Rhaddi lost in the final to the Algerian Hadjila Khelif (2-0), who won the gold.

With this medal, the Moroccan harvest is 18 medals, including 1 gold, 6 silver and 11 bronze.

This event, initiated by the Israeli liaison office, on the occasion of the celebration by Israel of its National Day, was an opportunity to taste and discover the Israeli culinary art, through a range of main traditional dishes (Shakshuka, Sabih, kabab, Pita ...) in addition to salads and cakes.

These dishes were concocted by the chef Shaul Ben-Aderet, assisted by David Govrin, head of the Israeli liaison office, in the presence of the Moroccan chef "Chef Simo".

The presentation of these different dishes was accompanied by comments on the richness of Israeli cuisine and the specificities of each component of the recipes used and their health benefits.

Emphasis was also placed on the importance of this intangible heritage in bringing people together.

In this regard, Shaul Ben-Aderet said that Moroccan cuisine is very well known in Israel, noting that everyone knows the couscous, tagine and different types of Moroccan salads.

He also pointed out that a large Moroccan community of over one million Jews is established in Israel.

The chef also said that this is his second visit to Morocco, expressing his admiration for Moroccan gastronomy.

For his part, Govrin expressed, in a statement to MAP, his joy to organize this reception in the presence of the "best cook" in Israel, noting that the purpose of this culinary workshop is to present the various Israeli dishes to Moroccan citizens.

The culinary art is a way to strengthen human relations between peoples, he said, adding that sitting around the same table to taste different dishes is likely to strengthen the rapprochement between individuals.
 

A total of 24,857,863 people have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while the number of fully vaccinated people (1st and 2nd doses) has reached 23,343,616, the ministry pointed out in its daily COVID-19 bulletin, noting that 6,559,317 people have received the third dose of the vaccine.

According to the same source, the number of COVID-19 cases reported since the start of the outbreak of the virus rose to 1,220,279, while recoveries increased to 1,178,088, i.e. a recovery rate of 96.5%.

The new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the regions of Casablanca-Settat (1,385), Rabat-Salé-Kenitra (713), Fez-Meknes (401), Marrakech-Safi (249), Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima (238), Souss-Massa (147), Beni Mellal-Khenifra (99), the Oriental (52), Draa-Tafilalet (49), Dakhla-Oued Eddahab (15), Guelmim-Oued Noun (12) and Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra (10).

As for coronavirus-related fatalities, they increased to 16,113, with four cases reported in the past 24 hours in the regions of Casablanca-Settat (01), Rabat-Salé-Kenitra (01), Fez-Meknes (01) and Draa-Tafilalet (01).

The number of active cases has reached 26,078, while 38 severe or critical cases have been reported in the past 24 hours, bringing their total number to 180.

The program was signed by the Minister Delegate to the Minister of Economy and Finance, in charge of the Budget, Fouzi Lekjaa, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan in Morocco, Kuramitsu Hideaki, and the Resident Representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Morocco, Ito Takashi.

It aims to support Morocco in improving the learning environment and reducing disparities in terms of learning in mathematics on three levels, namely within schools, between schools, and between households.

Speaking on this occasion, Lekjaa noted that Morocco has made the education sector a fundamental site of development in recent years. He said that the ministry in charge of the sector is on the way to a real revolution of the education system focusing on quality, performance, the teacher and the environment.

For his part, the Minister of National Education, Preschool and Sports, Chakib Benmoussa, who attended the signing ceremony, said in a statement to MAP, that this agreement comes to accompany the work of reform within the education system and training in terms of quality.

It also helps to build schools, through the support of the state budget, added Benmoussa, noting that this support is part of the roadmap put in place by the government and which is in the consultation phase to achieve objectives by 2026.

For his part, Kuramitsu stressed that the education of young generations forms a constitutive axis of tomorrow's societies, saying that Japan and Morocco consolidate in this sense their cooperation which aims to improve the performance of the Moroccan education system over the years.

"The support of Japan comes to support the technical cooperation project "Promoting Education with Equity and Quality" (PEEQ) in its two phases which consist in supporting the improvement of the quality and equity of teaching and learning of mathematics at the primary and secondary college levels in the target Regional Academies of Education and Training," he said.

The JICA Resident Representative in Morocco said that this new cooperation agreement will further strengthen the fruitful and exemplary partnership between the two governments in the field of basic education.

Ito noted, in this context, the crucial place that the education sector occupies in Morocco as well as the strong royal will to promote an inclusive, equitable and quality education.

During the ceremony, Lekjaa, Kuramitsu and Ito welcomed the quality of relations and partnership that bind the two countries and reaffirmed their willingness to work together to consolidate and strengthen them further.

The Program to improve the learning environment in the basic education sector is perfectly in line with the reference frameworks and strategies of the national education sector, namely the strategic vision 2015-2030, the framework law 51-17, and the key axes of the New Development Model.

Since the 2000s, JICA has supported the Kingdom's efforts in the basic education sector through several instruments. In addition, JICA, which has been based in Morocco for more than 50 years, contributes to various cooperation programs, including yen loan projects, non-reimbursable financial cooperation and technical cooperation, including the sending of Japanese volunteers.

More than 38 concessional loan projects have been granted since 1976 in various sectors (Education, Water, Health, Infrastructure, Agriculture and Marine Fisheries), totaling a budgetary envelope of about 312 billion Japanese yen (about 24 billion dirhams) with the aim of supporting sustainable development, promoting economic competitiveness and contributing to the mitigation of socio-spatial disparities.

Fettah, who presented this bill before the members of the Committee on Finance and Economic Development in the House of Representatives, stressed that it aims to establish an integrated national ecosystem of competition, in accordance with the New Development Model (NMD).

The bill also aims to set the missions and prerogatives of the members of the Council and improve the procedures and management, she said, noting that it also provides for the clarification of the powers of the President of the Council and its various decision-making bodies, to avoid overlapping jurisdiction, empowering the rules of procedure of the Council to distribute the prerogatives between the bodies mentioned above.

In addition, the law allows members at the end of their term of office to continue to exercise their functions until the appointment of new members, to avoid any disruption of the work of the Council, and also gives him the opportunity to disseminate guidelines on various issues, added the Minister.

Regarding the improvement of procedures and management, Fettah said that this text will allow the Competition Council to monitor conflicts of interest on cases before it, concerning the members and the general rapporteur, and establish a procedure for challenge for members and rapporteurs.

The bill also sets out the quorum requirements for the Council's various structures, emphasizing the commitment to confidentiality in the deliberations of decision-making bodies in which only the members concerned may participate.

The candidacy of Morocco was selected for the organization of this competition, scheduled from 22 to 31 July 2023, during the general assembly of the ISF, held last May 16 and 17 in Normandy (France) on the sidelines of the 19th Gymnasiade of school sports. Morocco will be, thus, the first African country to host this sporting event.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Chakib Benmoussa, Minister of National Education, Preschool and Sports, President of the FRMSS, said that this event will be another opportunity to consecrate the leadership of Morocco as a central player in the promotion of school sports and stakeholder in the efforts to develop the world sport.

It is also the culmination of a participatory and fruitful process between the Ministry and its partners, aimed at making schools a real nursery of sports champions, said Benmoussa.

The signing of this contract of organization comes in a context marked by the dynamics that knows the national sport and illustrated by the results obtained by Moroccan students in various international competitions, including the victory of the women's school selection in the African championship of soccer U16, noted the minister.

He noted that Morocco has acquired a notorious experience in organizing international sporting events, adding that this positive accumulation will be used to organize the World School Football Championship in the best conditions.

For his part, Fouazi Lekjaa, president of the FRMF said that the school is the real nursery for the development of sport, adding that the detection of a talent is done at the age of 10 years, when the child naturally follows its school course.

Thus, the school is now at the center of the development of all sports, hence the need to combine schooling and sport, said Lekjaa, highlighting the experience sport-studies started in Morocco a few years ago and has begun to bear fruit, including for women's soccer with the qualification of the selection of U17 for the World Cup scheduled in India.

For his part, the president of ISF, Laurent Petrynka said that the fact of organizing the World Schools Championship in Morocco is a great opportunity, because the Kingdom's application was excellent in every respect and "the confidence we have in the Royal Moroccan Federation of School Sports was an important point."

"Morocco meets all the conditions to host an international competition because, first of all, it is a country of history and culture and this is important because the main thing is "to share values and not only to do sports," stressed Petrynka in a statement to the press, adding that the Kingdom is a great country of education and sport, since it hosts major international competitions and has great ambitions for school sports.

"This megaproject, born from the vision of HM King Mohammed VI and for which an agreement was signed in May 2017 to conduct feasibility and engineering studies between ONHYM and NNPC [Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation], is progressing appropriately," said Benkhadra, who was speaking at a round-table discussion on the project of this pipeline, as part of the 33rd Extraordinary Session of Crans Montana Forum Africa.

ONYHM and NNPC are working in "total synergy," she assured, emphasizing the steps taken by the project, since its launch during the official visit of HM King Mohammed VI, in December 2016 in Abuja, and the signing of the related agreement, on June 10, 2018, during a visit to Rabat of the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari.

"The feasibility study was completed in 2018 and we decided to move to the main FEED [Front-End Engineering Design] study in two stages: The Pre-FEED and the Main FEED," she explained.

"The Pre-FEED was completed in 2019 and it has ensured the major elements of the profitability of the project, and we are since May 2021 on the detailed engineering study, which allows to prepare all the files and all the technical aspects, but also managerial, financial, legal and commercial to go to the final investment decision," she further detailed.

Noting that the current study is going "very positively", she stressed the importance of "the accession of ECOWAS to the project, which gave its agreement in 2020 to have a single pipeline project on the West African coast.

The study is underway in very good conditions and we hope to be at the rendezvous of this highly strategic project and very important for the economic and social integration of our continent," said the Director General of ONHYM.

She added that "all possible synergies have been taken into account to ensure the optimal convergence of this pipeline," noting that "environmental issues are an integral part of our approach, as well as all issues of supply and demand of each country and aspects related to the security of facilities."

Emphasizing the benefits of this pipeline, Benkhadra explained that "this project of continental scope will accelerate the electrification of a number of countries on the West African coast, promote industrial and agricultural development of the region, which has great natural wealth and could be developed more quickly through access to low-cost energy, ensure a considerable regional integration of the continent, improve the lives of the population, reduce gas flaring and develop gas exports to Europe.

With the ambition to be a catalyst for the development of the West African coast, with sixteen countries involved (thirteen Atlantic countries and three landlocked countries), this project will impact 340 million people in the region, connect 5400 billion cubic meters of gas and integrate the economies of countries with a combined GDP of 670 trillion dollars, said Benkhadra.

This project is all the more strategic in the current context of the war in Ukraine, which has amplified the need for Europe to diversify its gas supplies, she noted, noting that the Morocco-Nigeria gas pipeline is in this regard an opportunity for Europe.

"Integrative project, this megaproject is likely to be supported by financial institutions and multilateral and bilateral stakeholders," she concluded.

The signing of this agreement at a ceremony chaired by the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Khalid Ait Taleb, goes in the framework of strengthening bilateral cooperation and promoting investment and innovation in various areas, including the health sector, said Thursday the ministry in a statement.

This memorandum of understanding is part of a public-private partnership approach, in line with the High Directives of HM King Mohammed VI to establish a model of social development based on the principles of equality, equity and solidarity.

Specifically, this memorandum of understanding aims to implement an investment program for the construction and equipment of hospitals with a contribution of I.M.S Ovadia Group Ltd, estimated at 5 billion dirhams.

The first phase of this investment program involves the construction of 5 hospitals with a capacity of 1,000 beds in the regions of Dakhla-Oued Eddahab, Fez-Meknes, Daraa-Tafilalet, the Oriental and Marrakech-Safi.

This ceremony was marked by the presence of executives from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection as well as the Ministry Delegate to the Ministry of Economy and Finance in charge of the Budget.

Speaking at the annual conference of the Council of Europe's HELP Network (Human Rights Training for Legal Professionals), Ms Bouayach said that it is not just about economic or politics, but rather to integrate, in the decision-making process, the best possible tools that can protect the dignity and promote the development of individuals by placing the citizen/human being as actor and beneficiary of development.

"The partnership to which we aspire, between the Northern and Southern shores, is not only about cooperation between partners, but should be a relationship based on a common commitment and a shared responsibility to make universal values ​​and principles of human rights vectors of development", she pointed out during this two-day conference, which aims to review the achievements made, to examine and evaluate the different approaches capable of strengthening the implementation of the European human rights training program for legal professionals.

Noting that new actors are taking more and more space, in particular digital actors, who are developing a digital, public space, which imposes new rules, Ms. Bouayach stressed that "as much as this space constitutes an enlargement of the of freedom of expression and opinion, as much as it represents a platform for the dissemination of hate speech, radicalism and incitement to violence.

She deemed, in this regard, "appropriate to adapt the tools to better deal with speeches of incitement to hatred, violence and discrimination, but also fake news in the digital space", noting that the culture of human rights is challenged by this space undermined by fake news.

According to her, decision-making is increasingly done according to the algorithms of artificial intelligence and not through debate, consultation and the exchange of points of view. Hence the need to undertake, she pointed out, on a regular basis, "lucid and uncompromising" evaluations, in order to measure where we come from, what we have achieved and what we still have to do, especially since we are never immune to setbacks or renunciations in difficult or crisis times, like what we recorded during the first times of Covid-19, or when dealing with the various issues related to the issues of migration and refugees”.

"Let us therefore be aware that the development of our partnership prospects means registering all our action under the sign of development, inclusion, equality between men and women, equal opportunities and respect for diversity and fundamental freedoms," she said.

With this in mind, achieving the 2030 agenda for development, for example, would contribute, de facto, to making the whole region prosper, noted the president of the National Human Rights Council, who noted the positive impact of the HELP program on legal professionals, especially concerning gender equality, the fight against violence against them and the fight against hate speech, hatred and violence.

"These topical issues do not always find an answer in the legal provisions in force," she said.

Thus, pending the reform and updating of legal provisions, the program helps, at least, to support and educate legal professionals on these subjects, she noted.

Currently, the Council of Europe HELP e-learning platform has more than 105,000 users.

The announcement of this project was made by Chaoui in a statement to MAP on the occasion of the 3rd edition of the film festival "Teranga", which takes place in Dakar from June 29 to July 2, with Morocco as guest of honor.

Chaoui, who participates in the competition of this Festival with the film "Les Portes du Ciel" (The Gates of Heaven), directed by Morad El Khaoudi, said the existence of a "potential" in Africa in terms of production, inviting all operators in the sector and investors to "discover this world of industry that can be very interesting.

This is "a real industry, a field that has no borders, like sports," he said while welcoming the holding in Senegal of this film festival, "an extraordinary event" that should be held in all African countries, where there is "potential and extraordinary infrastructure and also human energy.

During their stay in Dakar, Moroccan professionals will have exchanges with their Senegalese counterparts on ways to further promote bilateral cooperation in the field.  

Born from the initiative of the association "Cinema 221" whose founding members are Senegalese film professionals, "Teranga" rewards the talents of the continent and the diaspora.

This event, which is also a tool for African integration, promotion of the Senegalese destination and professionalization of the sector, wants to be among the major meetings of the continent, according to the organizers.

The event will be sanctioned by the award of the Grand Prix of the Head of State and other prizes in various categories.