King Mohammed VI has woken up to the realisation that Morocco's campaign to impose its sovereignty over Western Sahara has entered a dangerous new phase...
While King Mohammed VI does not seem to have the same feel for sub-Saharan politics and global power games as his father five years after King Hassan II's death Morocco remains a player for some of his old allies...
This comes three and a half years after King Mohammed VI made his single most important political decision to date to sack Driss Basri his father's coldly efficient Interior Minister...
Vol 44 No 16 |
- WESTERN SAHARA
France has pushed a more Morocco-friendly agenda but keen to mend fences after the Iraq crisis Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin visited Morocco meeting King Mohammed VI in his Tetouan palace and then agreed to fall into line behind the Baker plan...
ECOWAS estimates that some 5 000 troops will be needed in Liberia and hopes that some 2 000 troops from outside the region will be drawn from the USA South Africa and Morocco (whose King Mohamed VI initiated the stillborn Casablanca peace talks which brought Taylor face to face with some of his neighbours: Sierra Leone's President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Guinea's President Lansana Conté...
While Morocco's King Mohammed VI and Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika did not manage a bilateral meeting in Paris a new French diplomatic initiative may help to resolve the dispute over Western Sahara which has hobbled North African relations for years...
Vol 44 No 1 |
- NORTH AFRICA
'Apolitical' Premier Driss Jettou chosen by King Mohammed VI to lead another centre left-nationalist coalition must deliver better services and growth: a tall order even for a successful businessman and political manager with recession in Europe and global security worries depressing the economy...
King Mohammed VI surprised Moroccans on 9 October by naming industrialist-turned-Interior Minister Driss Jettou as his new Prime Minister...
King Mohammed VI (AC Vol 43 No 15) sees his father's old opponent as indispensable to his democratic opening up...
Vol 43 No 19 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Gabon's President Omar Bongo and Morocco's King Mohammed VI tried to organise a regional summit in Marrakesh for 26 September but with little hope that Gbagbo would risk leaving the country again this was replaced by plans for a summit of the Economic Community of West African States...