Climate change imperils drought-stricken Morocco’s cereal farmers and its food supply

Climate change imperils drought-stricken Morocco’s cereal farmers and its food supply
Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of the NGO Nalsya, right, advises a farmer on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation, on a farm on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo)
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Updated 24 July 2024
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Climate change imperils drought-stricken Morocco’s cereal farmers and its food supply

Climate change imperils drought-stricken Morocco’s cereal farmers and its food supply
  • Delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.
  • Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year’s wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons, far less than last year’s 6.1 million tons

KENITRA: Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country’s entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.
The North African nation projects this year’s harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.
“In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought,” said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.
Belhoussni’s plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and, in regions like North Africa, shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.
The region is one of the most vulnerable in the world to climate change. Delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.
In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.
In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.
“The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops,” said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco’s rivers.
The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year’s wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons, far less than last year’s 6.1 million tons — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 36,700 square kilometers to 24,700 square kilometers.
Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.
“When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more,” he said. “We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue.”
Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.
The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco’s primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world’s sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Turkiye and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.
“Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change,” Benali said.


Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities

Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities
Updated 12 sec ago
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Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities

Israeli authorities destroy Palestinian homes in West Bank cities
  • Israeli authorities demolish 25 structures that belonged to the Dababseh family in Khallet Al-Dabaa village
  • In Ramallah, forces raze a 150 sq. meter home that housed five people

LONDON: Israeli authorities demolished several Palestinian structures, including homes, in occupied West Bank cities on Monday.

Israeli forces demolished two homes in Al-Mughayyir village, north of Ramallah. They also destroyed a 200 sq. meter home in Al-Funduq, east of Qalqilya, for building without a permit. Additionally, several structures were demolished in the Jordan Valley.

Wafa reported that Israeli authorities demolished 25 structures that belonged to the Dababseh family in Khallet Al-Dabaa village, including homes, water wells, naturally formed caves, agricultural rooms, barns, and solar panels, after forcibly evicting residents.

In Ramallah, forces demolished a 150 sq. meter home that housed five people, while a demolition notice was issued for another house.

In the northern Jordan Valley, Israeli forces destroyed homes and livestock pens belonging to residents in Khirbet Al-Deir, while in Nabi Elias village, it raided several vehicle repair garages, the Wafa news agency reported.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, associated with the Palestinian Authority, reported that Israeli forces or settlers carried out 1,693 attacks on Palestinian towns, their properties, and lands in April.


Woman killed as gunmen attack Damascus nightclub: monitor, witness

People walk past the closed entrance of Al-Karawan nightclub on Damascus’ Saadallah Al-Jabri street on May 5, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past the closed entrance of Al-Karawan nightclub on Damascus’ Saadallah Al-Jabri street on May 5, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 15 min 49 sec ago
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Woman killed as gunmen attack Damascus nightclub: monitor, witness

People walk past the closed entrance of Al-Karawan nightclub on Damascus’ Saadallah Al-Jabri street on May 5, 2025. (AFP)
  • A witness, requesting anonymity for security reasons, said he “heard gunfire at dawn” as he was near the nightclub
  • “I saw a woman’s body, blood stains on the ground, and chaos after the shooting,” he said

DAMASCUS: Armed men opened fire inside a club in Damascus on Monday, killing a woman, according to a witness and a war monitor, the second attack in a week targeting the Syrian capital’s nightlife.
The perpetrators or their motives were unknown. Some Syrians have expressed fears that the country’s new authorities would seek to impose restrictions on public behavior but it was unclear whether the attackers were linked to them.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that “unidentified gunmen attacked the Al-Karawan nightclub in the Hijaz area with automatic weapons and opened fire, killing a woman and wounding others.”
A witness, requesting anonymity for security reasons, said he “heard gunfire at dawn” as he was near the nightclub.
He told AFP that he “did not dare to enter the club until some time after the firing stopped.”
Inside the club, “I saw a woman’s body, blood stains on the ground, and chaos after the shooting,” he said.
Contacted by AFP, the interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the deadly attack.
The club is located in a commercial area in the heart of Damascus, where many licensed nightclubs and bars have been operating for decades.
A resident of the same street said security forces had been monitoring the venue from a vehicle for days.
A local vendor said “there has never been any problem with the nightclub” in the five years he has worked in the area.
Hours before the shooting, a video circulated on social media showing security camera footage from a previous attack on a nightclub in the same area.
The footage, verified by AFP, shows gunmen entering the venue before beating fleeing men and women with their weapons.
Authorities said on Sunday that the gunmen involved in the first incident had been arrested.
“After initial investigations and reviewing the recordings, the individuals involved in the assault were identified, arrested and transferred to the judiciary,” the interior ministry said in a statement carried by Alekhbariah television.
“Any transgression or assault affecting citizens or public facilities will be met with strict legal measures,” it added.
Since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, the intentional community has been pressing Syria’s new rulers to respect personal freedoms, protect minorities and include all components of society in the transitional period.


UAE to teach AI in government schools from kindergarten up

UAE to teach AI in government schools from kindergarten up
Updated 05 May 2025
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UAE to teach AI in government schools from kindergarten up

UAE to teach AI in government schools from kindergarten up

DUBAI: UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid announced on Sunday that artificial intelligence lessons would be introduced for public-school children of all ages starting the next academic year.

In a tweet on X, Sheikh Mohammed wrote that the UAE cabinet had approved “the final curriculum to introduce ‘Artificial Intelligence’ as a subject across all stages of government education in the UAE, from kindergarten to grade 12, starting from the next academic year.

“Our goal is to teach our children a deep understanding of AI from a technical perspective, while also fostering their awareness of the ethics of this new technology,” he continued.

“Our responsibility is to equip our children for a time unlike ours, with conditions different from ours.” 

The step aims to equip students with the essential knowledge and skills to understand AI concepts appropriate for each academic level. 

UAE Minister of Education Sarah Al-Amiri said this integration of AI into classrooms reflects the “UAE government’s future-focused vision,” according to a statement on WAM News Agency.

The UAE will be among the first countries to introduce AI in school curricula, the statement added.

The AI curriculum will cover seven key areas, including foundational concepts, data and algorithms, software use, ethical awareness, real-world applications, innovation and project design, and policies and community engagement. 


Mother and son killed in flash floods in southern Jordan

Mother and son killed in flash floods in southern Jordan
Updated 05 May 2025
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Mother and son killed in flash floods in southern Jordan

Mother and son killed in flash floods in southern Jordan
  • The Belgian pair went missing as heavy rain caused flash floods across the country

JORDAN: The bodies were evacuated from the area, and an official investigation into the incident has been launched to determine the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.

A major search and rescue operation had been launched in Jordan after flash floods ripped through vast parts of the country at the weekend.

Hundreds of tourists were evacuated on Sunday as the floodwaters continued to rise.

The Petra Development of Tourism and Region Authority said heavy rain triggered flash floods in the city on Sunday.

A Public Security Directorate spokesman said specialized teams of personnel from Civil Defense, local police directorates, and the Gendarmerie Forces, conducted extensive search operations under what they described as “challenging weather conditions and difficult terrain”.

“Their efforts extended over many hours before the two victims were found deceased”, the report added.

Yazan Mahadin, commissioner of Petra Archaeology Park and Tourism at PDTRA said most of 1,785 tourists that visited on Sunday had been evacuated.

A further 14 who were trapped by floodwaters in the Western Ma’an Police Directorate were rescued uninjured.

Meanwhile a separate team was sent to Tafileh to search for a teenager who went missing while herding sheep in the Hasa area. 

The areas evacuated by the civil defense were Al-Khazneh, the Siq, the Roman Soldier’s Tomb, the Monastery, and the slopes of Prophet Harun.

Ticket sales to all major tourist attractions were suspended as a safety precaution, and the PDTRA is encouraging people to avoid flood paths and low-lying areas.


Lebanese army seizes Captagon pills, equipment at Syrian border

Lebanese army seizes Captagon pills, equipment at Syrian border
Updated 05 May 2025
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Lebanese army seizes Captagon pills, equipment at Syrian border

Lebanese army seizes Captagon pills, equipment at Syrian border

CAIRO: The Lebanese Army seized large quantities of Captagon pills in a raid on a manufacturing plant on the Lebanese-Syrian border, the Lebanese News Agency reported on Monday. 

An army unit, supported by a patrol from the Directorate of Intelligence, seized large quantities of pills in addition to equipment for producing Captagon, along with raw materials used in drug manufacturing.