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At the request of Morocco’s king, prayers for rain were held at synagogues across the kingdom. The prayers were recited on January 11, one day after countless Muslims said similar prayers in mosques at the request of King Mohammed VI, the Moroccan daily Le Matin reported. The king made the request upon learning that Morocco may suffer a drought in 2014. Responding to the king’s plea, the Council of Israelite Communities in Morocco, or CCIM, published a statement in which it “invites worshipers to pray in all the synagogues of the kingdom” so that God may “spare our country and...

King Juan Carlos of Spain told Britain that Spain “did not really want” Gibraltar back as it would lead to claims from Morocco for Spanish territories in North Africa, newly declassified documents from the 1980s released by the Foreign Office reveal. The King of Spain admitted privately in a meeting with the then British ambassador to Madrid, Sir Richard Parsons, that it was “not in Spain’s interest to recover Gibraltar in the near future”. If it did so, “King Hassan would immediately reactivate the Moroccan claim to Ceuta and Melilla,” the monarch, who celebrated his 76th birthday on Sunday, reportedly...

Russia Says It's Ready to Arm Saudi Arabia Lyuba Pronina, Staff Writer Moscow Times February 10, 2005 No. 3103 [From David Isenberg's Weapons Trade Observer, http://lists.topica.com/lists/sento] [With thanks to www.mideastweb.org/mewnews1.htm ] Moscow is preparing its first major defense contract with Saudi Arabia, the world's largest arms buyer that has traditionally spent its petrodollars on U.S.-made weapons. The deal is part of a strategy aimed at diversifying Russia's arms buyers away from China and India, Sergei Chemezov, general director of state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport, told reporters Wednesday. Russia also signed an arms contract with Morocco last month, he said, the first...

Moroccan police have arrested a teenage boy and girl for posting a photo on Facebook of them kissing, with the incident provoking a slew of copycats, a rights organization said Friday. … The incident has caused such a stir among young people that a number of other couples have posted similar photos on their Facebook pages. …

The Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs plans to award up to $1 million in taxpayer dollars to increase gender equality at work in Morocco. The purpose of the grant is “to help build the capacity of civil society organizations,including non-governmental organizations and trade unions,in the Kingdom of Morocco to address working women's issues and empower women to more fully exercise their labor rights.” “Projects awarded funding will be expected to work with local organizations to enhance service delivery to women on matters related to their labor rights and interests and to raise public awareness of women's labor rights,”...

Clearly the officials who fined and jailed this Christian were moderates; in Saudi Arabia he would have been executed. Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Morocco: "Moroccan Christian Jailed for 'Shaking the Faith of a Muslim,'" by Joseph DeCaro for Worthy News, September 12: RABAT, MOROCCO (Worthy News)– A Moroccan Christian has been fined and jailed for "shaking the faith of a Muslim." Spreading Christianity is prohibited under Article 220 of the Moroccan Penal Code; the maximum sentence for this offense is three to six months' imprisonment, but in a September hearing, Mohamed el Baldi was convicted and sentenced to...

Spain had a seemingly simple request for Morocco’s king: Pardon 18 Spaniards convicted in his country, and let 30 others return to Spain to serve out their prison terms. Instead, the monarch pardoned 48 Spanish prisoners, including a man convicted of raping children. … Police captured 63-year-old convicted pedophile Daniel Galvan Vina in southeastern Spain on Monday after he had nearly a week of freedom. Galvan had been convicted of raping 11 children and was serving a 30-year sentence in Morocco before the pardon came through. Morocco’s King Mohammed VI retracted his pardon of Galvan over the weekend, and Morocco,...

SNIP Sissi: The dilemma between the former president and the people originated from [the Muslim Brotherhood’s] concept of the state, the ideology that they adopted for building a country which is based on restoring the Islamic religious empire. That’s what made [former president Mohamed Morsi] not a president for all Egyptians, but a president representing his followers and supporters. Weymouth: When did that become obvious to you? It was obvious on the first day – the day of his inauguration. He started with offending the judiciary and not giving them the appropriate treatment. The Brotherhood experience in ruling a country...

Lebanon has a serious problem with Israel. The country has technically been at war with its southern neighbor since the Jewish state declared independence in 1948. Israeli citizens are banned. Even foreigners are banned if they have Israeli stamps in their passports. Lebanese citizens aren’t allowed to have any communication of any kind with Israelis anywhere in the world. If citizens of the two countries meet, say, on a beach in Cyprus or in a bar in New York, the Lebanese risks prison just for saying hello. Israel doesn’t even exist on Lebanese maps. t the same time, with the...

A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by Jean-Paul Raynal... This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa's possible role in first populating southern Europe. A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context... The morphology of these remains is different from the three mandibles found at the Tighenif site in Algeria that were used, in...

London - The claim was made by the Israeli liberal newspaper “Haaretz” citing a report of the British Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which oversees security exports. Israel is reported to have exported to Pakistan a range of military equipment purchased from Britain, but Islamabad denied the claim with a spokesman for the Directorate of Inter-Services Public Relations describing it as “baseless”. “The report is misleading and not based on facts,” he said. The claim was made by the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz citing a report of the British Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) which...

Islam is a supremacist doctrine that affirms not only Muslim superiority over non-Muslims, but also Arab superiority over other ethnic groups and races. Both Islam's holy texts - the Quran and the Hadith, namely Muhammad's official biography - and scholars are testament to that. Muhammad himself bought, sold and kept African slaves. Historically, Muslims' slave trade of black Africans has been by far the world's greatest numerically and the most long-lasting, spanning over 1400 years (watch the video "The Arab Muslim Slave Trade Of Africans, The Untold Story", by clicking on the link just below this post title). Arab Muslims...

Signs that Canadian citizens were involved in the attack by hostage-taking Islamist militants on a remote gas plant in Algeria are of great concern to American authorities, U.S. intelligence officials said on Thursday. While Algerian authorities apparently have not yet provided Western governments with cast-iron proof, a senior U.S. intelligence official said: “We’re taking very seriously the reports of the two Canadians’ involvement.” ... Confirmation that Canadian citizens were involved in the attack on the In Amenas facility in the Algerian desert would raise concerns about a worrying nexus between North America and North African militants. At least 38 plant...

Hollande says solution to conflict in Western Sahara is more important than ever as result of Islamist revolt raging in northern Mali. RABAT - A solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, where a UN peacekeeping force has been deployed for two decades, is more important than ever as a result of the Islamist revolt raging in northern Mali, the French president said on Thursday. "The economic potential is enormous. But I am also aware of the obstacles, and the question of the Western Sahara, which has been waiting to be resolved for more than 30 years," President Francois Hollande...

The “Arab spring” has benefited Islamists rather than democracy advocates, while political transitions and unrest in the region have provided opportunities for terrorists to mount attacks against U.S. interests, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers Tuesday. … “Islamist actors have been the chief electoral beneficiaries of the political openings, and Islamist parties in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco will likely solidify their influence in the coming year,” he told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in a written statement. … “Sequestration forces the intelligence community to reduce all intelligence activities and functions, without regard to impact on our mission,”...

Pretty much says it all.

The phrase "jumping the shark" describes that gimmicky moment when something once considered significant is exposed as ludicrous. This is the week the White House jumped the sequester. The precise moment came Tuesday, when the administration announced that it was canceling public tours of the White House, blaming budget cuts. The Sequesterer in Chief has insisted that cutting even $44 billion from this fiscal year will cause agonizing pain—airport security snarls, uninspected meat, uneducated children. Since none of those things has come to pass, the White House decided it needed an immediate and high-profile way of making its point. Ergo,...

The Gatestone Institute reported yesterday that the government of Spain has agreed with the government of Morocco that Moroccan children adopted by Spanish families will be required remain culturally and religiously Muslim.  The Spanish government will create a "control mechanism" that will allow Moroccan religious authorities to monitor the children until they reach the age of 18 to see that they have not converted to Christianity. Spain agreed to these conditions so that Spanish families who are in the process of adopting Moroccan children can bring them to Spain. Morocco has a high rate of child abandonment, and Spain has been...

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Nearly a year after Morocco was shocked by the suicide of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry her alleged rapist, the government has announced plans to change the penal code to outlaw the traditional practice. … A paragraph in Article 475 of the penal code allows those convicted of “corruption” or “kidnapping” of a minor to go free if they marry their victim and the practice was encouraged by judges to spare family shame. Last March, 16-year-old Amina al-Filali poisoned herself to get out of a seven-month-old abusive marriage to a 23-year-old she said had raped her. Her...