Assessment of soil trace metal contamination of an uncontrolled landfill and its vicinity: the case of the city of ‘Targuist’ (Northern Morocco) [Scholarly Article - Moroccan Journal of Chemistry, 2021]

Title:

Assessment of soil trace metal contamination of an uncontrolled landfill and its vicinity: the case of the city of ‘Targuist’ (Northern Morocco) 

 

Authors:

Kaouthar Andaloussi, Hafid Achtak, Chafik NAKHCHA, Khadija Haboubi & Mostafa Stitou  

 

Published:

Moroccan Journal of Chemistry, Volume 9, Number 3 (2021)

https://revues.imist.ma/index.php/morjchem/article/view/23680

 

Abstract: 

This study aims to assess, for the first time, soil Trace Metal Elements (TME) contamination level in an uncontrolled landfill and its vicinity of 'Targuist' (town in northern Morocco). Soil samples were collected at two depths (20 and 40cm) from 16 sampling sites. Samples were characterized for their physicochemical parameters (pH, electrical conductivity (EC), organic matter (OM) and total organic carbon (TOC)) and for their TME (copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd) and chromium (Cr)) using atomic absorption spectroscopy (ASS). The results show no significant differences between soils sampled at 20cm or 40cm depths regarding the tested parameters. While significant differences between sampling sites In landfill and Out landfill is observed particularly regarding pH, CaCO3, TOC, and Cd. Overall, our results show that soil physicochemical properties follow a spatial variability with decreasing values moving away from the landfill. Regarding TME soil contents, our results show contamination levels in most of the sampling sites of the study area. Furthermore, the total TME concentrations in soils vary according to the type of the studied metal and to the sampling site. Zn, Cu and Cd show significant positive correlations with pH. However, Cd has no correlation with any other trace elements or soil physicochemical properties. Meanwhile, Cr shows a significant negative correlation with Zn and Cu. OM, TOC, CaCO3 and EC are strongly and positively correlated. These results are well illustrated in the outcomes of the Principal Components Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis.

 

A worked bone assemblage from 120,000–90,000 year old deposits at Contrebandiers Cave, Atlantic Coast, Morocco [Scholarly Article - iScience, September 2021]

Title:

A worked bone assemblage from 120,000–90,000 year old deposits at Contrebandiers Cave, Atlantic Coast, Morocco 

 

Authors:

Emily Y. Hallett, Curtis W. Marean, Teresa E. Steele, Esteban Álvarez-Fernández, Zenobia Jacobs, Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni, Vera Aldeias, Eleanor M.L. Scerri, Deborah I. Olszewski, Mohamed Abdeljalil El Hajraoui & Harold L. Dibble

 

Published:

iScience, 16 September 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102988 [Open Access]

 

Highlights:

• Bone tools from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco, dated to 120,000 to 90,000 years ago 

• Bone tools likely used for leather and fur working, and other activities 

• Carnivore bones from cave show they were skinned for fur removal 

Summary:

The emergence of Homo sapiens in Pleistocene Africa is associated with a profound reconfiguration of technology. Symbolic expression and personal ornamentation, new tool forms, and regional technological traditions are widely recognized as the earliest indicators of complex culture and cognition in humans. Here we describe a bone tool tradition from Contrebandiers Cave on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, dated between 120,000–90,000 years ago. The bone tools were produced for different activities, including likely leather and fur working, and were found in association with carnivore remains that were possibly skinned for fur. A cetacean tooth tip bears what is likely a combination of anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic modification and shows the use of a marine mammal tooth by early humans. The evidence from Contrebandiers Cave demonstrates that the pan-African emergence of complex culture included the use of multiple and diverse materials for specialized tool manufacture.

Also see

Scientists find evidence of humans making clothes 120,000 years ago

The Guardian, September 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/16/scientists-find-evidence-of-humans-making-clothes-120000-years-ago

COVID-19 in Rural India, Algeria, and Morocco: A Feminist Analysis of Small-Scale Farmers' and Agricultural Laborers' Experiences and Inventive Practices [Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 2021]

Title:

COVID-19 in Rural India, Algeria, and Morocco: A Feminist Analysis of Small-Scale Farmers' and Agricultural Laborers' Experiences and Inventive Practices 

 

Authors:

Irene Leonardelli1,2*, Lisa Bossenbroek3, Hind Ftouhi4, Zakaria Kadiri5, Sneha Bhat6, Seema Kulkarni6, Meriem Farah Hamamouche7,8, Mohamed Amine Saidani4,7,8,9, Margreet Zwarteveen1,2 and Jeltsje Sanne Kemerink-Seyoum1,2 

 

1. Water Governance Department, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft, Netherlands 

2. Governance and Inclusive Development Group, Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands 

3. iES Landau, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany 

4. Département des Sciences Humaines, Institute of Agronomic and Veterinary Institute Hassan II, Rabat, Morocco 

5. Faculty of Arts and Humanities Ain-Chock, University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco 

6. Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune, India 

7. Bureau d'Etudes, Consulting dans le domaine Agricole (ECA), Algiers, Algeria

8. Joint Research Unit “Water Management, Actors, Territories” (UMR G-Eau), CIRAD, Montpellier, France 9Montpellier SupAgro, Montpellier, France

 

Published:

Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 15 April 2021

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2021.653979/full

 

From the article:

In this paper we present a situated analysis of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the life of small-scale farmers and agricultural laborers in India, Algeria, and Morocco. We draw on data collected through phone interviews since April 2020. Inspired by feminist scholars, we analyze our findings thinking with—and entangling—the concepts of intersectionality, resilience and care. We firstly document the material impacts of the lockdown measures, focusing particularly on the experiences of single women farmers and laborers, whose livelihood and well-being have been notably compromised. Secondly, we unfold how different agricultural actors have come up with inventive ways to respond to the unexpected situation which they are facing. In doing so, we highlight the importance of considering the multiple and entangled socionatural challenges, uncertainties, and marginalizations that different agricultural actors experience, as well as the transformative potential of their inventive practices, which are often motivated and informed by notions of care.

 

Between the ‘yellow-skinned enemy’ and the ‘black-skinned slave’: early modern genealogies of race and slavery in Sa`dian Morocco [Scholarly Article - The Journal of North African Studies, 2021]

Title:

Between the ‘yellow-skinned enemy’ and the ‘black-skinned slave’: early modern genealogies of race and slavery in Sa`dian Morocco 

 

Author:

Samia Errazzouki

Department of History, University of California, USA

 

Published:

The Journal of North African Studies, 25 May 2021

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13629387.2021.1927557

 

Abstract:

This paper situates Morocco’s invasion of the West African Songhai Empire in 1591 within the global histories of race, slavery, and capitalism. Morocco’s invasion, which took place during the height of the Sàdi dynasty (1554–1659), provided Morocco with an influx of capital through Black West African slave labour on Morocco’s sugar plantations and its newfound control over the lucrative gold and salt mines of West Africa. Such wealth and power bolstered Morocco’s regional and global position in the vital node where Africa, Europe, the Mediterranean, and Atlantic all converge. This paper will address the following questions: how did Morocco’s shift from enslaving non-Muslims to enslaving Muslim West Africans from the Songhai based on their race lay down the foundations for centuries of anti-Black violence in North Africa? (2) how did Black slave labour from the Songhai allow Morocco to become England’s primary source of sugar imports prior to the rise of sugar plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean? (3) how can we move beyond normative taxonomies that view North and West Africa as separate spaces instead of as regions whose conditions were shaped by one another? Ultimately, my paper will demonstrate how the Sàdi dynasty was an active player in the rise of racialized forms of slavery that eventually dominated the Atlantic for centuries and whose afterlives continue to endure on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Special Issue: Women and Gender Relations during the Pandemic in Morocco by Moha Ennaji [Scholarly Article - Rivera, February 2021]

Title:

Special Issue: Women and Gender Relations during the Pandemic in Morocco

 

Author:

Moha Ennaji Professor, Université Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah

 

Published:

Rivera, 14 February 2021

http://riverapublications.com/article/women-and-gender-relations-during-the-pandemic-in-morocco

 

Abstract:

Covid-19 has totally disrupted all activities and social affairs, including gender relations and men’s and women’s living conditions. This article focuses on the negative repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic on women and gender roles in Morocco. It reveals that the pandemic has burdened women with more housework and duties at home, and that violence against them has risen, especially among working class women and housemaids who are particularly socio-economically vulnerable. Many of them have lost their income and feel isolated and lonely, with hardly any opportunity to recuperate their activity, to visit their relatives, or meet new people, and consequently no one to turn to for support. Domestic violence is the most common type of violence against women in Morocco during this pandemic. The fieldwork I conducted in Fès city and its region reveals that some women and girls are often beaten up by their husbands, fathers, or brothers and many cases of such incidents have reached courts and the media. However, these battered women rarely approach the police for assistance because they are often unaware of their legal rights, on the one hand, and because they believe that the police may be biased against them, on the other. Nevertheless, there is a silver lining in this crisis: in a few households, many men show willingness to help with the housework and to provide more care to their children’s education and distance learning. The article ends with recommendations for reform of practices and laws with the purpose of eliminating violence against women in both the private and the public spaces, and proposes education, legislation, and law enforcement as valuable tools to combat such violence. 

Also see

Chômage, violence et travail domestique : comment le Covid-19 a bouleversé la vie des femmes au Maroc [The Conversation, 6 June 2021]

MOROCCO - Africa’s most powerful supercomputer launched (by Wagdy Sawahel)

Title:

Africa's most powerful supercomputer launched

 

Author:

Wagdy Sawahel

 

Published:

University World News, 1 March 2021

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210228193908881

 

From the article:

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco has launched Africa’s most powerful supercomputer centre, with the aim of supporting Moroccan and African academic and industry research and helping to create the next generation of computational scientists and digital entrepreneurs.  

 

The new African Supercomputing Center (ASCC) was set up in partnership with the University of Cambridge and technology firms Dell and Intel as a resource for vital research in Africa on topics such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, genomics, food security, agriculture and mining.

Morocco and Tunisia form alliance to tackle shared challenges

Title:

Morocco and Tunisia form alliance to tackle shared challenges

 

Author:

Wagdy Sawahel

 

Published:

University World News, 8 October 2020

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201005185420616

 

From the article:

Morocco and Tunisia have unveiled a US$2.16 million plan to set up joint laboratories, enhance networking between universities in the two countries, mutually recognise degrees aimed at enhancing student and academic mobility and encourage doctoral theses emanating from joint supervision by the partner institutions.

National Geographic (23 September 2020) - Case for 'river monster' Spinosaurus strengthened by new fossil teeth

Title:

Case for 'river monster' Spinosaurus strengthened by new fossil teeth

 

Author:

Michael Greshko

 

Published:

National Geographic, 23 September 2020

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/case-for-river-monster-spinosaurus-strengthened-by-new-fossil-teeth/

 

From the article:

Recent groundbreaking discoveries in Morocco provide evidence that Spinosaurus spent much of its life in the water. Now, a new study finds that the dinosaur's teeth also abound in ancient river sediments—suggestive of a life spent swimming through, and even hunting in, prehistoric rivers.

 

Morocco - Ministry floats hybrid model for upcoming academic year

Title:
Ministry floats hybrid model for upcoming academic year

Author:
Wagdy Sawahel

Published:
University World News, 7 September 2020
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2020090714441712

From the article:
Morocco’s universities are set to begin the new academic year in mid-October with a hybrid model which gives students the choice of remote or in-person education (with limited numbers of students) or both, according to a statement issued by Morocco’s Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Professional Training on 24 August.

Coronavirus – Morocco: USAID Distance Education Activities prepare Morocco’s Ministry of Education for Virtual Learning During Coronavirus Disruptions

Title:
Coronavirus – Morocco: USAID Distance Education Activities prepare Morocco’s Ministry of Education for Virtual Learning During Coronavirus Disruptions

By:
Africa Press Office

Published:
CNBCAfrica, 6 April 2020

From the article:
"Coronavirus is shutting down schools and affecting learning opportunities for over 1.5 billion children and youth around the globe. The global pandemic has stunned education systems worldwide: How do we ensure the continuity of our children’s academic education? Is virtual learning the solution?  

In Morocco, a Ministry of Education cadre of experts that benefited from previous USAID-funded distance learning activities responded, “Yes!” While Morocco’s school buildings are closed, one million students have already accessed the Ministry’s online learning platform and lessons broadcast nationally on TV, opening the door to continued learning for millions more of Moroccan youth."

To read this article:
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/africa-press-office/2020/04/06/coronavirus-morocco-usaid-distance-education-activities-prepare-moroccos-ministry-of-education-for-virtual-learning-during-coronavirus-disruptions/