Day: June 20, 2022

Morocco’s Youssra Zekrani Wins Silver Medal in African Fencing Championship, Casablanca

Youssra Zekrani took home a silver medal after reaching the final stage of Africa’s Fencing Championship in Casablanca.

Zekrani reached the final stages of the continental tournament, before losing to Egyptian contestant Noura Mhamad, earning her the silver medal.

In the game against the Egyptian, Zekrani lost by nine points to 15.

Zekrani, who ranked as the 91st best player in the world, faced and eliminated Algeria’s Chaymae Nihar Kamar and Egypt’s Yara Charkaoui in the quarterfinals. 

While facing Algeria’s Kamar, the Moroccan athlete won by an impressive margin of 15 to 10. She equally scored a no less impressive score against Egypt’s Charkaoui, winning with nine to 15.

This is not the first time Zekrani makes national headlines for winning a tournament. The Moroccan athlete brought home a bronze medal at the 2016 African Championships. She competed at the Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil.

More than two years later, Zekrani claimed another bronze medal at the African Games in 2019.

This year’s fencing tournament in Casablanca saw the participation of several other Moroccan female contestants, including Manal Kermaoui and Ilham Belefkih.

The Casablanca tournament took place on June 15-19, under the patronage of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. It saw the participation of athletes from across the continent, with 233 registered participants. 

source/content: moroccoworldnews.com

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MOROCCO

US-Iraqi TV Star Alia Shawkat Pushes for New Narratives

If you never realized that Alia Shawkat has Arab heritage, there’s a reason for that: The Iraqi-American actress — who has been stealing pretty much every scene she has appeared in since 1999, when she was 10 years old — rose to fame at a time when Hollywood was much less receptive to non-white identities.

Now, though, the 33-year-old star is entering the next phase of her career, one in which her heritage will be front and center.

“It’s interesting, because when I started acting, I always had to say I was half-whatever the role was. I would say I was half-Spanish, or half-French, just trying to blend in. I was always seen as ‘too ethnic’ when I was young,” Shawkat tells Arab News. “Now my ethnicity is a strength, because the conversation is shifting. It’s funny to watch actors actually talk about where they’re coming from, or playing roles that they’re actually connected to, when I grew up having to basically hide it.”

Not that it ever slowed Shawkat down. While she is perhaps still best-known for playing Maeby Fünke on the acclaimed cult comedy “Arrested Development,” which also reinvigorated or launched the careers of Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera and Tony Hale, she has been an inimitable presence across dozens of acclaimed independent films, before becoming the star and a key creative voice in the series “Search Party” (2016-2022), a pitch-black comedy and noir crime drama hybrid that defines Shawkat’s unique spirit better than anything has thus far.

She didn’t have to search too hard to find inspiration for the show. “My father is Middle Eastern, and he owns a club in Palm Springs. So that’s the show,” she deadpanned to the New Yorker last fall.

While “Desert People” will tackle that by putting Arab characters at its center, Shawkat took “The Old Man” in part because of the way that it, too, dives into righting some of the wrongs that were committed in the post-9/11 landscape.

source / content: arabnews.com (edited)

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Alia Shawkat in ‘The Old Man.’ (FX)

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AMERICAN / IRAQI