Sarah Boutata August 1, 2018 I’m a recent architecture graduate from the National School of Architecture in Rabat, Morocco. When I was in school, I was taught that architects were the perfect combination of builders and artists. Today, I am just an artist, and I’d like to speak of the reality of my world. Two years ago, as I finished my undergraduate degree at the National School of Architecture in
...
Robert M. Holley July 25, 2018 I have heard a lot of oddly crazy options over the last 18 months about the future of MINURSO, the United Nations peacekeeping mission for Western Sahara. I say oddly crazy because some of them I heard directly from acknowledged experts on North African affairs. When the Security Council renewed MINURSO’s mandate last April for only six months it raised my suspicion that some
...
Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.) August 1, 2018 This week our colleague and beloved friend Kathy Kriger passed away unexpectedly in Casablanca, Morocco. Many people knew her as the owner and proprietor of Rick’s Café, modeled after the fictional café from the movie Casablanca, with its beautifully decorated interior designed by the famous Bill Willis. Her death stunned many in Morocco and those of us who knew and worked with
...
Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.) July 30, 2018 Following his enthronement on July 30, 1999, His Majesty King Mohammed VI gave his first public speech on August 20th on the anniversary of the Revolution of the King and People. Rereading it nineteen years later provides an interesting insight into his thinking then and now. The sorrow expressed at the death of King Hassan II was still fresh on the new
...
Robert M. Holley July 25, 2018 At the end of April, the Security Council surprised many observers by renewing the MINURSO mandate for only six months rather than a year, as had been the usual practice over the last decade. That raised a number of questions: Why the change? What did it hope to accomplish? If the intention was to give the new Personal Envoy a boost by suggesting greater
...
