWs

 RABAT, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Morocco welcomed on Friday the imminent release of 115 of its soldiers by an Algerian-backed movement seeking independence in the Western Sahara and asked for the freedom of about 1,400 others.  The 115 men were captured by the Polisario Front 25 years ago at the start of its guerrilla war.

The Polisario said on Wednesday it would hand over the soldiers in a goodwill gesture, but did not give a date. The handover has been arranged in collaboration with the Spanish Red Cross and the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The Moroccan Foreign Ministry said it had been following with great interest European Union efforts to free all Moroccans "held on Algerian soil in Polisario's prison cells." But in a statement carried by the official MAP news agency it added: "Moroccan authorities deeply regret that only 115 prisoners of 1,477 still held in Algeria benefit from this recent announcement despite the positions clearly expressed on this issue by the international community." The ministry said 1,028 Moroccan soldiers had been held by the Polisario for more than 20 years, including some now in poor health.

"Mor