The Sydney Morning Herald

Prominent columnists and journalists who write for The Sydney Morning Herald include Robert Manne, Doug Anderson, Paul Sheehan, Anthony Dennis, Mark Riley, Miranda Devine, Adele Horin, Michael Idato, Julia Baird, Mike Carlton, Gerard Henderson, Alan Ramsey, Peter FitzSimons, David Marr, Roy Masters, Keith Austin, Deborah Smith, Maggie Alderson and Richard Glover. University of Karueein, in Fez, has been a center for Islamic studies for more than 1,000 years. It also owns various other newspapers and magazines throughout Australia and New Zealand, including The Age (a similar broadsheet newspaper published in Melbourne). Al-Akhawayn, founded in 1993 by King Hassan II and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, is an English-medium, American-style university comprising about 1,000 students. The company also owns the The Sun-Herald, the Sunday counterpart to the Herald, and a number of community newspapers in Sydney. The oldest and in some ways the most prestigious is "Mohammed V University" in Rabat -along with Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (a private university)-, with faculties of law, sciences, liberal arts, and medicine. It is currently controlled by John Fairfax Holdings. Morocco has about 230,000 students enrolled in 14 public universities.

The Fairfax family owned the newspaper for 149 years but lost control of it on December 11, 1990 following financial misadventure of Warwick Fairfax. The country's illiteracy rate has been stuck at around 50% for some years but reaches as high as 90% among girls in rural regions. We have no wish to mislead; no interest to gratify by unsparing abuse or indiscriminate approbation.". Nevertheless, many children --particularly girls in rural areas-- still do not attend school. Its editorial policies were based "upon principles of candour, honesty and honour. Education in Morocco is free and compulsory through primary school (age 15). It became a daily newspaper in 1840, and in 1842 changed its name to The Sydney Morning Herald. Casablanca is the center of commerce and industry and the leading port; Rabat is the seat of government; Tangier is the gateway to Morocco from Spain and also a major port; Fez is the cultural and religious center; and the dominantly "Berber" Marrakech is a major tourist center.

A decade later it was bought by Charles Kemp and John Fairfax. Most people live west of the Atlas Mountains, a range that insulates the country from the Sahara Desert. The paper was named after Scotland's Glasgow Herald, and was founded by three Englishmen, Alfred Stephens, Frederick Stokes and William McGarvie. As a result of national education reforms entering into force in late 2002, English will be taught in all public schools from the fourth year on. It only had four pages and a circulation of 750 copies. English, while still far behind French and Spanish in terms of number of speakers, is rapidly becoming the foreign language of choice among educated youth. The Sydney Morning Herald began its life as a weekly newspaper, the Sydney Herald. About 20,000 Moroccans in the northern part of the country speak Spanish as a second language in parallel with Tarifit.

Since the advent of the Internet, the Herald has developed an comprehensive online presence with all major news stories available for online viewing and retained online for some time. It also is widely used in education and government. Tabloid newspapers, such as its competitor The Daily Telegraph, are considerably smaller, with each page having a size of approximately A3. French, which remains Morocco's unofficial second language, is taught universally and still serves as Morocco's primary language of commerce and economics. The Herald is a broadsheet, meaning that each page is approximately A2 in size. Approximately 10 million (1 third of the population), mostly in rural areas, speak Berber --which exists in Morocco in three different dialects (Tarifit, Tashelhiyt, and Tamazight)-- either as a first language or bilingually with the spoken Arabic dialect. Column 8 is another long-running institution. The country's distinctive Arabic dialect is called Moroccan Arabic.

The cryptic crossword in the Sydney Morning Herald is popular. Morocco's official language is classical Arabic. It also produces two colour magazines, the weekly Good Weekend, and the monthly the(sydney)magazine. Most of the 100,000 foreign residents are French or Spanish; many are teachers or technicians. They currently include a motoring section, Drive, a food and lifestyle section, Good Living, a property section, Domain, and a television section, The Guide. Morocco's Jewish minority has decreased significantly and numbers about 7,000 (See History of the Jews in Morocco). The Sydney Morning Herald publishes a number of daily sections, as large-format magazines, some of which have been part of the newspaper's infrastructure for more than two decades. The Arabs invaded Morocco in the 7th and 11th centuries and established their culture there.

Like The Age, the demographics of its readers are more attractive to many advertisers than its tabloid competitor. Most Moroccans are Sunni Muslims of Arab, Berber, or mixed Arab-Berber stock. In the coverage of Fairfax's business affairs, this revenue has often been referred to as "rivers of gold". Morocco is the fourth most populous Arab country, after Egypt Sudan and Algeria. The Saturday edition of the Herald carries a massive classified section - a popular selling point and a powerful source of cash revenue for the company. In 1999 the Moroccan Government admitted that over 500,000 children under the age of 15 were in the labor force^[3]. The Herald sells 375,000 copies to the Telegraph's 345,000. Though working towards change, Morocco historically has utilized child labor on a large scale.

The Saturday editions of both papers are more closely matched. Morocco has an unemployment rate of 12.1% (2004 Data) and a 1999 estimate by the CIA puts 19% of the Moroccan population under the poverty line^[2]. Its circulation is smaller than the Telegraph; according to circulation data published in the first half of 2004, the Herald sells about 221,000 copies per weekday compared to around 409,000 copies of the Telegraph. Morocco is a party to the 1988 UN Drug Convention and in 1992 Morocco passed legislation designed to implement the Convention. The Fairfax papers (the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age), seen as centrist, are often contrasted with the News Limited papers (The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun), which tend to be more right-leaning, and "the Fairfax press" is often used pejoratively by conservative commentators. This represents 10 % of the total area and 27 per cent of the arable lands of the surveyed territory and 1.5 per cent of Morocco's total arable land. Historically the paper was characterised as a right of centre, old-school conservative organ of the Establishment, providing a counter-point within Fairfax's holdings to the liberal Melbourne Age, especially during David Syme's tenure as editor of the latter, and it did not editorialise in favour of Labor at a state election until 2003. A UN survey^[1] estimated cannabis cultivation at about 1340 square kilometres in Morocco's five northern provinces.

The Herald attempts to maintain editorial balance, with both left leaning contributors like David Marr and cartoonist Michael Leunig, and conservative writers such as Miranda Devine and Gerard Henderson. This activity represents 0.57 per cent of Morocco's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), estimated at US$ 37.3 billion. It is often seen as the paper of the educated middle class. The cannabis is typically processed into hashish. The Sydney Morning Herald is recorded as being read by a stronger representation of the so-called, "AB demographic", (the highest demographic in terms of education, income and occupation) than its main competitor, the only other major daily newspaper in Sydney, the Murdoch-owned The Daily Telegraph. Morocco ranks among the world’s largest producers and exporters of cannabis, and its cultivation and sale provide the economic base for much of the population of northern Morocco. . The country's third largest source of revenue is tourism.

Since then, over 51,000 editions have been produced. Its second largest source of income is from nationals living abroad who transfer money to relatives living in Morocco. It is also the oldest Australian newspaper, having been continuously published since 1831. Morocco's largest industry is the mining of phosphates. The Sydney Morning Herald is a major Australian broadsheet newspaper published daily in Australia's oldest and most populous city, Sydney. The agreement is expected to enter into force in January 2006. The United States Senate approved by a vote of 85 to 13 on July 22, 2004 the Free Trade Agreement with Morocco, which will allow for 98% of the two-way trade of consumer and industrial products to be without tariffs.

Morocco has signed Free Trade Agreements with the European Union (to take effect 2010) and the United States of America. See also List of cities in Morocco and Western Sahara. Other cities include Agadir, Essaouira, Fes, Marrakech, Meknes, Oujda, Ouarzazat, Safi, Tangier, Tiznit, Salè and Tan-Tan. Morocco's capital city is Rabat, and its largest city is the main port of Casablanca.

Internationally, this is only recognized by four countries (see History of Western Sahara). Morocco claims that the Western Sahara is part of its territory and refers to that as its Southern Provinces. To the south lies the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that was annexed by Morocco in 1975 (see Green March). Most of the population lives to the north of these mountains, while to the south is the desert.

Most of the south east portion of the country is in the Sahara Desert and as such is generally sparsely populated and unproductive economically. The Atlas Mountains run down the backbone of the country, from the south west to the north east. The Rif mountains occupy the region bordering the Mediterranean from the north-west to the north-east. To the north, Morocco is bordered by and controls part of the Strait of Gibraltar, giving it power over the waterways in and out of the Mediterranean sea.

Off the Atlantic coast the Canary Islands belong to Spain, whereas Madeira to the north is Portuguese. There are also four Spanish enclaves on the Mediterranean coast: Ceuta, Melilla, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera and Peñón de Alhucemas, as well as several islands including Perejil and Chafarinas. Algeria borders Morocco to the east and southeast. These 16 regions are:.

As part of a 1997 decentralization/regionalization law passed by the legislature, 16 new regions were created, although the full details and scope of the reorganization are limited. Three additional provinces, Ad Dakhla (Oued Eddahab), Boujdour, and Es Smara, as well as parts of Tan-Tan and Laayoune, primarily fall within Moroccan-claimed Western Sahara.
. Morocco is divided into 37 provinces and 2 wilayas:.

. See also: List of political parties in Morocco. Opposition political parties are legal and several have arisen in recent years. The King of Morocco can dissolve government and deploy the military, among other responsibilities.

Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, with a popularly-elected parliament. The attacks left 33 civilians dead and more than 100 people injured. In 2003, Morocco's largest city, Casablanca, suffered from Casablanca terrorist attacks. Morocco was granted Major non-NATO ally status in June 2004 and signed free trade agreements with the United States and the European Union.

It now houses the Tangier American Legation Museum. owned abroad. The United States legation (consulate) in Tangier is the first property the U.S. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the American signatories.

Morocco was the first nation to recognize the fledgling United States in 1777 and has the oldest non-broken friendship treaty with the country, the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship, which has been in effect since 1783. Gradual political reforms in the 1990s resulted in the establishment of a bicameral legislature in 1997. See History of Western Sahara. Morocco virtually annexed Western Sahara during the late 1970s, but final resolution on the status of the territory remains unresolved.

The Spanish enclave of Ifni in the south became part of the new Morocco in 1969. His rule would be marked by political unrest, and the ruthless government response earned the period the name "the years of lead". Hassan II became King of Morocco on March 3, 1961. The internationalized city of Tangier was reintegrated with the signing of the Tangier Protocol on October 29, 1956.

Through agreements with Spain in 1956 and 1958, Moroccan control over certain Spanish-ruled areas was restored, though attempts to claim other Spanish colonial possessions through military action were less successful. The Kingdom of Morocco recovered its political independence from France on March 2, 1956 and on April 7 of that year France officially relinquished its protectorate in Morocco. France allowed Mohammed V to return in 1955, and the negotiations that led to Moroccan independence began the following year. France's exile of the highly respected Sultan Mohammed V in 1953 and his replacement by the unpopular Mohammed Ben Aarafa, whose reign was perceived as illegitimate, sparked active opposition to the French protectorate.

That party subsequently provided most of the leadership for the nationalist movement. A manifesto of the Istiqlal (Independence) Party in 1944 was one of the earliest public demands for independence. Many Moroccan Goumiere assisted the Americans in both World War I and World War II. Nationalist political parties, which subsequently arose under the French protectorate, based their arguments for Moroccan independence on such World War II declarations as the Atlantic Charter (a joint U.S.-British statement that set forth, among other things, the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they live).

By the same treaty, Spain assumed the role of protecting power over the northern and southern (Saharan) zones on November 27 that year. A second "Moroccan crisis" provoked by Berlin, increased European Great Power tensions, but the Treaty of Fez (signed on March 30, 1912) made Morocco a protectorate of France. Recognition by the United Kingdom in 1904 of France's "sphere of influence" in Morocco provoked a German reaction; the "crisis" of 1905-6 was resolved at the Algeciras Conference (1906), which formalized France's "special position" and entrusted policing of Morocco jointly to France and Spain. France showed a strong interest in Morocco as early as 1830.

For the first time, Morocco became a state of some interest in itself to the European Powers. The Maghreb had far greater proven wealth than the unknown rest of Africa and a location of strategic importance affecting the exit from the Mediterranean. After the Napoleonic Wars, Egypt and the North African maghreb became increasingly ungovernable from Constantinople, the resort of pirates under local beys, and as Europe industrialized, an increasingly prized potential for colonization. Successful Portuguese efforts to control the Atlantic coast in the 15th century did not profoundly affect the Mediterranean heart of Morocco.

The building now houses the Tangier American Legation Museum. The United States legation (consulate) in Tangier is the first property the American government ever owned abroad. Signed by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, it has been in continuous effect since 1783. The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty.

Morocco was the first nation to recognize the fledgling United States as an independent nation in 1777. In 1684 they annexed Tangier. The Alaouites succeeded in stabilizing their position, and while the kingdom was smaller than previous ones in the region it remained quite wealthy. Morocco was facing aggression from Spain and the Ottoman Empire that was sweeping westward.

The Alaouite Dynasty eventually gained control. The empire collapsed, however, with a long running series of civil wars. Smaller states of the region, such as the Berghouata and Banu Isam, were conquered. First the Almoravids, then the Almohads would see Morocco rule most of Northwest Africa, as well as large sections of Islamic Iberia, or Andalous.

Morocco would reach its height under a series of Berber origin dynasties that would replace the Arab Idrisids. Morocco became a centre of learning and a major regional power. The country soon broke away from the control of the distant Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad under Idris ibn Salih who founded the Idrisid Dynasty. Arabs invaded what became modern Morocco in the seventh century, bringing their civilization and Islam, to which most of the Berbers converted, forming states such as the Kingdom of Nekor.

During this time, however, the high mountains of most of modern Morocco remained unsubdued, and stayed in the hands of their Berber inhabitants. In the 5th century AD, as the Roman Empire declined, the region fell to the Vandals, Visigoths, and then Byzantine Greeks in rapid succession. The arrival of Phoenicians heralded a long engagement with the wider Mediterranean, as this strategic region formed part of the Roman Empire, as Mauretania Tingitana. North Africa and Morocco were slowly drawn into the wider emerging Mediterranean world by Phoenician trading colonies and settlements in the late Classical period.

In the classical period modern Morocco was known Mauretania, although this should not be confused with the modern country of Mauretania. The Berbers, often referred to in modern ethnic activist circles as "Amazigh," are more commonly generically as Berber or by their regional ethnic identity, such as Chleuh. Modern genetic analyses have confirmed that various populations have contributed to the present-day population, including, in addition to the main ethnic groups - Berbers and Arabs - Phoenicians, Sephardic Jews, and sub-Saharan Africans. Many theorists believe the Berber language probably arrived at roughly the same time as agriculture (see Berber), and was adopted by the existing population as well as the immigrants that brought it.

The area of modern Morocco was made by slave labor and Spanish imigrants and has been inhabited since Neolithic times, at least 8000 BC, as attested by signs of the Capsian culture, in a time when the Maghreb was less arid than it is today. The name Morocco in many other languages originates from the name of the former capital, Marrakech. For historical references, historians used to refer to Morocco as Al Maghrib al Aqşá (The Furthest West). Al Maghrib (meaning The West) is commonly used.

The full Arabic name of the country translates to The Western Kingdom. . Its status is disputed, pending a United Nations referendum. Morocco claims ownership of Western Sahara and has administered most of the territory since 1975.

It borders Algeria to the east, though the Algerian border is closed, Western Sahara to the south, the Mediterranean Sea and Spain to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to its west. It has a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. The Kingdom of Morocco (Arabic المملكة المغربية) is a country in northwest Africa. Morocco (1930 film).

Music of Morocco. List of writers from Morocco. Cuisine of Morocco.