Word: rabat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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According to French press reports of interviews with his mother, Moussaoui led a secular childhood near the southern city of Narbonne. In 1990, however, the arrival of a female cousin--a former student of the Islamic Brotherhood in Rabat--marked the change in his life that would ultimately lead him to his U.S. jail cell. Vexed at the wild ways of her son and unhappy about her niece's fundamentalist opinions, Moussaoui's mother invited the pair to leave--which they did, eventually settling down in Montpellier. There, the young woman began introducing her cousin to acquaintances in the Islamic...
...press, foreign or Moroccan--until last week, when he agreed to let TIME follow him on his peripatetic journeys and do the first interview of his reign. During the jog and more formal talks at a peacock-colored palace in Agadir and during a flight back to Rabat, he came off as confident yet modest, part regal, part ordinary guy. Combining a common touch with strategic vision, he may be the most impressive of the new generation coming to power in the Middle East. Moroccans are calling him M6 for short, and King of the Poor--good omens, considering...
...gorgeous palaces all over the country, although he considers them "the office" and resides in more unpretentious digs. He works out daily with a trainer, hanging out at hotel gyms when he is on the road. On weekends he heads for a beach club in Rabat to race jet skis with friends. In Marrakech he is spotted at restaurants in the Casbah or at the city's fabled La Mamounia Hotel, where he recently startled some Cabinet ministers accustomed to free meals by taking out his wallet and paying a lunch...
...into Seat 2A and chats with flight attendants who offer tea, canapes and chocolates. Near the end of the one-hour flight, he reflects on his tour of the drought-stricken south. "These people need some moral support and some comfort," he says quietly as the plane banks over Rabat. "It is now time for authority to serve the people, and not for the people to serve authority...
...capital will be exempt, from the world's oldest in Damascus to its newest in Palestine, from dusty Riyadh to scenic Rabat, from war-weary Beirut and Baghdad to sleepy Muscat and Manama, from landlocked Amman to seafront Algiers. Oh, and Jerusalem too. Syria, Libya and Iraq will witness the deepest transformations for the simple reason that their eccentric ideologies are the most bankrupt--and the most out of synch with their people. Their institutions are corrupt. And their economies are moribund...