Tag Archives: Morocco

The Associated Press reports: A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 800 people and damaging buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakech. But the full toll was not known as rescuers struggled to get through boulder-strewn roads to the remote mountain villages hit hardest. People woken by the quake …

Axios reports: A fallout between President Trump and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led to the breakthrough that resulted in the Morocco-Israel normalization deal, sources briefed on the matter told me. Inhofe is Washington’s most avid supporter of the Polisario Front — a Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan occupation of …

The BBC reports: A well known Moroccan YouTuber has been jailed for four years after being found guilty of insulting the country’s king. Mohamed Sekkaki [photo] was arrested earlier this month after criticising King Mohammed’s speeches and for calling Moroccans donkeys. He plans to appeal against the verdict. Rights groups are worried that personal freedoms are under increasing threat in …

The British tourist sentenced to four months in a Moroccan prison for “homosexual acts” has been reunited with his family pending the appeal of his case. Ray Cole, a retired publisher aged 69, was arrested on 18 September at a bus stop in Marrakech. He was arrested alongside Jamal Jam Wald Nass, a local man in his 20s with whom …

The British Foreign Office is working to free a tourist who was sentenced to four months in prison for “homosexual acts” after being arrested while vacationing in Morocco. Via BBC News: Ray Cole, from Deal, Kent, was detained with his Moroccan partner by police who approached the pair at a bus stop in Marrakesh last month, his family said. His …