In a speech delivered by King Mohammed VI, yesterday at the Royal palace in Marakech, at an exchange of toasts during a dinner hosted in honour of the French president Nicholas Sarkozy, the Moroccan sovereign welcomed the president of the French republic, and the important delegation accompanying him. His Majesty the king mentioned the fact that the French president has chosen Morocco for his first state visit outside Europe, which attests the exceptional character of the relationship between the two countries.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has wished that the parties to the Sahara issue reach a mutually acceptable solution to end the 32 year-long dispute opposing Morocco and the Algerian-backed separatist movement "Polisario". "My hope, which is that of the International Community, is that the parties find together a just and mutually acceptable solution" the French president said in an interview with MAP prior to his three-day official visit to Morocco starting Monday afternoon.

A hundred and twenty-one members of the British House of Commons have signed a motion that lends support to the Moroccan initiative to negotiate an autonomy statute in the Sahara region in a bid to solve the 32-year-old dispute over this former Spanish colony. The document, the first to be signed by such a number of MPs,  "favorably" welcomes the Moroccan autonomy plan as it  "offers the opportunity to meet the demands of the (Polisario) separatists," by guaranteeing for the Sahrawis a larger role in the institutions of the region, "while recognizing the

The 4th commission of the UN general assembly adopted on Monday a draft resolution on the Sahara issue .sending a strong signal of support to the process of direct negotiations between parties concerned . The General Assembly expresses "satisfaction that the parties have met on 18 and 19 June and on 10 and 11 August 2007 under the auspices of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary General and in the presence of the neighbouring countries and that they have agreed to continue the negotiations," reads the draft resolution, whose final adoption will take place at a forthcoming plenary session of the 62nd session of the UNGA.

The Australian journalists Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw, underlined on Thursday in New York that slavery is a common and institutionalized practice in Tindouf camps controlled by the separatist movement polisario “Slavery is a genuine institution in the Tindouf camps” asserted Viola ayala at the time of a meeting with the press at the headquarter of the UN; she was very surprised, when herself and her colleague discovered the scale of the phenomenon. Both Australian journalists went to Tindouf in Algeria to produce a documentary about