Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
January 9, 2016

A Legacy of Peace Corps Service in Morocco.
January 2016

Since the first group of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) arrived in Morocco in 1963, over 5,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps’ partnership with Morocco to develop resilient communities through education and similar voluntary initiatives.  In 2010 I was sent to work with Yossef Ben-Meir, president of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), which turns fifteen years old this year. Yossef was an environmental PCV in 1993-1995.  His story, and the story of the High Atlas Foundation, which was founded by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) who served in Morocco, is a testimonial to the lasting impact Peace Corps service can have.

Yossef’s kitchen was a Moroccan version of Whole Foods, so over chicken tajine, I asked him how it all came about.  It’s a story of PCVs’ love of Morocco, of each other, and a lifetime commitment to Peace Corps’ “three goals.”

As a Volunteer from New York City, Yossef was assigned to a remote mountain village where he worked for the national park system and learned how to succeed in agriculture in an environment where water contributes more to erosion than crops. A highly motivated entrepreneur, Yossef knew he had to come back and continue his new-found calling in arid mountain agriculture. When he arrived at the airport, RPCV Tom Anderson, who had finished grad school and come back to run the seaman’s club in Casablanca, picked him up at the airport. Tom urged Yossef to apply for the environmental program manager’s job at Peace Corps-Morocco, which he did.

The friends’ decision to form a nonprofit, instead of a business, set the course for the High Atlas Foundation. It would become an organization that has brought RPCVs, PCVs and Moroccans together.  Fundraising events in New York brought Moroccan culture to America and helped attract a strong American-Moroccan board. Liz Fanning, who had been Yossef’s site mate and fellow environmental Volunteer, served as vice president for six years. Kate McLetchie, who had been evacuated from Morocco in 2003, reconnected, and later became the foundation’s first country director from 2007 to 2009.

In 2003, Yossef and Mohssine Tadlaoui, a Moroccan who had taken over as Peace Corps’ environmental program manager, went to see the U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, Margaret Tutwiler, who had a reputation for toughness.  Yossef and Mohssine were on a mission to plant fruit trees to produce cash crops and help prevent erosion high in the mountains.  Several agriculture experts were present, including the head of USAID. Yossef knew that planting trees was a grassroots business—not in the same league with the large-scale projects USAID was doing—but Yossef had his technical and business model down and was prepared to give it his best shot. In closing, he described the reaction of a mountain community when the first truck of saplings arrived in their village—“they cried,” Yossef said, “because they saw planting a tree as an act of faith.” “Well then,” replied the ambassador, “let’s spread some faith around.” The project was funded within a week and, in 2006, the HAF launched its One Million Tree campaign, which reached it goal in 2014.

These days, the High Atlas Foundation raises half of its funds in the U.S. and half in Morocco, with the assistance of the Moroccan and American ambassadors, and countless others who believe in the cross-cultural partnership.  You will find them at “Heflas” (parties), drinking mint tea and enjoying the food, music and art of Morocco, including Moroccan films at festivals the HAF organized in New York in 2010 and 2011.

Besides planting trees, the High Atlas Foundation has constructed irrigation canals, drinking water supply systems, women’s co-ops, and numerous other projects identified through participatory development meetings in communities. In 2009, the foundation formed a partnership with the state university, Hassan II, to open a Center for Community Consensus-Building and Sustainable Development in Mohammedia.  During my service, I helped create a program at the Center to educate and promote participatory development. Since that time, the HAF has created four new university partnerships. 

In retrospect, I believe that I went to Morocco to meet Yossef and the Moroccans and Americans who continue this legacy of Peace Corps service. 

Lillian Thompson
Peace Corps Response Volunteer, Morocco 2010
Peace Corps Program & Training Officer, Romania 2006-2008
Peace Corps Volunteer, Ukraine 2003-2005
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Source of data in first paragraph: http://morocco.usembassy.gov/peacecorps.html
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Single Moroccan Mothers Face Challenges in Accessing Health Care.
By Kaylee Steck  January 2, 2016
Kaylee Steck is a former Researcher in the Fulbright US Student Program. She graduated from the University of Chicago, where she studied Arabic

Single mothers face several obstacles to enlisting their children in the Moroccan civil registry, which affects their access to education and health care. Issues of health and poverty are often viewed as arising from the people who they affect. This results in the pathologization of vulnerable populations and diverts attention away from far-reaching factors that contribute to these issues. In Morocco, administrative intricacies can make medical care and social services difficult to access, especially for single mothers and their children. The official pathway to public services is registration in l’état civil, the civil registry. Although enrollment is compulsory, the requirements can be overwhelming for single mothers to complete, let alone within the registration deadline of 30 days after giving birth.

Despite the existence of an official route for single mothers to register their children, strong connections between society, religion and patriarchy create stigma that can cause cooperation problems between concerned parties in the registration process. These connections are reinforced by Moroccan law, which deems punishable sexual relations out of wedlock. Due to shame and fear of legal retribution, many single mothers abandon or hide their children. Fortunately, punishing mothers has become less of a priority since the 2004 Family Code reforms, which aimed to put the wellbeing of children first and give single mothers more autonomy in registering their children.

Ostensibly, the reformed Family Code simplifies the registration process by allowing a single mother to declare her child by inventing a name for the father using an approved list and a formula that requires the first name to begin with Abd (e.g. Abd al-Haq). Still, the reforms do not permit mothers to obtain a Livre de Famille, the document that lists family members and proves their civil status. Only men can obtain this book upon marriage. Additionally, there are still many issues with implementing the reforms, due to the lack of coordinated policies between different municipalities and the reluctance of personnel in the judiciary to adapt to a new set of procedures.

Rural Morocco
Hannah Bradley is an employee at the Moroccan Children’s Trust (MCT) who coordinates the Identity Papers Project, which aims to promote a more efficient national civil registration process through raising public awareness, training statutory service professionals and advising difficult cases. She suggests that economic restrictions on single mothers may make costs associated with registration procedures prohibitive. Often, the civil registry office requires a tuberculosis vaccination record to complete the registration process. Vaccinations must be administered in the child’s place of residence, whereas registration must be processed at the child’s place of birth. These requirements are significantly more costly for women who live far away from where they gave birth.
The challenge of registration is even more onerous in rural areas due to several factors. Rural areas tend to be more community oriented, thus a single mother risks damaging the honor of more people and facing more stigmatization. Additionally, rural communities are still recovering from decades of inadequate investment in education and infrastructure. As a result, single mothers in rural areas are more likely to be illiterate and less likely to have access to organizations that support women and children.

Finally, the proportion of working rural women is higher than working urban women due to rural women’s involvement in agricultural activities. These activities reduce the amount of time single mothers in rural areas can commit to understanding and completing the registration process. All this points to the need for more effective information campaigns about civil registration that utilize non-written materials, and for more organizations that support single mothers in rural areas to register their children on time.

Registration is a crucial step in ensuring future access to education, public health and social services. Unregistered children grow up as second-class citizens, without possession of administrative documents that authorize their rights to hospital care, education beyond primary school and employment. MCT, in collaboration with La Fondation Amane pour la Protection de l’Enfance (FAPE), is one of the organizations working to support vulnerable women and children by combating issues that lead to their marginalization and increasing awareness of the national birth registration system across Morocco.

Based on an initial pilot project and a regional conference, MCT and FAPE made several recommendations to increase the efficiency of the national registration system. Bradley emphasized the importance of making the process more accessible through mobile registration and information campaigns in maternity wards and schools.

She also pointed to lack of mobility and time away from work as significant obstacles to single mothers completing the registration process. Finally, she drew attention to one of MCT’s recommendations for change regarding the current naming procedure to reduce prejudice against children with single mothers. In the case of a child with an unknown father, the space for a paternal grandfather on the national identity card is left blank. In order to eliminate discrimination and protect confidentiality, MCT proposes that identity cards not distinguish people based on paternal origin.

The issue of national registration is part of a larger discussion on the equitable and efficient provision of services in Morocco, and the elimination of discrimination against “illegitimate” children through an improved registration process. Nevertheless, costs, stigma and lack of access to information about the process can be significant barriers to registration for single mothers. More coordination between government and associations is needed in dealing with the complex cases of single women and their children, in order to ensure that children do not lose out on their basic rights as citizens.
http://www.fairobserver.com/region/middle_east_north_africa/single-moroccan-mothers-face-challenges-in-accessing-health-care-31011/
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Jews among Berbers: a Moroccan Exhibition
December 4, 2015, Friday

A photo exhibition titled Jews among Berbers was officially opened at the Bulgarian Academy of Science in Sofia on Thursday. Dozens of images, short of making up an entire picture of everyday life of Moroccan Jews, show little known scenes dated back to the 1940s and 1950, when Jewish populations larger than now coexisted peacefully with Arab and Berber Muslims.

The events is part of the Morocco Days in Bulgaria organized by the country's Embassy to Sofia and due between November 30 and December 13, with cultural programs in both Sofia and Bulgaria's biggest city Plovdiv.

What gave me the idea of this exhibition is the fact that both Bulgaria and Morocco saved the Jews during World War II. But what convinced me about the relevance of this event is the resurgence of the speech of hatred on the basis notably on manipulation of history and instrumentalization of religion,” Morocco's Ambassador to Bulgaria, H.E. Latifa Akharbach, noted in her speech addressing guests attending the inauguration. These included Bulgaria's last King an former Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Education Minister Todor Tanev, the Bulgarian Academy of Science's head Stefan Vodenicharov, Bulgarian lawmakers, and ambassadors of other countries.

Taken by Elias Harrus (himself a Moroccan Jew) in the rural areas of the Atlas Mountains and and at the doors the Sahara, the photographs bear testimony to a mode of coexistence and similarities among Morocco's Jews and Muslims: having lived together for centuries, the two groups share numerous customs, and elements such as clothing and cuisine bear much resemblance. Morocco's Jewish population, on the other hand, used Hebrew characters in writing but its language was either Arabic or Berber.

"Diversity is not about numbers, counts or quotas. Diversity is all about culture and values."

Pictures that can be seen now at the Bulgarian Academy of Science have already been shown in Casablanca, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and several other big cities.

"The new Moroccan constitution considers Judaism as part of national identity. This is one of the most significant achievements of democracy, along with the recognition of the Berber language as official language of the Kingdom alongside Arabic," Mrs Akharbach told the guests. "Every minority is entitled to its memory, and every majority has the obligation to preserve its memory".

Morocco is working not only on theory to preserve this memory, being the only Arab country with a museum dedicated to Judaism and Jewish patrimony located in Casablanca, its biggest city and economic heart.

It is Morocco, on the other hand, where a Museum of Judaism should be. Despite being commonly perceived as an “Arab country”, it has never even thought of concealing that the first people to inhabit its lands were Berbers and Jews: well before Arabs did.
See more at: http://www.novinite.com/articles/172097/Jews+among+Berbers%3A+a+Moroccan+Exhibition#sthash.NAmMO7iF.dpuf
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Morocco: activists claim draft rights law fails to treat disabled people as equals
Critics claim proposed legislation designed to benefit disabled people focuses on prevention and diagnosis rather than rights and legal protection.
Celeste Hicks in Casablanca / Thursday 3 December 2015

A draft law on rights for disabled people that has gone before the Moroccan parliament has been criticised by civil society groups for perpetuating outdated notions of disability. Moroccan disability associations are being supported by the campaign group Human Rights Watch, which recently wrote to the Moroccan parliament calling on lawmakers to ensure that the draft law accords full rights to disabled people.

Human Rights Watch says draft law 97.13 “on the protection and advancement of persons with disabilities” focuses too heavily on preventing and diagnosing disability, rather than giving disabled people rights and legal protection. “People with disabilities in Morocco have been treated as objects of charity rather than as equal citizens, leading to stigma and discrimination,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and north Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
Morocco was one of the first countries to sign the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which promotes a human rights approach to disability rather than focusing on medical issues. It specifically calls on governments to ensure disabled people can enjoy “full and effective participation and inclusion in society”.

One of the major stumbling blocks to full inclusion in Moroccan society has been the right to education. Some disabled children have missed out altogether, putting the onus to provide learning on disabled people’s associations instead of the state school system.

“I didn’t want my daughter to go to a special school,” says Soumia Amrani, mother of Aya, 22, who is autistic and still lives at home with her parents. “When Aya was two, she saw her sisters going to school and she wanted to go too, but there was nowhere available for her. I tried to educate her myself, at home with the help of specially trained teachers, but it was very difficult.”

Amrani says she is disappointed with the proposals for the new law, and feels it doesn’t do enough to give disabled children the right to attend regular schools. She feels that money earmarked for disabled people’s associations to deliver schooling would be better spent making existing schools more accessible and training teachers to help children with special educational requirements.

“Moroccans like to see themselves as kindly,” she says, “but we don’t want charity. Aya has spent her whole life living on the margins, with people feeling sorry for her and sorry for me. Her life has been ruined because her right to be included has not been recognised.”

There has also been criticism that disabled people’s groups are not being fully involved in the debate and consultations on the new law. “We’re very disappointed,” says Mohamed Khadri, president of the civil society umbrella group Collective for the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. He says that a previous draft law, drawn up after a consultative and widely praised national conference in 2008, was dropped when a new minister of solidarity, women, family and social development was appointed. “The draft law was abandoned in favour of this new framework law without any consultation with civil society. Now we’re starting again, just wasting time, and disabled people continue to have no protection for their rights. The minister must do more to make sure we are consulted.”

This is the first piece of legislation on disability that Morocco has put before parliament since signing the UN convention in 2009. The draft has been through the lower chamber of parliament, but has yet to be approved by the upper house. Several attempts were made to approach the minister, Bassima Hakkaoui, but no one from her office was available for comment.

For Amrani, time is running out. “I was hopeful when the debate began on the new law that things might have moved on,” she says. “But from what I see now, it’s all about giving money to civil society associations to take responsibility for these people who the government seems to think are unable to lead a normal life. I see nothing in the text about protecting Aya’s rights, nothing about making sure she can find a job, look after herself or live in her own home if I wasn’t around. I’m sure my daughter could have had a completely different life if her right to be included had been recognised from the start.”
http://world.einnews.com/article/300034492/RQGAYnRdSvW_DaYe
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Morocco Transitions to a Greener Future.
Wednesday 6 January 2016 -Karla Dieseldorff New York

Morocco is making strides in its transition to a greener more ecological, environmentally safer and sustainable country. Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and his government have gone to great lengths to make the North African country a leader in sustainable development. According to the report “Green Growth: Putting Morocco in The Lead Against Climate Change” by the World Bank Group published in its website, Moroccans have been committed to green growth since 2011.
In present times when many countries’ economies exhaust their natural resources and face constraints worsened by the imminent climate change, “Morocco is setting an example by designing and embracing green growth strategies across sectors,” the report noted.

“The right to sustainable development does not mean protecting the environment at the expense of the economy. It means being wise enough to find a balance between economic development, social mobility, and the protection of resources – so that there are enough resources to last our children and our grand-children,” Hakima El-Haite, Minister Delegate in Charge of Environment for Morocco said.

According to the same source, the Moroccan government has put forward policies and measures that reflect ins environmental commitment in the eyes of the international community.

The most noteworthy area of policy change has been the “phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies” since 2012. The initiative forced SMEs and large industries to generate power by using production by-waste products and waste.

According to Said Mouline, Head of the national agency for the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency, the private sector enterprises generate about 500 MW of wind energy. “All this activity would not have happened without the end of subsidies,” Mouline said adding that “There is no green economy without regulation.”

The same source revealed that Morocco’s green efforts are also evident on agriculture, which employs 40 percent of the Moroccan workforce. With its “Plan Maroc Vert” (“Green Morocco Plan”), the agriculture sector promotes the development of intelligent and sustainable practices introducing careful use of water, such as “direct seeding” and “drip irrigation.”

Furthermore, one of the largest country’s commitment to sustainable development, is the Noor-Ouarzazate, one of the largest concentrated solar power plants in the world. The projects NOOR II and III are two solar centers using concentrated solar technology (CSP), which “allows to store energy for nights and cloudy days,” to produce respectively 200 MW and 150 MW. The Noor Project’s goal is to produce 2 GW of solar energy, which is equal to 14 percent of Morocco’s production capacity by 2020. Considered the world’s biggest concentrated solar power plant, the Noor is expected to produce enough energy for more than one million Moroccans, “with possibly extra power to export to Europe,” according to the World Bank.

The Noor Project has gained international media coverage, placing Morocco as a global “solar superpower.” “There is a very strategic way in Morocco of diversifying energy sources focused in contributing to a green growth plan and become a model for Africa by 2020,” energy specialist, Roger Coma-Cunill told the same source. “Morocco seeks to be a gateway to Africa – that’s part of this endeavor,” he added. Before the Noor plant in Ouarzazate, Morocco imported 97 percent of its energy. By 2030, Morocco aims to produce about 52 percent of its energy needs from renewable energy.
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2016/01/176875/morocco-transitions-to-a-greener-future/
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Video: Enjoy the Magical View of Morocco.
Thursday 29 October 2015

“The Third Eye: A Blinding Moroccan Experience” is a unique experience shot using the time-lapse technique. The video, produced by kamkam-visuals lays emphasis on the unique energy and vibe of Morocco, recording the incredible verities of Moroccan landscapes.
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/10/171442/video-enjoy-the-magical-view-of-morocco/
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The Mashdud (episode IV).
Saturday 19 December 2015 - Mohammed Maarouf El Jadida

The imam summoned back a terrible experience in the belly of the whale (Casablanca) marked by roaming the streets all over a couple of nights. Even the very hood of his djellaba pricked up when his body writhed in pain. He had to go back to Sidi Barek to spend a month there. During his stay at the shrine, his suspicions about his sickness dissipated and he discovered about its nature. There was a man in the shrine under treatment, who was haunted by seven air-jinn (l-riyah). During his fits and deliriums, he betrayed the secret deeds of all patients to the saint. For instance, if someone stole a candle, he would tell it.

One day, the imam was sitting by the tomb staring absent-mindedly in the void. What was he doing there? Was there an end to this misery? Could the saint divulge his secrets? In the midst of those rambling thoughts he was awakened by a mournful cry. The possessed newcomer was attacked by an uncontrollable spectral outburst, and the jinni’s voice in this medium’s body grieved and twisted the body’s eyes to gaze at the imam, and then spoke: “this man who roves in confusion and sits for hours reading the Koran; he gets in and reads, and gets out and reads; he wants to know what happened to him. The cause is those letters with which he worked without sacred permission (idn). He could not find a solution to them. Those living beings in the taleb must leave him in peace; otherwise I will blow them over, and throw them to the sea!”

It was a clearing that dawned on the imam’s mind, a moment of epiphany that wrenched him out of darkness into light. He discovered he was possessed. Wahya my God! What shall I do with this spectral guest? How shall I treat him? Where can I find the cure?” he wondered.

Once she heard about this secret divulgence (ntiq), the imam’s wife told her husband that they should travel to Safi to see an exorciser (hkaimi) there recommended by many of the patients in the shrine. Professional exorcisers have shamanistic skills to contact the spectral world and talk to spirits and restrain them by the force of their powerful jinn. Perhaps, in the case of the imam, the exorciser’s cure might work well because he was doing a similar profession and was attacked during labour. This was the way the wife and some women patients rationalized the imam’s crisis inside one of the qubbas of the shrine. But the imam rejected their opinion. He told his wife that no professional healer could cure him because he was himself a healer. He added that he knew all the formulas and rituals practiced by healers. He thought that only a saint or shrif descended from a holy lineage could cure him, no professional healer could do anything in his case.

However his relatives insisted on their demand and convinced him that the journey to Safi was better than his stay at the saint in vain. He was plagued by their insistent inducement and finally decided to venture for professional cure. He discovered that the healer in Safi was a mere fortune-teller (shuwaf). He was working in a room painted in black from the outside to the inside. The imam immediately recognized the curer’s spectral contact. He was working by the mediation of Mimoun, a jinni who liked to be invoked in black settings. The imam was still sitting in the room waiting inattentively for the curer when the latter suddenly came in interrupting the imam’s preoccupation. The moment he set eyes on the curer, the imam felt that there would be no result. The imam’s relatives never told the curer beforehand that the patient was also a healer.

The curer used basic methods to invoke jinn already exhausted by the imam. He took an iron slipper and a stick. He started the healing practice by perfuming the room with some fumigation, and then followed with striking the stick against the slipper. At this point, the imam lowered his head scornfully, and told himself in a soundless voice: “Do anything you can do, but all these things are common to me.” The imam feigned attentiveness to the healer’s banal incantations and at the same time mumbled with him: “By the power of Harrasin and Karrasin, of the great treasure, of the complete word, of the burning spectres and shooting star, there is no saviour except for the closer answerer!” (bihaqqi harrasin wa karrasin/ wa bi-l-kanzi l-‘adhim/wa bi al-kalimati ttamati/wa l-‘ajaibi al-muhriqati/wa shshihabi thaqibi/laysa mughitun siwa qaribun mujib). The imam rehearsed in jest all those expressions. He maintained his lowered head posture in front of the healer and waited for him to finish. He knew all the formulas by heart. When the healer noticed the imam’s withdrawal from the ritual of cure, he asked him about his work. The imam answered with a resentful smile: “I am your fellow at work!” Once he heard that, the healer ceased the magical work.

The imam and his wife spent two days in Safi; then they returned to Casablanca. It was a Tuesday when they arrived and the imam’s health kept stable for three days until Friday afternoon when the pain visited his body again. He was told to visit Sidi Ahmed al- Bahlul. He went to the saint and toured other sanctuaries albeit in vain. Ups and downs punctuated the course of his sickness. He lived in vicissitudes till the arrival of Ramadan. The pain could abate only by the power of the sacred of word with frequent long recitations of the Koran.

What made him dull of soul, the imam said, was that he spent 350 dh, and 200 kilograms of corn in one week, telling himself: ‘This may function! This may work!” He spent all the money consulting healers. A curer gave his wife a convenience black beetle (bakhusht l-buwala), and told her to put it in an envelope with some corn flour, and hang it inside the house. He explained to her that when the insect ate all the flour, it would die and, with its death, the sickness would vanish. Still another curer asked the imam to bring him a rooster with a comb (nuna) made of seven stripes, a strong big rooster. The imam burst out in sardonic laughter when he remembered the event. The curer wanted the rooster to feast upon with his family. The imam never gave him anything. Rather disgusted with the belly of the whale’s imposters and schemers, he bid farewell to the shanty towns of Casablanca and once for all returned home but very sick.
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/12/175544/the-mashdud-episode-iv/
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Why I Keep Detailed Lesson Plans.
Sunday 20 December 2015 -  By Mourad El Hanafi Azilal

The language teaching community believes that lesson planning is an important part of a teacher’s job, especially at the levels below the university level, where lessons are offered in the form of lectures, conferences, etc.

A lesson plan is a document teachers develop as the theoretical side of their lessons and a reference they can use while teaching. Some also draw an analogy between lesson plans and roadmaps. The more landmarks are located on the map, the more one has a vivid vision of the winding routes he or she needs to follow for effective teaching. By contrast, the less detailed the roadmap, the more likely the traveller will lose his or her way.

As an educator, I favor detailed lesson plans. Lesson plans are neither mere headings scribbled on a sheet of paper nor quick sketches made at the last minute. But “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill!” some teachers say once they have a cursory glance at my lesson plans. Or “I only plan things in my head before I go to teach,” some would add, boasting or even patronizing me, judging a plethora of details in my lesson plan as reflecting a lack of experience or self-confidence. But what is this “mental planning” without something at hand to focus on? Is it over-confidence or laziness? Or is it both? Will there not be a shadow of uncertainty and insecurity once you form lessons and go to teach? I believe that total trust in one’s mental ability is misplaced!

To the best of my knowledge, “mental planning” – imagination – goes hand in hand with poring over different resources while preparing a lesson plan. Yet, it also comes after putting the finishing touches on a lesson plan, trying to consider the conditions where one works and the kind of students one teaches. Therefore, “mental planning” is relatively good only if preceded by a well-thought out tangible blueprint that can guide one’s mind along the right track while the lesson is being carried out.

After all, advocates of bare bones and mental lesson plans are likely to fall prey to hesitation during classes. Every once in a while, it the things you “plan” happen to fall flat, and in the moment you are desperate to take whatever action to rectify the situation, you find yourself trapped there because you didn’t think ahead and study the activity seriously and plan for substitutes just in case, and above all anticipate what might come out of it. Many are those pitfalls the teacher falls into when he or she doesn’t take a precise, extensive, thorough look at the lesson he or she tends to teach. Before you blame students for not answering the way you expect, check first whether your questions are well-put and well-prepared! Before you reproach your students for not doing well in an activity, check first if that is the right time or phase to assign it, and if it springs from the students’ prior knowledge. This is what well-detailed lesson plans are for.

Notwithstanding all that I mentioned above, I keep well-detailed lesson plans for two simple reasons: because I respect my students and because I don’t squander my efforts twice. Fired relentlessly by what I consider a debt I owe to my students, I don’t mind spending hours preparing a lesson plan. While I consider that over 160 students are waiting for me, my patience doesn’t fizzle. They are worth every extra endeavor I make. I can check nearly all the available resources just to glean from here and there what would appeal to my students and make them stay on task, and hopefully shrink the continent of their “ignorance.” Likewise, with every single idea about the lesson in my mind, I usher my students gradually to the target language we’re studying through previously, carefully thought out, leading questions, smooth transitions and authentic situations, putting extra substitutes aside just in case.

The one who says that well-detailed lessons are just a waste of time is utterly wrong! Just the opposite. Once I rack my brain over different components to include in my lesson plan, I don’t let them slip through my fingers; I find room for them somewhere in my lesson plan even if they are not to be used – as long as they are related to the lesson, they are worth jotting down.

Oftentimes, I spend considerable time trying to come up with as many best situations as possible through which students can act out dialogues or put what they’ve just learned into practice, either communicatively or in other way. I just write them in my lesson plan just to be at ease once I have to teach the same lesson again; all I have to do then is skim through it and go teach.

Similarly, all my lesson plan columns are there not for the fun of it. For instance, the remarks/observations column is there not because every typical lesson plan incorporates that, but truly because I personally need it. I need to fill it with reminders, remarks, and every detail I might need at certain points in my lessons in the class. With a thick lesson plan of this sort in your hands, you don’t have to stuff your school bag with hefty resources.

To put it in nutshell, well-detailed lesson plans give extra strength to teachers. The fact that you put your heart and soul into preparing them, you can be confident you know what you are doing, and feel secure about delivering the best result for your students. To the contrary, depending on “mental lesson planning” or even bare bones lesson plans might put teachers in awkward situations with their students, sometimes, because they put the healthy procedure of lessons at risk, and as a corollary, students pay the price over the course of time.
Edited by Elisabeth Myers
http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/12/175634/why-i-keep-detailed-lesson-plans/
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Morocco amends renewable energy law.
Jan 4, 2016 by Mariyana Yaneva January 4 (SeeNews)

Morocco's Parliament closed 2015 with the adoption of amendments to the renewable energy law which are expected to improve visibility for private investments. The 58-15 law modifies and complements the existing 13-09 law on renewable energy to introduce a net metering scheme for solar and wind power plants connected to the high-voltage grid, and later, those connected at the middle and low-voltage level as well.

Private investors in renewable power will be able to sell their surplus output to the grid, but no more than 20% of their annual production. The exact terms and conditions of the net metering scheme will be detailed in secondary legislation. Investors in photovoltaics will also benefit from opening of the low-voltage grid to renewable power installations. Details are yet to be elaborated in secondary legislation but the principle has been stipulated in the law.

Last, but not least, the new law also lifts from 12 MW to 30 MW the minimum capacity of private investments in hydro power plants.
Morocco's national energy strategy is targeting to raise the share of renewable energy to 42% of the total installed capacity in the country by 2020, with solar, wind and hydro each contributing 14%.

The country's ambitions have grown in 2015 and Morocco is now determined to achieve a 52% share of renewables in electricity generation capacity by 2030.
http://renewables.seenews.com/news/morocco-amends-renewable-energy-law-507698
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Morocco: Gnawa Music - From Slavery to Prominence
Gnawa is the music of formerly enslaved black Africans who integrated into the Moroccan cultural and social landscape, and founded a model to preserve the traditions and folkloric music of their ancestors.
By Ahmed El Amraoui

Simply put, Gnawa is the music of formerly enslaved black Africans who integrated into the Moroccan cultural and social landscape, and founded a model to preserve the traditions and folkloric music of their ancestors.

Rising to prominence from a marginalised practice to heal people possessed by genie spirits, it is one of the most popular styles of North African music, which not only attracted fans worldwide, but also interested famous European and American musicians such as Randy Weston, Bill Laswell, and Robert Plant.
Gnawa reflects the impact of black African culture on Moroccans. The African touch is clearly reflected in the dances and the garments the singers wear.
The roots of the music are recognisably African in the drumming, the unique metallic castanets, the three-stringed bass lute (guembri), as well as the mosaic gowns and caps worn by musicians mostly decorated with cowry shells.

"This music is a part of ancient and rich African heritage, which has been growing and prospering for centuries as a thriving music project in Morocco. It is a fascinating combination of poetry, music and dancing. Its secret also lies in its religious, spiritual dimension, which gives it a kind of therapeutic power," said Anass Fassi Fehri, Professor Assistant at Fez Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University.

Origins in slavery
It is said that the name Gnawa originated from the word Guinea, a place known for its slave trade during the 11th century. The music is found mainly in communities with large populations of ethnic Africans and is not connected with the elite. Gnawa bands come mainly from the cities of Marrakech and Essaouira, which are historically known for slave trade with trans-Saharan countries.

The components of Gnawa songs and dances incorporate references to the singers' origins and enslavement, as well as displacement and misery.
Not just a set of a series of rhythms, Gnawa is a music which, according to academic and researcher Fouzia Baddouri, takes one back to the remote past where poor black slaves sang their misery and daily worries.

As Okot p'Bitek describes in his book, Song of Ocol & Song of Lawino, the African primitive songs and dances are not just entertainment. They also establish links between members of the community, both who are alive, and those who have passed away.

And the similarities between Gnawa, jazz and Blues in the US have seen the folkish genre travel internationally. African Americans share an element of a painful African history: slavery.

Through each of those types of music, singers try to return to their African roots and identity. By committing themselves to Gnawa music, African Americans, for example, are establishing a historical and cultural link with their forefathers.

Hooking audiences
The music has become so popular that it prompted the Moroccan government to organise a yearly festival in the southern coastal city of Essaouira, featuring Gnawa as part of the country's cultural heritage that forms an important part of the kingdom's oral literature.

The three-day musical event is held every May or June and features a host of Gnawa masters along with jazz, fusion, Blues and contemporary world artists.
Gnawa Muallems (Masters) pride themselves on being able to keep the audience hooked, fascinated and moved through a distinctive spiritual practice that turns noise into melody.

"The fact that the main musical instruments are the drums and "ganbri" is very significant because they symbolise and reflect the beating of the dancers' hearts," Baddouri said.

For many, Gnawa is enchanting in a way that only spiritual music can be. It uses drums as the main background and relies on refrains that take one into a swirling movement. The regular loud rhythm of drums leaves a hypnotising effect on some people.

For others, the music is a mark of distinctiveness that tends to be monotonous and repetitive, but has its own charm that sends everyone into rapturous spasms. "The more the dancer is involved in the dance or trance," Baddouri said, "the more the drums beat loudly."
http://allafrica.com/stories/201512041071.html
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Morocco- The Resurgence of Myths and Mythology or the New Roles of Mysticism.
MENAFN - Morocco World News - 04/01/2016

I have recently made the unfortunate experience of learning that myths not only did not belong to the past as I thought and that legend had not lost any of its extraordinary power to explain history and command current affairs but that mythology is still fertile and is still producing characters strong enough to rule over minds to raise wealth and to make destinies.

The discovery in itself would not have been so problematic to me had it not drawn me personally so closely to the heat of the authority of modern mythology. In fact I have been lately called to order by a gatekeeper – and perhaps also mouthpiece – of a leading representative of the mythological establishment. He gave me two choices either to shut my mouth if I was unable to submit to the myth he adheres to or to face consequences. The person now a university professor whom I had known as a student about four decades ago and whom I haven’t heard of since the late seventies when he still identified himself as a man of the left called me late at night to warn me against continuing to write about his sect – this is the word he actually used – and its patron.

After a short reminder of who he was which includes a member of a notorious family closely related to a sect he took a paternal tone which immediately turned into what I have felt as open threats. His argument was that because unlike him who had been frequenting the sect and the patron for over twenty five years I was unable to understand anything about it and had therefore no right to criticize the public manifestations of its practices.

The rituals of the sect include dancing about jerking shaking hopping and skipping while chanting – at times yelling – in a collective trance allegedly to glorify God and the Prophet. Kissing the hands and feet of the patron lying in a bed too old to move to speak or actually open his eyes can be part of the observance of the ritual. The sect he argued is what has preserved the Kingdom and maintained the political and social stability of the country. The sect was strong and highly credible and has drawn scientists academics and personalities of all nationalities and convictions. To my remark that kissing the feet of a person did not seem to me as any act of glorifying God or his Prophet or of any scholarly standard nor of any nature to protect the country from anything he replied that the man was the evidence of the presence of God and that as should be done to fathers his feet can be kissed. He was to him more than a father he said. He asked me whether I did not or would not kiss my father’s feet. That was not the issue I did not have to discuss that I had to reply. According to my traditional orthodox religious culture this was very short of assoianism shirk and of putting an intermediary between the creator and his creation one to intercede!
It seems the gatekeeper of the sect did not expect his attempt to scare me and to humiliate me not to work. I insisted that he changed his paternal and menacing tone for the conversation to continue. As it seemed it was natural for him to bully people around and for them to bend and as I am not of the kind to bend to threats we ended up hanging up on each another.

To be fair to the guy I have to admit I had reacted in a rather straightforward manner on a social media to a text whose purpose was to justify the many centuries old sect’s survival in the twenty first century to document its religious and historical legitimacy and to convince of its beneficial roles for us all Moroccans and to humanity in general. I had referred to the sect as a backward institution and as a residue of the Middle Ages whose function is to alienate ideologically and intellectually vulnerable people and to manipulate them. It is that I find it impossible to imagine the holiness of a person just because we are told that his father had appointed him heir to his authority upon a Devine recommendation. I simply find it all incoherent and incongruous to the times I am living in. In any case whatever my feelings about the sect and its patron they must not justify threats of any type.

In exchanges I had with colleagues whose opinion I hold in high esteem and who are close enough to the sect to be aware of its various practices they confirmed to me their strategy to exact support from people and to force into silence those who will not follow them or be mouthpieces for them. They also confirmed to me that many who attend the rituals are drawn either by curiosity or by some utilitarian reason and not by any spiritual need or search of internal peace and conciliation. Some have referred to the bold decision to close the Bouya Omar mental asylum and the rising voices to ban practices of eating animals alive that surface back from time to time in specific occasions as signs of hope that the social intellectual and political validity of such practices is nearing expiration time.

I am left perplexed I afraid we might be entering the era of sects …. an era we will either join the trance or be silenced … an era in which mysticism will lead science and scholarship or are we rather starting ahead on the way out of ages of darkness into territories in which reason knowledge light truth peace and happiness for all will overcome.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News' editorial policy
Morocco World News.
http://www.menafn.com/1094516993/Morocco--The-Resurgence-of-Myths-and-Mythology-or-the-New-Roles-of-Mysticism
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Best places to shop in Marrakesh, Morocco: From souks to luxury shops
By Nina Karnikowski, Jan. 10, 2016,

How to effortlessly make your through Marrakesh's myriad alleyways in the souk district and contemporary boutiques.

"You know the other name for Marrakesh, don't you? 'More cash', because you always need more money for shopping here!" It's a fitting line delivered bang on time by my guide, Abdellah Amghar, from Australia-based Moroccan tour company By Prior Arrangement, as we enter the narrow, chaotic streets of the Marrakesh souk district inside the medina quarter. Amghar, I soon discover, speaks almost exclusively in these sorts of one-liners, and looks cool, calm and collected in his white floaty djellaba as we forge further into the souks. I, on the other hand, am already hot, slightly overwhelmed and wondering how on earth I would have navigated this tangled knot of laneways without a guide.

"This is an amazing maze of alleyways!" Amghar shouts over his shoulder as he forges ahead past stalls heaped with handmade silver jewellery, thick patterned woollen carpets and vibrant babouche slippers. Marrakesh is known as Morocco's city of artisans, with 60 per cent of the working population occupied as an artisan of some sort, a figure I begin to comprehend as we whiz past these treasures. "The deeper you go the better, because you're buying from the makers, not the middle men," Amghar says.

Before long we reach the dyers' quarter, where sheaves of richly-dyed wool in fuchsia-pink, grass green and saffron yellow hang from the walls and ceilings. A worker to my right hurries by with a wheelbarrow piled high with cobalt blue wool, while to my left a steaming dye vat bubbles away with a mass of poppy red wool sitting beside it. "The women who make Berber carpets get their wool from here," says Amghar over his shoulder as we head out through a series of ever narrower alleyways lined with hundreds of filigree metal lanterns. "Abdellah!", I yell out as I puff along behind him, "where are we going?"
"To the blacksmiths area, to see the men who make lamps, lanterns, bells, doors..."

We turn a corner and the end of his sentence is swallowed by the intense clanging and banging of the blacksmiths. They sit on the ground around open fires, soldering and hammering away. We just have time for a quick visit to an artisan named Hassan, who looks to be in his mid-40s and has been making beautiful handmade padlocks here since he was nine years old. Then we're off again into the leather souk, where the stalls are laden with handmade shoes, belts and handbags crafted from leather in a rainbow of colours. Turning another corner, we find ourselves in the midst of a leather auction. Hundreds of beige-coloured skins are piled high all around us, and local djellaba-clad men wave money in each other's face, brokering deals to buy the skins in bulk which they'll then transform into pouffes, bags, shoes and more to sell. It's utterly chaotic, and utterly wonderful.

Our race around the souks finishes at the oldest and biggest herboriste (herbalist) in Marrakesh, the entrance of which is lined with metre-high woven baskets overflowing with medicinal herbs and spices. Inside, in a room where the walls are lined from top to bottom with glass jars, packets of amber and essential oils, we meet a witch doctor dressed in a white lab coat. "These are different animal parts, like snakeskin, bat, fox skin, iguana," he says, pointing to various jars. "Normally when we have some jinn [spirit] in the house, we take a little bit from about five or six products and put them in a talisman to keep in the house. There are different ingredients for each different jinn – sometimes you put myrrh, sometimes you put serpent, it's always different," he says, shrugging his shoulders.

I'm still digesting this jinn scenario as we sit – or rather flop – down for lunch 10 minutes later at a chic restaurant called Le Jardin. This palm and banana tree-filled courtyard space is a true oasis, and the perfect spot for taking refuge from the brilliant madness of the souks. We pull up a chair under a bamboo grove and order fresh orange juice and tasty lamb tagines as we watch a small tortoise inch its way across the iridescent green floor tiles. I'm red-faced and sweaty, while Amghar is still perfectly composed. His white djellaba also remains wrinkle-free, and when I can't help but comment on it, Amghar simply smiles and nods his head slowly. "We Moroccans know how to chillax, how to live in the present. That's why we're the happiest people in the world." Looking at him in that moment, I can almost believe it, too.
http://www.theguardian.com.au/story/3652435/best-places-to-shop-in-marrakesh-morocco-from-souks-to-luxury-shops/?cs=34
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Morocco serves up a slice of history, hospitality
Sameen Tahir Khan Wednesday 23 December 2015

This was my first trip to an African country and I couldn’t have chosen a better destination: Morocco. It had everything I love — history, culture, old rustic buildings and lots of sunshine.

We landed in Rabat where the Salé Airport was so small, it felt like we had taken a step back in time. The security officer looked at our passports for a long time and then asked, what our nationality was, though our passports clearly proclaimed that.

The first thing I noticed about Morocco was that, it was generally clean and the people were very thin (In comparison, we looked like the ‘Incredible bulk’).
Morocco is a tourist friendly country which is well connected by trains, taxis and buses. The trains are inexpensive and clean. A trip from Meknes to Tangier (about 250 km) in first class cost $32 roundtrip. There are two types of taxis: The small ones seat only three people and count even a small child as one (My Moroccan friend told me, they even count a pregnant woman as two). There is plenty to see in Morocco. There is something for everyone. If you are fond of historical monuments, mausoleums and ancient souks you will be right at home in Morocco. It is amazing how the old and new blend and come together. You will find an ancient monument not too far from a modern McDonalds or Pizza Hut.

You can go hiking in the blue city of Chef Chaouen, go camping in the Sahara Desert or visit beaches in Agadir or Casablanca. There are plenty of affordable tours that you can book online. We found hotels to be more expensive (about 150 Euros a night) so we booked apartments online using Air B&B. We found apartments in Rabat, Meknes, Tangier and Casablanca between $75 to $95 per day. These apartments were centrally located, clean and came with a maid service. (And for $5, the maid cooked our meals too). You can also rent a room in a Moroccan home that is 100 to 300 years old and enjoy the history and hospitality for $50-$100 per night.

My favorite thing in Morocco was the ancient city walls. A drive through Rabat, Meknes, Fez, or Marrakesh and you will see these beautiful, majestic walls that are about 20 feet high. They looked like they were made of orange clay. They had beautiful, carved gates and towers. These walls had tiny holes which I thought were for the archers to protect the city. Then I discovered, the holes were made hundreds of years ago by the construction workers who used wooden scaffolding to build them.

I also loved the 2000 old Roman ruins of Volubilis. An hour from Meknes, at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, these ruins are still majestic and worth seeing. Beautiful arches, artistic mosaic all bear witness to the amazing architectural prowess of the Romans. A great, vibrant and colorful place to visit in Morocco is the Medinas. All major cities have them. I loved the cobbled streets and the electric atmosphere in the bazaars. I was amazed at the thought that people have been coming to these places for the past hundreds of years. In the square outside the souk, there were musicians and acrobats, performing. There was always a snake charmer who carried a long snake and tried to get your attention, telling you to wrap the snake around your neck and take a picture for pocket change. I was always too scared, and screamed, making sure our paths never crossed. My favorite was this pair of little monkeys who sat huddled together in the cold in a market square at Meknes, wearing little cardigans.

I especially went to Fez to see what is considered to be the oldest university in the world — University Al-Karaouine. What I found most intriguing was that a woman Fatima Al-Fihri had founded it in 859. The university is still operational today. Some of the famous students who went to Al-Karaouine were Ibn Khaldoun the famous historian, geographer Muhammad Al-Idrisi, Jewish philosopher Maimonides and even a pope by the name of Sylvester II.
If you don’t speak Arabic or French in Morocco you won’t get very far. We relied heavily on Google translate, because one kid in our group was allergic to nuts. I was amazed that my very, broken Arabic which I picked up during my years in Saudi Arabia actually worked. I was able to tell a roadside bread maker to make a new one for me, “Mumkin itni sawwi khubs jadeed” and of course my favorite, Wallahi Ghaali ana miskeen that always got me some discount. (My confidence turned to embarrassment when I was trying to say, ‘I can’t hear you’ and said, ‘Maafi idhn’, and my daughter with a horrified look told me, ‘Mom that means, you have no ears).

Things are pretty inexpensive in Morocco. A kilogram of fresh beef cost $1. Delicious T-bone steak cost $12. And do not forget to haggle. If you are good, you can buy the stuff for 60 percent less than the original price. As our driver told us, ‘In Morocco everything is negotiable’. I totally loved Morocco... I saw my first olive tree and was surprised to see the olives are picked by shaking the trees hard. I learnt some interesting facts too like it is impossible to buy a gun in Morocco. If caught, with an illegal gun, the person could land in jail for life. If you eat in public in Ramadan, you can get six months in jail. Rice and gasoline are both expensive. A PhD student who we met on a train ride to Fez, said, “Eighty-eight percent of the people in Morocco make less than $2 a day. His dream was to move to the USA and asked us if it was safe for Muslims to stay there.”

And my favorite person in Morocco apart from our driver Adil and maid Fatima was the shopkeeper who spoke English, sold Indian Navratan oil, gave Pakistanis a thumbs up and said he loved Benazir Bhutto!
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Email: life.style@arabnews.com
http://www.arabnews.com/travel/news/854481
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Morocco: The theatre of the square
By Justine Tyerman Wednesday Dec 16, 2015

I spotted the characteristic hood of a black cobra out of the corner of my eye. It was dark in Marrakech's crowded Djemaa el Fna Square so I was on high alert in case I accidentally stood on the creature of my worst nightmares. The music of the charmer forewarned me but seeing the snake just a few metres away, out in the open, was quite surreal.

I watched it for a while until my fascination at the strange rapport between the snake and the charmer overcame my fear. It was shiny black and neatly coiled, smaller than I expected and quite beautiful, swaying slightly to the music of the flute-like instrument. Repelled and attracted at the same time, the scene had an oddly hypnotic effect on me - like the charmer and his snake.

A few steps on, a large dappled brown snake sprawled inert on the hot concrete. I decided he was not nearly as elegant as my cobra.

My first night in Morocco was a full-on assault of all senses including some I didn't know I had - a tingly sensation somewhere between excitement and anxiety.
The medina square, declared by Unesco in 2001 as a Masterpiece of World Heritage, was a vast outdoor theatre of exotic entertainment - performing monkeys on leads, African dancers with brass castanets, water-sellers wearing elaborate fringed hats, henna artists tattooing hands, food stalls selling Moroccan and international cuisine and hawkers with all manner of whizzing and flying contraptions.

The instant a camera was trained on the performers, even a telephoto lens from a distance in the crowd, an upturned hat would appear, seeking a contribution. It was only ever a few dirhams and well worth it . . . all part of the theatre of the square.

We wandered through the maze of souks in the narrow winding alleyways that ran off the square. I was in the company of a couple of street-wise guides and as long as I kept them in my sights, I felt relaxed and entirely safe. They were veteran bargainers whose skills astounded me. I piggybacked on their purchases, waiting for them to haggle the price to about a third of the stated amount before I cashed in on the deal.

The argy-bargy with the salesmen was invariably good-natured and amusing, usually ending up with handshakes, hugs and photos. Literally a world away from the impersonal, sanitised version of shopping in New Zealand, it was exciting and fun.

On more than one occasion, young men with winning smiles attached themselves to us as unofficial guides, taking us to specific souks, in return for a few dirhams and the chance to practise their English. One night, four of us were on a handbag hunt so an obliging lad led us to a variety of souks belonging to his brothers, uncles and cousins until we found what we were looking for. It's not recommended in the guide books but it was a most efficient and entertaining way of navigating the confusing, unmapped network of veins that feed into the arteries of this ancient body of commerce and trade.

The dimensions of the workplaces in the souks gave new meaning to the term shoebox. I peered into a tiny cavity below ground level to see a little man hunched, by necessity, over his indicate work making exquisite tassels for the ornate curtains in some of the magnificent hotels and riads we stayed at on our eight-day Ancient Kingdoms' private tour with New Zealand-based Moroccan specialists, The Innovative Travel Company.
The souks sold everything from food to home-wares. Our guide Redwan said they were so self-sufficient, many who live and work there never ventured beyond their own neighbourhood.

We often had to flatten ourselves against the walls or duck into a souk as donkeys, mules and men hauled over-laden carts along the narrow alleyways. We met one donkey in serious need of orthodontic work, saw live chickens and turkeys being carted away squawking to their fate, watched butchers chop up large bloody carcases with no refrigeration in sight, examined cages full of hedgehogs and turtles for sale, and grieved for the wretched lives of numerous skinny mother cats trying to feed their tiny wisps of kittens. Being a cat lover, I surreptitiously fed them left-overs from our over-generous lunches and dinners.
The Moroccans are not afraid of colour and nothing is muted - shoes, handbags, scarves, carpets, ceramics, clothes and fabrics were displayed in riotous rainbows of bright yellow, blue, red, pink, green, purple and orange.

My companions stopped for freshly-made juices at stalls along the way and ate at a restaurant in the square. I was overly-conscious of the buckets of grey water where dishes were being washed, so stuck to my bottled drinks and safe snacks. My taste buds were the poorer for my cautiousness but I stayed 100 per cent well the whole time I was in Morocco, including on our camel trek into the desert.

I expected the 'aroma' of spices, sweets, meat, fish, poultry and the teeming masses of people in the heat of the souks to be overwhelming but I found myself reluctant to leave this most chaotic, exotic, confusing and fascinating of market places.

Towards midnight, we trotted the short distance home in a horse-drawn carriage to our air-conditioned haven at the luxurious five-star Sofitel Hotel, each with our mementos of the Marrakech medina - four Kiwis wearing technicolour shoes, scarves and handbags.

The writer travelled courtesy of The Innovative Travel Company, Sofitel Marrakech Lounge and Spa, and Emirates.
http://world.einnews.com/article/302011136/Sue52wKEzq1R7fjs
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