Meteorology satellites users meet in Morocco
About 200 meteorology experts from Europe and Africa started monday Rabat - Morocco a five-day forum to look at latest services, performances and innovations made in meteorology satellites usage.
The forum, sponsored by the world meteorology organization, is an opportunity for participants to foster cooperation, exchange experiences and inform African countries on the role of satellite technologies in sustaining their socio-economic development process.
The Forum is marked by the holding of an exhibition displaying various high-tech software machines and apparatus specialized in remote sensing, satellite image processing and weather monitoring. (Map)az
' Morocco-Festival Morocco's Betrothal Festival Swings Between Ancestral Legend and Hard Reality Rabat, Sep.21 (Map)- During the 2nd fortnight of every year's September, thousands of Moroccans from all regions of the kingdom as well as foreign tourists and journalists flock massively to the Errachidia region (southern Morocco) to attend the betrothal festival of "Immilchil." During this popular festival, which downed curtains last week, young couples from the "Ait Hdiddou" tribes, living in the 2000 m high Atlas mountain chains, gather to celebrate their engagement and sacred union. This exotic and legendary festival still prompts the curiosity of anthropologists and sociologists who want to decipher and probe the roots, implications and evolution of this peculiar social phenomena. This annual festival, which blends mythology, popular festivities and imagination, is said organized to commemorate the tragic story of two lovers who were not allowed to get married by their parents because they belong to rival tribes. The legend says the lovers, whose hearts were broken, died of grieve and their tears formed the "Isli" and "Tislit" lakes bearing their names.
These two lakes have nowadays become an emblem reminding the parents of the local tribes of the errors and arrogance of their forefathers and incite them to be more conciliatory and comprehensive regarding their children and namely in their marriage.
Hence very year, hundreds of young couples from the local tribes and elsewhere come in "Immilchil" accompanied by their parents and relatives to announce their engagement or marriage before a legal jurist.
After signing, in a traditional moroccan tent, the marriage or engagement documents, the couples and their relatives went out to organize popular festivities in the open-air to celebrate their union. They afterwards go to the mausoleum of the saint "Sidi Ahmed Ouldmaghani" to seek his benediction for the success and happiness of the couples.
The Imilchil betrothal festival is a unique socio-cultural event of its kind in Morocco and perhaps in the world. It perpetuates a centuries-old popular and original tradition at a time marriages have become a very complex and heavy social and financial burden.