'Divided they stand, divided they fail': opposition politics in Morocco

The literature on democratization emphasises how authoritarian constraints usually lead genuine opposition parties and movements to form alliances in order to make demands for reform to the authoritarian regime. There is significant empirical evidence to support this theoretical point. While this trend is partly visible in the Middle East and North Africa, such coalitions are usually short-lived and limited to a single issue, never reaching the stage of formal and organic alliances. This article, using the case of Morocco, seeks to explain this puzzle by focusing on ideological and strategic differences that exist between the Islamist and the secular/liberal sectors of civil society, where significant opposition politics occurs. In addition, this article also aims to explain how pro-democracy strategies of the European Union further widen this divide, functioning as a key obstacle to democratic reforms

Pneumothorax spontané: mode de révélation inhabituel d’un hamartochondrome pulmonaire

L'hamartochondrome est une tumeur bénigne de l'arbre trachéo-bronchique de découverte fortuite le plus souvent et rarement symptomatique. Elle est plus fréquente chez l'homme que chez la femme. L'aspect radiologique est souvent évocateur. Le recours à la chirurgie est indiquée quand la tumeur est de grande taille et/ou symptomatique. Le diagnostic histologique ne pose en règle pas de difficulté. Nous rapportons l'observation d'une jeune patiente de 30 ans, sans antécédents pathologiques particuliers. Qui avait présenté un pneumothorax spontané, révélant un hamartochondrome pulmonaire de grande de taille. Association assez rare, mais pourrait être expliqué par le fait que ces tumeurs de composition assez anarchique, contiennent parfois des formations kystiques qui peuvent se rompre dans la plèvre et être à l'origine d'épanchements.The Pan African Medical Journal. 2016;2

Subchronic exposure of honeybees to sublethal doses of pesticides: effects on behavior.

Laboratory bioassays were conducted to evaluate on honeybee behavior the effects of sublethal doses of insecticides chronically administered orally or by contact. Emergent honeybees received a daily dose of insecticide ranging from one-fifth to one-five-hundredth of the median lethal dose (LD50) during 11 d. After exposure to fipronil (0.1 ng/bee and 0.01 ng/bee), acetamiprid (1 mug/bee and 0.1mug/bee) or thiamethoxam (1ng/bee and 0.1 ng/bee), behavioral functions of honeybees were tested on day 12. Fipronil, used at the dose of 0.1 ng/bee, induced mortality of all honeybees after one week of treatment. As a result of contact treatment at 0.01 ng/bee, honeybees spent significantly more time immobile in an open field apparatus and ingested significantly more water. In the olfactory conditioning paradigm, fipronil-treated honeybees failed to discriminate between a known and an unknown odorant. Thiamethoxam by contact induced either a significant decrease of olfactory memory 24 h after learning at 0.1 ng/bee or a significant impairment of learning performance with no effect on memory at 1 ng/bee. Responsiveness to antennal sucrose stimulation was significantly decreased for high sucrose concentrations in honeybees treated orally with thiamethoxam (1 ng/bee). The only significant effect of acetamiprid (administered orally, 0.1 mug/bee) was an increase in responsiveness to water. The neonicotinoids acetamiprid and thiamethoxam tested at the highest dose (one-tenth and one-fifth of their oral LD50 respectively) and fipronil at one-five-hundredth of LD50 have limited effects on the motor, sensory and cognitive functions of the honeybee. Our data on the intrinsic toxicity of the compounds after chronic exposure have to be taken into account for evaluation of risk to honeybees in field conditions