A Moroccan Girl

“In a democracy, the principle of accountability holds that government officials — whether elected or appointed by those who have been elected — are responsible to the citizenry for their decisions and actions.”

Since King Mohammed IV’s recent strong-worded speech he addressed to the Moroccans on Throne Day, national, international political analysts and international media are still commenting and analyzing the Moroccan monarch’s discourse in which he slammed on Moroccan politicians and public officials for neglect of their duties, and failing to meet aspirations of the people.

King Mohammed VI warned that the “evolution” in politics and development “has not led to the kind of positive reaction” when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccan people.

He affirmed that the development policies remain sound, while the problem lies with lagging mentalities, as well as with the inability in practicing and innovating.

“The practices of some elected officials induce a number of citizens, especially young people, to shun political life,” he deplored.

It is no secret that there remain many unanswered questions, but on one matter there is not an open question: The reforms initiated by King Mohammed should be greeted with gratitude and respect. At long last there is another model for the Arab future, one that Americans and Europeans should embrace wholeheartedly. It is true that there are still challenges ahead of the democracy path in Morocco but the most important is that Moroccans (civil society, political parties and most important youth) have made their irreversible choice to continue their peaceful struggle towards full democracy. Democracy, therefore in this part of the Arab region, is no more a myth. It is a reality.

It is generally known that in a democracy, the principle of accountability holds that government officials — whether elected or appointed by those who have been elected — are responsible before their constituents and all citizens with utterly no exception, for their decisions and actions. For officials to be held accountable, the principle of full transparency requires that the decisions and actions of those in government are open to public scrutiny and the public has a right to access government information. These are the core principles of democratic governance that will deny any to become arbitrary and self-serving. Without accountability and transparency, democracy is impossible.

Since the enthronement of King Mohammed VI in 1999, Morocco has made its irreversible choice : it will not end its process of democratization and will not move away from its friends and allies in the West. Morocco, as a strong, stable, and secure Islamic state will become a beacon for others and a model for those who choose to recognize the will of their people. Now, arguably for the first time in decades, there is an alternative to ideological repression in the Arab community. Morocco is not yet an exemplar of Jeffersonian liberalism, but it is on a path paved with democratic principles.

But a constitution and an election, while essential building blocks for democracy, are not in themselves dispositive. What counts is where the leaders want to take this North African nation. Will it move inexorably to democracy? Or will it backslide with pressure from other Arab states?

“It is high time this principle were implemented in full. Just as the law applies equally to all citizens, it must be applied, first and foremost, to all officials, without distinction or discrimination, and in all of the Kingdom’s regions,” King Mohammed VI stated in a firm tone, announcing “This is the dawn of a new era in which there is no difference between officials and citizens as far as civic rights and obligations are concerned; nor is there room for shirking responsibility or avoiding sanctions”.

“Morocco must come first: before political parties, before elections and before senior positions,” the Monarch insisted.

The royal speech was frank and strong -worded lambasting the Moroccan service civil for its poor governance and weak performance. It is no secret that the King is leading an administrative revolution and the responsibility of political parties in government will make Morocco stronger in facing any development. An administrative revolution that will prioterize public and national interest against personal or politicized ones. Only accountability and transparency will lead Morocco towards democratic governance.

RABAT, Aug 5  - Despite an overall increase in job creation, Morocco's official unemployment rate slightly rose to 9.3 percent in the second quarter from 9.1 percent during the same period last year, the planning agency said on Saturday, citing an increase in the active population by 107,000 people.

Services and construction created 19,000 and 7,000 jobs respectively, according to Saturday's report. Manufacturing lost 4,000 jobs.

Heavy rainfall contributed to a favorable harvest, resulting in 52,000 new jobs in agriculture, which accounts for some 15 percent of Morocco's gross domestic product and employs more than half its workforce.

Informal labor abounds in Morocco, making it hard to produce reliable employment figures.

Last year, along with the rest of North Africa, the country suffered its worst drought in 30 years, and its cereal harvest declined by more than 70 percent. This year's cereal harvest saw a 203 percent increase over last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The finance ministry has revised up its growth forecast for the year from 4.5 percent to 4.8 percent, as agriculture recovers from the drought. The economy grew by 1.6 percent in 2016.

At the 28th African Union (AU) Summit held in Addis Ababa, King Mohammed IV said: “A New Africa will make the most of its potential since our continent boasts tremendous assets. Morocco wants to contribute to the emergence of that New Africa. We owe this to our peoples. We owe it to our youths. The promise of a better, more prosperous future should no longer be an empty slogan or mere wishful thinking. It is our duty to match words with action for the sake of our future generations – for the sake of a New Africa.”

In another Royal message to the participants in the Crans Montana Forum held in Dakhla from March 12-14, King Mohammed VI stressed that “Morocco’s African policy is based on a comprehensive, integrated and inclusive approach designed to promote peace and stability, encourage sustainable human development and safeguard the cultural and spiritual identity of our populations, while respecting the universal values of human rights.”

“Morocco has been working untiringly to help forge a modern, bold, entrepreneurial and open Africa; an African continent which is proud of its identity, which derives its vibrancy from its cultural heritage and which is capable of transcending outdated ideologies,” he said

The King acknowledged that “the borders inherited from colonization often continue to be a major source of tension and conflict,” and that “Africa is a continent with growing and unsettling security issues”; but he stressed that “Africa’s tremendous human and natural resources should, instead, be a powerful catalyst for regional integration,” and urged that “It is up to us — Africans — to innovate in order to turn them into open spaces where fruitful exchange and interaction can flourish between African states.

At the Moroccan-Ivorian Economic Forum, held in Abidjan on February 24 2014, King Mohammed VI laid out a compelling vision for Africa’s development – He said that “This objective [prosperity for future generations] will even be more readily attainable when Africa overcomes its Afro-pessimism and unlocks its intellectual and material potential as well as that of all African peoples. Just imagine what our continent will look like, once it frees itself of its constraints and burdens”

Morocco is and will continue to be present in Africa and reinforce south-south cooperation to contribute to the development of the African continent and collaborate with American and European allies to bring peace and stability to this continent.

The Arab League warned Israel on Sunday that it was "playing with fire" in Jerusalem and said it would convene an emergency meeting on Wednesday over increasing Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Tensions ratcheted up even further in the occupied West Bank at the weekend after three Palestinians were killed and at least 400 wounded in some of the worst street violence in years. Elsewhere, a Palestinian man murdered three members of an Israeli family celebrating a new grandchild.

The flare-up came after Israel installed metal detectors and turnstiles at the entry points of the holy Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem's walled Old City, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Palestinians see the measures as a means for Israel to assert further control over the site.

"Jerusalem is a red line that Muslims and Arabs cannot allow to be crossed, ... and what is happening today is an attempt to impose a new reality on the Holy city," Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement.

"The Israeli government is playing with fire and risking a major crisis with the Arab and Islamic world."

After sending in reinforcement troops on Saturday and putting soldiers on high alert, Israel appeared to offer concessions over the divisive metal detectors.

Major General Yoav Mordechai, who heads the Israeli defense body for Palestinian civilian affairs, said on Sunday that Israel was open to alternatives to lower the tensions.

"The only thing we want is to ensure no one can enter with weapons again and carry out another attack," he said, referring to the July 14 incident in which three Arab Israelis armed with automatic rifles and a knife launched an attack from the flashpoint holy site and shot dead two nearby police officers.

"We're willing to examine alternatives to the metal detectors as long as the solution of [said] alternative ensures the prevention of the next attack."

New security cameras were installed at the site on Sunday, which could replace the metal detectors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held cabinet discussions on Sunday to discuss the situation and said he would act according to recommendations. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the metal detectors would stay in place unless police offered a satisfactory alternative.

Abbas demands complete reversal

A top adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was holding consultations with various countries, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, about the crisis.

Abbas announced Friday he would "freeze" ties with Israel "on all levels" until the new security measures Israel imposed at the Jerusalem site were removed.

Abbas confirmed on Sunday that his decision to freeze ties also included a suspension of security coordination, in which Abbas-loyal troops coordinate with Israeli troops against their common foe Hamas. Ending those ties, which have been constant amid previous hostilities in Palestine, could quickly escalate tensions.

Read more: Abbas freezes Israeli relations as Temple Mount protests turn deadly

The top Muslim cleric of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, told the Voice of Palestine radio station that he demands a complete return to procedures that were in place before the initial attack at the shrine.

The conflict showed no signs of easing on Sunday. Israeli security forces said they arrested 25 members of the militant Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip, including "senior members."

And unknown people fired a rocket at Israel from Gaza, hitting an open area, the Israeli Army said.

Meanwhile various international figures weighed in on the violence.

Erdogan and the pope weigh in

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Israel's security precautions at the site, before he departed for a visit to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

"No one can expect the Islamic world to remain unresponsive after the humiliation Muslims suffered with the restrictions at the Noble Sanctuary."

Pope Francis said on Sunday he was alarmed by the violence and called for dialogue and moderation to help restore peace.

"I am following with trepidation the grave tension and violence of recent days in Jerusalem. I feel the need to express a heartfelt call for moderation and dialogue," the pope told pilgrims gathered under blazing sunshine in St Peter's Square.

The United Nations Security Council announced on Saturday it would meet on Monday to discuss the situation after Sweden, Egypt and France urgently requested the meeting.

The discovery in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco of human fossils with modern facial features, similar to ours, has been a wonderful surprise, even outside the world of anthropology. The discoveries have been published in the journal Nature by Jean-Jacques Hublin and collaborators. The fossils are associated with tools from the Middle Stone Age, the technique immediately preceding the Upper Pleistocene. The surprise is due to the age of the tools and of the fossils, somewhat older than 300,000 years. The oldest Homo sapiens previously known, from Florisbad, South Africa, are more recent. The fossil tooth found in this deposit had been dated, using the electron spin resonance (ESR) technique, at 295,000 ± 35,000 years.

Commentaries concerning the new discoveries of Jebel Irhoud highlight two significant facts. First, human fossils from the same Moroccan deposit had been known since the 1960s but the age attributed to them was much more recent. The second and most significant point concerns the age of our own species. Molecular biology data (mitochondrial as well as nuclear) show that Neanderthals and modern humans diverged about half a million years ago. Why is it that all available evidence about fossils similar to us is much more recent?

The answer emerges from how we come to identify the divergence between two lineages. Most likely the Neanderthals evolved from ancestors, which were also our own, who left Africa about half a million years ago. But thereafter, the lineages of the Neanderthals and of modern humans evolved independently, the first in Europe and ours in Africa. Although at later times, after the Cro-Magnons migrated out of Africa, the two lineages would occasionally intermix in the Near East and in Europe.

After about 500,000 years ago, the lineage that would eventually give rise to Homo sapiens evolved in Africa. Gradually, of course, but following a pattern known as “phyletic” evolution, namely without branchings. The quandary that arises in a process of gradual change within a single lineage, is that it becomes impossible to determine a precise time when a new species arises, such as our own. A similar quandary arises if we want to determine when an adolescent becomes an adult: the change is gradual; there is not a precise moment at which the transition occurs. We are the outcome of a gradual process of change, expanded over half a million years, which eventually yielded our current features.

Determining when this actually happened will depend on new fossils yet to be discovered and what they tell us about their evolutionary characteristics. Thanks to the fossils from Jebel Irhoud we now know that 350,000 years ago there were already humans with facial features similar to ours, although with somewhat different configuration of the skull. Taking into account the considerable phenotypic variation of our species, both Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad indicate that the steady process towards modern humans had reached an evolutionary stage similar to ours at least 300,000 years ago.

Britain's health care system and much of Europe were back on track Saturday after a crippling worldwide cyber-extortion attack was stymied — purportedly all thanks to a cybersecurity researcher who bought a website for $10.69.

The researcher, who identifies himself online as MalwareTech, noticed that the malicious software that caused Friday afternoon's attack consistently pinged an unregistered web domain. So he bought the website's URL and made it live, he said.

That act essentially flipped a kill switch — halting the attack as it rippled worldwide, according to MalwareTech and the British government. By then, however, dozens of countries and some of their hospitals, companies and government offices were already infected.

"[Every] IP which hit the domain should have been stopped :)," MalwareTech told NBC News via email Saturday. He has declined to be identified in the media, but was described by the Guardian as a 22-year-old from southwest England who lives with his parents.

Still, researchers say, many computer systems continue to be infected by the "WannaCry" malware program and the domain fix may still leave some people, especially corporations, vulnerable.

"Many organizations, especially large corporations, use proxies and block direct Internet connections," said Didier Stevens, a Belgian security researcher and handler at the Internet Storm Center who found that those who use proxy servers might still be affected.

"It has stopped the attack for home users and small businesses that don't use proxies," Stevens told NBC News in an email, noting reports of new versions of the ransomware that are totally unaffected by the domain. "For organizations with proxies, other measures must be taken, like making sure anti-virus is working correctly and is up-to-date."

Nevertheless, MalwareTech's purported accidental rescue of more than 100,000 computers in 104 countries was confirmed by the British government's National Cyber Security Centre.

"Media reports today have rightly praised the efforts of MalwareTech to tackle the Wannacry cyber attack," The National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement on Saturday. "The NCSC has been working in collaboration with a number of organisations in the cyber security community, including MalwareTech and 2SEC4, to understand and mitigate the current Wannacry ransomware threat."

Avast, an antivirus provider, reported on Saturday that a total of 126,000 computers in 104 countries had been infected by the ransomware program — called "WanaCrypt0r 2.0." or WannaCry. How it spread so quickly is unknown, although it's believed to have been through email phishing.

"No confirmation of attack origin yet but a lot of people are saying spam," MalwareTech explained, whose domain purchase provided him the identifying metadata of the affected computers.

But not everyone was saved from forking over money to the hackers' ransom demands. According to Quartz, three accounts associated with the ransomware received 92 bitcoin payments, or about $26,408.

That the attack was potentially stymied is a relief to many, as the British government reported that U.K. hospitals were hit hard early during Friday's cyberattack. Nearly all were operational again Saturday.

"In fact, 97 percent of the NHS trusts and hospitals and doctors are working as normal," said British Interior Minister Amber Rudd after chairing the U.K. government's crisis response team. "So the response has in fact been very good and that is due to the good work of the staff and the resilience that was already put in place."

According to Rudd, 48 of 248 health service organizations went dark because of the cyberattack. Only six "have some limits on their business," she added.

The cyberattack took control of any computer it infected and encrypted the information on it. It then demand a $300 payment to be made via Bitcoin in order for the user to regain access. More than 20 British hospitals and major institutions — including Nissan, FedEx, Russia's Interior Ministry and German railway stations — were reportedly affected by the attack.

The identity of who was behind the malware was still unclear Saturday, but Europol's European Cybercrime Centre said it was working with the impacted countries and with cybersecurity partners to defuse the situation and help victims.

Meanwhile, the Group of 7 (G7) countries — consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — said they were not going to be caught flatfooted again. The G7's financial chiefs met in Bari, Italy, on Saturday, ahead of the G7 Summit at the end of the month, and reportedly focused on the crisis.

"We recognize that cyber incidents represent a growing threat for our economies and that appropriate economy-wide policy responses are needed," the G7 said in a statement.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was in attendance and confirmed that cybersecurity would continue to be a main talking point for the world's seven most advanced economies.

"This is a reminder to all of us of the importance and focus on cyber security," Mnuchin said, according to Reuters. "We had this on the agenda today, we were speaking about it, I think people felt so strongly about it that we agreed to keep it on the agenda for the next few sessions."

MalwareTech agreed that such vigilance is necessary.

"One thing that is very important to note is our sinkholing only stops this sample and there is nothing stopping them removing the domain check and trying again, so it's incredibly important that any unpatched systems are patched as quickly as possible," he said.

source : nbcnews