Ross tours the region
The recently appointed special envoy of the UN secretary general*, Christopher Ross, has arrived in Rabat for talks over the Western Sahara issue. Ross was originally selected for the job in September, but it took several months to make it official, after Morocco for unexplained reasons obstructed his appointment. Rabat eventually gave up and signed the dotted line in January, whatever that may mean.
It is his first trip to see the parties to the conflict, and he impressed early on by speaking to Aljazeera TV in fluent Arabic — although what he said was “no comments”. For some reason, that feels illustrative of the whole Western Sahara issue.
*) I believe the official abbreviation is SESGUNWS, which is still one letter shorter than POLISARIO.
Maghreb Politics Review 
Ross will arrive in the camps for Sahrawi refugees today and he will probably be asked to demand information from Moroccan authorities about the disappeared Saharawis. This item should have been dealt with long time ago, and this longstanding complaint is one of the failures of van Walsum, the former SESGUNWS.
Meanwhile another disappearance occurred and this time it is the chairman for the organisation of human rights in the Rif, Chakib Khayari. He is an outspoken person who asked the Spanish to assist in an investigation of the mass murder of 1984 in Nador when many Riffians disappeared. Chakib is also an outspoken supporter of of legalisation of teh Riffian cannabis culture.