International
Mohamed VI of Morocco celebrates 25 years on the throne: reforms and challenges

The reign of King Mohamed VI of Morocco, which celebrates 25 years this Tuesday, has been characterized by political reforms such as the promulgation of a new Constitution and economic reforms with the construction of large infrastructures, but also by development imbalances in the different regions of the country and criticism of the lack of freedom of the press.
The Allawi king came to the throne on July 23, 1999, after the death of Hassan II, with the intention of breaking with his father’s repressive and traditionalist era in terms of human rights, the modernization of the economy and the democratization of the political scene.
From the beginning, the young monarch, who is now 60 years old, paid special attention to women’s rights and in 2003 announced the need for reforms in the area of divorce and polygamy.
A year later, a new Family Code was approved, which granted more rights to women and is now subject to a new review.
In a spirit of breaking with his father’s repressive legacy and shedding light on those known as ‘years of lead’, Mohamed VI created in 2004 the Equity and Reconciliation Instance, which treated more than 17,000 cases of serious human rights violations and compensated the victims.
Seven years later, in 2011, the monarchy faced democratic demands of the ‘Arab Spring’ protests, after a historical abstention rate in the 2007 legislative elections that exceeded 60%. Mohamed VI announced a revision of the Constitution.
The new Magna Carta, which stipulates parity as a governing principle of public policies, consolidated the position of the Parliament and the Presidency of the Government, although it did not essentially modify the powers of the monarch, who continues to set the country’s guidelines.
During his reign, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has multiplied by more than three to 129.6 billion euros in 2023, but without reaching the speed of other emerging countries in the region, such as Senegal, whose GDP is almost five times higher.
In the last 25 years, the Human Development Index (HDI), which reflects economic development and analyzes health, education and income, has shown a continuous improvement, but not at the same pace as other countries and Morocco has decreased in the international ranking from 112th place in 1999 to 120th in 2022.
Morocco has undertaken plans to modernize agriculture, until it becomes an export reference to Europe, has consolidated a textile and automotive industry and foresees an energy transformation.
Infrastructures such as the Tanger Med megaport, the largest in the Mediterranean and Africa, have also been inaugurated, the highway network has been expanded from 400 to 1,400 kilometers and the first high-speed train has been established.
Despite state efforts, Morocco continues to suffer an imbalance between the most developed industrial Atlantic axis, which connects the northern city of Tangier with the southern city of Agadir, and the most impoverished regions of the east and southeast of the country.
The earthquake of 2023 that shook the mountains of southern Marrakech and left almost 3,000 dead revealed a Morocco where there are still isolated villages that live in precariousness.
One of the critical moments of the era of Mohamed VI was the outst of social protests in the northern region of the Rif, which began in October 2016 in the city of Al-Ocemas and lasted until mid-2017.
During the protests, half a thousand people were arrested. Almost all of them have been serving their sentences or have benefited from royal pardons, except for six, including the leader of the revolt Naser Zafzafi, who is serving a 20-year sentence.
Morocco receives criticism in terms of press freedom. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders, as well as the European Parliament, denounce the imprisonment of journalists.
Some convictions that, according to the Moroccan Government, are for crimes of common crime, such as rape, unrelated to his profession as journalists.
International
Venezuela Refuses to Repatriate Citizens Amid Tensions Over Chevron’s Departure

The government of Venezuela privately warned the government of Donald Trump that it will not accept its own citizens being deported, following the United States’ decision to end Chevron’s license to operate in the Caribbean country, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the matter, notes that the Venezuelan repatriation agreement is becoming strained after a January meeting between Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell and the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro, who is not recognized as president by the U.S. The Chevron issue has exacerbated tensions.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration ended Chevron’s license in Venezuela and gave the company a month, until April 3, to leave the country after President Trump criticized Maduro for not accelerating the deportation of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as quickly as expected.
The WSJ indicates that Venezuela’s private warning could further hinder Trump’s promised mass deportation campaignof undocumented immigrants, which his administration has already had to pause due to the high costs of using military planes for repatriation flights.
International
Hearing suspended in Guatemala on revocation of José Rubén Zamora’s house arrest

Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín will know until next week if he should return to preventive detention, after this Friday the hearing was suspended for a possible revocation of his house arrest.
The resumption of the hearing was rescheduled for next Monday, at 10:00 local time (16:00 GMT), by order of criminal judge Erick García, since, as he indicated, he lacks the case file for the moment.
The possible return of Zamora Marroquín to prison is due to a case of alleged money laundering in 2022, the year in which the Public Ministry (Prosecution), whose leadership is sanctioned internationally under allegations of corruption, began a judicial prosecution against him.
The journalist’s potential return to prison takes place after this week an Appeals Chamber revoked the house arrest measures that had been granted since October 2024 to the former owner and founder of the media El Periódico, a morning in which he uncovered more than a thousand cases of state corruption.
According to the opinion of the magistrates of the Third Appeals Chamber, there was “an error” in the resolution of the judge who decided to release the journalist last year. The review of the measures was requested by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Zamora Marroquín was detained for the case for more than 800 days, between July 29, 2022 and October 2024, without his guilt being proven to date.
Before this Friday’s hearing, the journalist recalled in statements to the media that he has complied with all the court orders regarding his house arrest, and reiterated that he has not seen his family for more than two years, since they are abroad in the face of the risks they could encounter in the Central American country.
Likewise, he added that the persecution against him has been “physical and psychological but I am not going to give up” and described the Third Appeals Chamber as a court linked to the “corrupt” and Deputy Felipe Alejos, sanctioned by the United States for corruption.
Zamora Marroquín, with 30 years of journalistic career, was arrested on July 29, 2022, just five days after issuing strong criticism for corruption against then-President Alejandro Giammattei, between 2020 and 2024, and his close circle.
The journalist remained in prison for a judicial process for alleged money laundering, which according to international organizations such as the Inter-American Press Society (IAPA) has been plagued with irregularities.
International
Trump withdraws 400 million federal funds from Columbia University for anti-Semitism

Donald Trump’s government canceled this Friday subsidies and contracts with Columbia University in New York worth 400 million dollars “due to its passivity in the face of the persistent harassment of Jewish students,” after receiving on Monday a report commissioned by the administration on anti-Semitism on the campuses of several universities in the country.
This cancellation “is the first set of actions, and new cancellations are expected,” warns a statement signed by the general administrative services, which specify that Columbia currently has 5 billion federally committed.
The decision to cut subsidies and contracts has been made together with the federal departments of Justice, Health, Education and Administrative Services, after the operational group commissioned by the government with the specific task of detecting and denouncing anti-Semitic behavior has not received a satisfactory response from Columbia, according to the statement.
Complaints of anti-Semitism began to appear in Columbia and other campuses shortly after October 7, 2023, the date on which Hamas launched a terrorist attack against Israel, which was then followed by a war declared by Israel against Gaza that has been one of the deadliest in several decades.
That war gave rise to demonstrations against Israel as they had not been seen on university campuses for fifty years, with Columbia at the spearhead, with some anti-Jewish incidents that made the Joe Biden Government intervene and summon the rectors of several universities to Congress, several of which (including Columbia’s) had to resign.
Despite the fact that the protests have dropped a lot in terms of intensity, Trump went further than Joe Biden: first, he named that operative group on anti-Semitism on campuses, and second, he threatened to withdraw visas or residence permits from students accused of supporting “terrorist organizations like Hamas.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon says that Columbia “for too long has left its homework with Jewish students on its campus, but today we show Columbia and the other universities that we will no longer tolerate that terrible passivity.”
And the director of the group that sent his report last Monday, Leo Torrell, abounded in the threats: “Freezing funds is one of the tools at our disposal to respond to this upsurge in anti-Semitism. This is just the beginning,” he said.
Curiously, in the protests against Israel, one of the most active groups has been the left-wing Jews, who have denounced that under the premise of anti-Semitism, legitimate political criticisms against the State of Israel are being included.
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