Morocco Reshuffles Cabinet, Keeps Foreign and Finance Ministers

Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Dine El Otmani. (Reuters)
Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Dine El Otmani. (Reuters)
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Morocco Reshuffles Cabinet, Keeps Foreign and Finance Ministers

Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Dine El Otmani. (Reuters)
Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Dine El Otmani. (Reuters)

Morocco announced a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, reducing the number of jobs to 23 but keeping the foreign, finance and interior ministers in their posts.

King Mohammed VI approved the list of new ministers submitted by Prime Minister Saad Dine El Otmani, state news agency MAP reported, after having asked him in the summer to arrange a reshuffle.

The tourism, housing, youth and culture, employment, justice and health ministers were changed, but the interior, religious affairs, agriculture, energy, trade and industry and education ministers stayed in place.

El Otmani's moderate Islamist PJD party has seven cabinet posts in the newly configured government, while the liberal RNI led by business tycoon Aziz Akhannouch has four, including his own appointment to agriculture.

The socialist PPS party withdrew last week from the coalition over what it described as political disagreements.

Many of the new ministers are technocrats without clear party affiliation, a development that some analysts say shows the influence of the palace in appointing strategic portfolios, while political parties are marginalized.

Morocco is seeking a new development model to fight poverty and curb regional and social disparities.



UK Police Ban Palestine Action Protest Outside Parliament

File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025.  EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI
File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025. EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI
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UK Police Ban Palestine Action Protest Outside Parliament

File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025.  EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI
File photo: People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in Rabat, Morocco, 22 June 2025. EPA/JALAL MORCHIDI

British police have banned campaign group Palestine Action from protesting outside parliament on Monday, a rare move that comes after two of its members broke into a military base last week and as the government considers banning the organization.

The group said in response that it had changed the location of its protest on Monday to Trafalgar Square, which lies just outside the police exclusion zone, reported Reuters.

The pro-Palestinian organization is among groups that have regularly targeted defense firms and other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza.

British media have reported that the government is considering proscribing, or effectively banning, Palestine Action, as a terrorist organization, putting it on a par with al-Qaeda or ISIS.

London's Metropolitan Police said late on Sunday that it would impose an exclusion zone for a protest planned by Palestine Action outside the Houses of Parliament - a popular location for protests in support of a range of causes.

"The right to protest is essential and we will always defend it, but actions in support of such a group go beyond what most would see as legitimate protest," Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said.

"We have laid out to Government the operational basis on which to consider proscribing this group."

Palestine Action's members are alleged to have caused millions of pounds of criminal damage, assaulted a police officer with a sledgehammer and, in the incident last week, damaged two military aircraft, Rowley added.