Rabat, Morocco - Islamic law allows men to wed girls as young as nine years, because marriages to younger women often work out better - or so claims Moroccan theologist Mohammed Maghraoui.

The fatwa (opinion on religious law) issued by Maghraoui in Marrakesh in early September confirmed what King Mohammed VI already knew: that Islamist fundamentalism was on the rise in the traditionally relatively liberal north African country.

Madrid- Moroccan homosexuals may get rights within 50 years if the increase of Islamism does not prevent it, their representative Samir Bargachi said Thursday in the Spanish capital Madrid.

The Moroccan homosexuals' association Kif-Kif was participating in an international congress on the rights of homosexuals in Muslim countries.

Kif-Kif had some 3,000 members in France, Canada, Spain and Morocco, said Bargachi, who is the president of the association.

Rabat, Morocco/Washington - A day after the US clinched international approval for a nuclear trade deal with India, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the George W Bush administration's record in halting nuclear proliferation.

Speaking to reporters in Rabat, Morocco, late Sunday, Rice cited the dismantling of the AQ Khan nuclear weapons' network, the proliferation security initiative that has stopped ships on the high seas carrying banned weapons cargo, Libya's renouncing weapons of mass destruction, the UN sanctions on Iran and progress in getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programme.

Rabat, Morocco/Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saluted the democratic and economic reforms carried out in Morocco under King Mohammed VI.

Rice spoke Sunday in Rabat to reporters after having dinner the night before with Morrocan ministers, including her counterpart, Foreign Minister Fassi Fihri.

Rice and Fihri agreed that the US-Morocco Free Trade Agreement, which went into force in 2005, laid the basis for a new phase of development in Morocco and relations with the United States.

Rabat, Morocco - The Moroccan authoriti

Rabat, Morocco  - Petro-Canada and the German company RWE DEA will prospect for oil in an area of 20,000 square kilometres in south-eastern Morocco, the national hydrocarbons office ONHYM said Wedn