TOTAC Launches New Club to Encourage Writing, Reading in Morocco

 A woman looks at a book in the "El Ateneo Grand Splendid" bookstore. AFP
A woman looks at a book in the "El Ateneo Grand Splendid" bookstore. AFP
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TOTAC Launches New Club to Encourage Writing, Reading in Morocco

 A woman looks at a book in the "El Ateneo Grand Splendid" bookstore. AFP
A woman looks at a book in the "El Ateneo Grand Splendid" bookstore. AFP

The Moroccan Academy TOTAC has announced the establishment of a book club named "TOTAC Book" that will allow its members to read, write, and train on public speech.

The club will focus on the bestselling books in personal development and professionalism, and the biographies of eminent personalities, as well as literature. The goal behind establishing the club is not only reading but rather engaging in the process of learning and training for success.

"TOTAC Book" plans to dedicate a special time for literature by hosting writers, novelists, and poets to talk about their works during each of its meetings scheduled every two months.

The club has also set two other goals: the first is to accompany its members and encourage them to write a collective book centered on what was learned through their readings every year, and the second is to encourage them to speak in front of the audience within a space allocated for this purpose in each meeting.

The official launch of the Casablanca-based club was marked by three keynotes: the first was on the state of reading in Morocco, provided by Fatma Kachkach, member of the club, master coach and teacher in communication; the second, on the club charter, goals, and how it works, addressed by Dr. Nazha Hefti, a founding member of the club; the third on the experience of writing a book and how writing can serve as a tool for personal and professional success by journalist Mohamed Charrouk.

The ceremony was concluded by the election of the club's committee.

TOTAC is an academy of training that graduates trainers, consultants, lecturers. It includes a laboratory for pedagogical creativity (educational), a modern and innovative training method developed based on the latest studies and research in the field of pedagogy and cognitive neuroscience.

The TOTAC graduates form the largest network of experts, trainers, and consultants in various fields.



China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS

Two Chinese astronauts this week completed a world-record spacewalk of more than nine hours, according to a statement from China's Manned Space Agency, marking another milestone for Beijing's rapidly expanding space program.

The spacewalk, carried out by Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong outside the Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit on Tuesday, was at least four minutes longer than the last record set by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms in 2001, according to Reuters.

The two astronauts of China's Shenzhou-19 mission donned their Feitian spacesuits to carry out an array of tasks on the station's exterior, including the installation of space-debris protection devices, China's space agency said.

"They successfully completed all the planned tasks and felt very excited about it," Wu Hao, a staffer from the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told China Central Television, a state broadcaster.

The former Soviet Union in 1965 became the first nation to carry out a spacewalk. Since then, Russia and the United States have conducted hundreds of such missions, primarily outside the International Space Station for tasks ranging from solar panel installations to materials research.

The first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut occurred in 2008.

China's spacewalking milestone this week comes amid a flurry of other recent cosmic achievements that have boosted Beijing's competitive footing with the United States.

China landed its first rover on Mars in 2021 and earlier this year became the first country to retrieve rock samples from the moon's treacherous far side in its Chang'e-6 mission.

Beijing is targeting 2030 to land its first astronauts on the moon to become the second country after the US to put humans there. Beijing has courted roughly a dozen countries for its International Lunar Research Station program, an effort to build a moon base on the moon's south pole.

That program rivals NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return US astronauts to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission of 1972.