Dubious currency Exchange Practices at Moroccan Banks: A Need for Reform Washington / Morocco Board News Service - To transfer funds to Morocco from an American bank to pay for merchandise, buy an asset, start a business or help family members, the first words you will hear from the local bank clerk is that Morocco is on the A List of Slow-to-Pay Countries. It has always seemed bizarre that this is true.
Moreover, given the world economic crisis, Moroccan banks should provide a friendly business environment to the Moroccan Diaspora , and to foreign customers who bring in badly needed hard currency.
Sadly, experience with banks in Morocco shows the opposite.
Today I woke up with a BBC Tweet that says “Arab Drama continue to depict a negative image of Moroccan women during Ramadan series”. I am not surprised by this attitude as I have been facing it since I started travelling in the Middle East many years ago, but this time I decided to do a small test. I took my phone and call randomly 10 different Arab friends from different countries to ask one simple question:
Friend N˚1 Egypt: “You know in Alexandria we love Hash and everyone knows that the Moroccan Hash is the best. I always dream to go to Morocco to try it firsthand, and off course you have very very beautiful liberal girls (very liberal in Egypt mean Prostitute)”
Jordan, Egypt and Syria have Special Treatment for Moroccan Visitors Saudi Arabia is not the only ones discriminating against Moroccan visitors, Jordan, Egypt and syria also have special treatment for Moroccans
Here are their laws regulating treatment for Moroccan Visitors:
Jordan National Morocco (MA) / Destination Jordan (JO)
visa on arrival at the airport, free of charge (extension possible at the nearest police station). However, females between the age of 17 and 35 years of age require prior approval obtained from the Ministry of Interior, except if accompanied by their husband, father or brother, or they are a member of an official delegation or they are a daughter of high ranking personnel.
In banning Moroccan women from a pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia is failing in its Islamic duties...
We all like to stereotype. Whether it's about different regions in a country or other countries, we all indulge in a bit of reductionism and comic typecasting. The British laugh at the French, Europeans poke fun at Americans and it is all reciprocated in (mostly) harmless badinage.
In the Arab world, we have our memes too: the Sudanese are lazy, the Egyptians are jokers, the Lebanese are flamboyant, etc. Arabic TV is replete with comedy shows that paint wide brush-strokes (in some cases, quite literally, as actors are "blacked up" to act the roles of African Arabs) at the expense of different Arab nationalities.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - I don’t think this month is holy any more, nor does it still bear some genuine religious significance to the people. It is, I must point out, a subjective point of view. Indeed, Moroccans (at least those I saw in Casablanca or Rabat or today in Marrakesh) are ostensibly reading the Koran in public places. I noticed the mosques were never so full of faithful as they are this time of year. But on the whole, it does not feel like Moroccans get in touch with their spirituality. It does however look like more of a parade of spirituality, and it is going out of proportions. There is this stereotype I hold on my fellow citizens as being hypocritical, but surely it was nothing like that.
Six Rice students with the Baker Institute for Public Policy's Energy Forum spent a month helping a team with a project that harvests potable water from the fog that envelops parts of the Atlas Mountains.
ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2010) — Some rural Moroccans have to trek for miles every day because their arid environment doesn't provide enough drinking water. Or does it?
Six Rice students with the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy's Energy Forum spent a month helping with a project that harvests potable water from the fog that envelops parts of the Atlas Mountains. The students were joined by Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at the Baker Institute and associate director of the Rice Energy Program; Ronald Soligo, professor of economics; and Eugenia Georges, professor and chair of anthropology. They worked with the Dar Si Hmad Foundation in Sidi Ifni, Morocco, to move forward an engineering program to capture tiny droplets of water with a polyethylene mesh in the mountainous Boutmezguida region of southern Morocco.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - There are such things as gifted amateurs. But at Morocco's official Press Agency, Maghreb Arabe Presse or MAP, just as well as in Morocco's Foreign Ministry, the people in charge are professionals. When they are about to commit some cock-up, they proud themselves to do it wholesomely, andthey never forget to reiterate it, to make sure it is done properly. Indeed, just like a year before, Morocco refused the Human Development Index (HDI) findings (which looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of human development) and argues for a better index reflecting the huge efforts Morocco consented during the last decade (actually, it just focused the criticism on its shortcomings).
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Washington / Morocco Board News Service ---- The Moroccan police arrested two minors in Marrakech because they were eating in the street during daylight hours this month of Ramadan, reported the Moroccan daily "Assabah" .
According to the newspaper, the juveniles were arrested and are waiting to be brought in front of a judge. The newspaper quoted an eyewitness, who said that the minors were arrested after an officer of the security forces saw them eating in public in plain view of several people.
The UN special envoy, Christopher Ross, is doubtful that a settlement can be reached on the Western Sahara conflict and wants Madrid, Paris or Washington to intervene with Morocco and the Polisario, a Spanish newspaper said Friday.
The UN special envoy to the region, Christopher Ross, said in a letter that neither Rabat nor the Polisario "possess the political will to enter into genuine negotiations on the future of the Western Sahara or to give priority attention to confidence-building measures".
The letter was sent to the five members of the so-called Group of Friends that is trying to resolve the conflict -- Britain, France, Russia, Spain and the United States.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - It seems evident now that to nudge the Moroccan collective psyche out of its narcosis and get a goading message through to the lower stratum of society, one has to use toons or Middle Eastern soap operas and stream them through satellite television feed to circumvent Naceri’s censorship. The forceful indignant reaction and public clamoring for a tough governmental action in response to what is perceived as a gross affront to Morocco’s honor by the “Bu Qatada and Bu Nabeel” animated series, Egyptian television drama, and Saudi Arabia’s age restriction on Moroccan women traveling for ‘umra so incensed me. It is not as though, all of a sudden, the Moroccan public realized that the reputation of Moroccan women in the Gulf countries has putrefied. The public and the government both have known about it for decades, but they’ve always opted to look the other way.
Anouar Boukhars Washington / Morocco Board News Service - In North Africa trade between all five countries ranks among the lowest of any region in the world. The establishment of the Arab Maghreb Union in 1989 was supposed to jumpstart a promising regional partnership. However, the lack of leadership and the deep-seated animosity between Morocco and Algeria deprived the region of an estimated $3 billion in foreign investment and instead caused a loss estimated at 2 percent of average annual GDP for each country.
Washington / Morocco Board News Service - The civil service is vital for any society. With the level of complexity the post-modern societies reached -including ours- the need for a group of individuals devoted solely for public service is increasingly compulsory. I am sorry I have a bias for the civil service, even though I suffered, like many other fellow Moroccans (and foreigners, when those had the unfortunate opportunity to deal with the ‘idara) who didn’t need a paper for their everyday business? Who hadn’t had enough from long queues, rude civil servants and stupid remarks regarding their applications? But the work of government, the ultimate cement holding society together, has to be carried out. I know the red tape can be of invaluable help when it is rightly and properly managed. My piece here argues some ideas on the issue.
Elizabeth Blackney After placing more than sixty calls to request comments, information, and context from Congressman Wolf and his colleagues, Messrs. Franks and Bilirakis never returned my initial calls. I received a tepid “no comment” from Minority Leader Boehner’s office. Sadly, no Democrat members of Congress offered a for-the-record comment either. So, as the wheels of FOIA requests turned and I awaited appointments with the appropriate agencies, I was pleasantly surprised when one of the Americans expelled from Morocco contacted me directly.
Jack Rusenko, a very prominent figure in the evangelical community of American expats in Morocco, offered to share his side of the story. Mr. Rusenko founded an American school in Morocco, the George Washington Academy. He is a longtime resident who has many influential friends, not the least of which is his biggest Congressional booster — Congressman Frank Wolf.
Ursula Lindsey Rabat, Morocco------ To expand North Africa's research capabilities, a project financed by the United States plans to connect the region's universities and science institutes to a "digital library" that could eventually stretch from Morocco to Libya.
The U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, a nonprofit created by the U.S. government to promote international science programs, is leading the effort and is initially working with Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia to increase their access to the latest international research, give scientists greater opportunities to collaborate, and hopefully bolster their scientific work and scholarly publishing.
I am an American by birth, a Muslim by faith and a New Yorker at heart -- I've lived and breathed the vibrancy of that greatest city in the world for more than 25 years. Educated at Harvard and MIT and blessed with a Wall Street career that has lasted nearly three decades, I can truly say I have lived the American dream.
A defender of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, I have worked for 20 years to strengthen our democracy by creating a legitimate role and voice for millions of American Muslims. I am an American first, and then a Muslim. I negotiated Sudan's offer of counterterrorism assistance to the Clinton administration in 1996 when Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and their Muslim Brotherhood followers were still a manageable threat.
Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler may have had Jewish and African ancestors, according to DNA tests.
Saliva samples taken from 39 relatives of Hitler show he probably had biological links to the Jewish community and people from North Africa, such as the Berbers of Morocco – the “subhuman” races he vowed to exterminate during the Holocaust.
Investigative journalist Jean-Paul Mulders was able to probe Hitler's DNA after taking a serviette dropped by the Fuhrer's great nephew Alexander Stuart-Houston, 61, who lives in Long Island in New York. He also got a sample from an Austrian cousin of the dictator, a farmer known as Norbert H.
Yonni Sebbag sent letters to hedge funds offering inside trading info on Disney
NEW YORK — (AP) – A man charged with selling secrets about finances at Walt Disney Co. pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to wire fraud charges and conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
Yonni Sebbag, a citizen of Morocco, and his girlfriend, former Disney employee Bonnie Hoxie, were arrested in California last month in the insider trading case filed in New York.
"I agreed with others to commit securities and wire fraud," Sebbag, 30, said in court, reading from a statement. "As part of this, I disclosed material and non-public information about the Walt Disney company to outside investors."
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