The Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament fully support the Arab's League proposal to deploy a joint UN/Arab peacekeeping mission in Syria and invite the Security Council to immediately adopt a resolution to this effect.   
 

Ana Gomes, the Parliament's standing rapporteur for Libya and S&D co-ordinator for the foreign affairs, departed yesterday on a five-day European Parliament mission to Libya. The Parliamentary delegation will go to Tripoli and Benghazi to meet with the Libyan authorities, ambassadors from the EU and its member states, representatives from the UN and the US, NGOs and civil society activists.
 
Before leaving, the S&D MEP explained:
 

The foreign affairs committee in the European Parliament today passed - with the support of the Socialists and Democrats - the conclusion of a protocol to the Euro-Mediterranean agreement.  This establishes an association between the European Communities and their member states, and the Kingdom of Morocco regarding a framework agreement on the participation of Morocco in EU programmes.

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• The Malas twins: Ahmed and Mohamed Malas - actors and scriptwriters (see article on Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/20111222162349451619.html)

The recent legislation proposed by the right wing majority in the Israeli Knesset allows for classifications of NGOs into two categories, so as to limit the work of human rights NGOs in Israel. The legislation will effectively divide NGOs into two kinds: those considered “friendly” to Israel and those considered “political” or “unfriendly” to Israel.
 

“Israel Debates” is an online publication by the FES Office Israel in which two Israeli authors express their contrasting views on significant events and developments in Israeli domestic and foreign politics. Our objective is to give readers a “true face” rendition of the controversial political debates in Israel by presenting the views of two authors who play an important role in the country’s political discourse. You will find “Israel Debates” on the FES Israel site (www.fes.org.il).

1. Country Profile
 

Capital: Rabat
Population: 31,992,592 (July 2009)
Ethnic groups: Arab-Berber (99.1%), other (0.7%), Jewish (0.2%)
Religions: Muslim (98.7%, mostly Maliki Sunnite), Christian 1.1%, Jewish 0.2%