Rabat/Berlin - Six people were believed to have drowned after a German sailing boat capsized off the port of Mahdia north of the Moroccan capital Rabat in stormy weather, Moroccan police sources said Thursday.

Two days after the accident occurred on Tuesday, there was virtually no hope of finding any of the victims alive, the sources said.

A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry also said that the six, who included three Germans, had probably drowned.

The seventh occupant of the boat, a 19-year-old German woman, managed to swim ashore.

Rabat, Morocco - The Moroccan authorities managed to cut illegal cannabis production by 65 per cent in 2008, the Interior Ministry said Friday.

Morocco is the world's second biggest grower after Afghanistan of cannabis, from which hashish is made.

The goal now is to reduce cannabis cultivation land from 60,000 hectares in 2008 to 50,000 hectares this year, the ministry said in a press release.

The government has fought cannabis cultivation by destroying crops and with an information campaign trying to persuade farmers to replace the drug with other crops.

The Moroccan authorities have been accused of failing to develop the economy of the northern Rif region, which relies heavily on cannabis cultivation.

Rabat, Morocco - A cold wave described by residents as exceptional was hitting Morocco on Tuesday, raising hopes that snow and rainfall would help to supply water for the agricultural season.

This week's cold wave has affected all parts of the country, but mainly the Ifrane area in the northern Atlas mountains. Rain and snowfall were reported also in Oujda near the Algerian border.

"We have not seen such cold and snowfall in two decades," residents told national television, explaining that the demand for firefood had risen in rural areas.

Rabat, Morocco - Morocco expects the international financial crisis to boost its tourism, with European tourists now increasingly choosing the north African country over more distant destinations, Tourism Minister Mohammed Boussaid said Thursday.

The number of tourists visiting Morocco rose by 6 per cent to about 6.7 million in the first ten months of this year, according to figures issued by the ministry on Thursday.

Most of the tourists come from France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and Italy.

Rabat, Morocco - Moroccan politicians Friday welcomed a decentralization announced by King Mohammed VI as part of the search for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict.

Rabat was seeking "serious" negotiations under the United Nations to solve the three-decade conflict, which opposes Morocco to the Saharawi independence movement Polisario Front, government spokesman Khalid Naciri said.

The negotiations should, however, be based on an autonomy for the desert territory, instead of a 1991 UN plan for a regional referendum on independence, Naciri stressed.