morocco

The initiative targets 10,000 young women, studying at university and wanting to start their own business, from Morocco, Palestine, Jordan and Spain. The 'Young Women as Job Creators' project aims to create 400 new businesses. It is an initiative by the Union for the Mediterranean – whose headquarters are based in Barcelona – and the Association of Organisations of Mediterranean Businesswomen (AFAEMME). The project will run from May to November 2013 and it will be based on workshops and courses taught in universities from the four countries involved. The initiative has a budget of €300,000, paid by the Government of Norway, the Catalan multinational Gas Natural Fenosa, the Union for the Mediterranean and the European Investment Bank.

Tito Vilanova will make his debut as Barça head coach in Germany. Barça have been invited to play in the Bundesliga club’s 125th anniversary match. After Hamburg, the next destination for Barça and Tito Vilanova will be a friendly in Morocco on July 28th

Fathallah Sijilmassi is the substitute of Youssef Amrani, who quit after less than one year in office to become Morocco’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister. Sijilmassi was Director General of the Moroccan Agency for Investments, and previously served as the Moroccan Ambassador to Paris and earlier to the European Communities. The Union for the Mediterranean has its permanent Secretariat based in Barcelona. The UfM brings together the 27 European Union Member States and 16 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

The Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, whose headquarters are based in Barcelona, has resigned to become Morocco’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. King Mohamed VI appointed Youssef Amrani to counterweight the actual Foreign Affairs Minister, from the moderate Islamists. Amrani’s resignation means that the UfM has once again been left without a figure head in the past year, after Massadeh’s resignation in early 2011.

Lmrabet was sent to jail in 2003 for writing about Morocco’s king and his supposed real estate interests. He was also banned from media. Finally he has created ‘Demain’, an online newspaper directed from Barcelona. It has the same name as the publication he had in Morocco, which was shut down by King Mohammed VI’s regime.

Artur Mas, the President of the Catalan Government, met with the “State Minister” of the Moroccan Government, Mohamed El-Yazghi, who acts as a deputy prime minister. Mas recommended that Morocco build a pseudo-federal model, as was done in Spain, giving the Western Sahara some degree of autonomy.