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/ 13 January 2007
South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers took the Dakar Rally overall lead on Friday after winning the seventh stage between Zouerat and Atar, which was shortened because of a blinding sandstorm. De Villiers, driving a Volkswagen, finished the curtailed, 542km stage almost five minutes ahead of previous race leader Carlos Sainz of Spain.
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/ 4 December 2006
Former opposition parties and independent candidates have won Mauritania’s first parliamentary election since the ouster of Maaouiya Ould Taya, who ruled for 21 years, state media said on Monday. A coalition of ex-opposition parties has won 41 seats of the 95 seats in the new National Assembly after Sunday’s second round of voting.
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/ 22 November 2006
European Union observers on Wednesday commended the good conduct of weekend parliamentary and municipal elections held in Mauritania after a military coup, saying there were no major irregularities. ”The elections were carried out in … a free, open and fair political environment,” said Marie-Anne Isler Beguin, head of the EU’s election observation mission.
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/ 19 November 2006
Mauritanians began voting on Sunday in the Islamic republic’s first elections since the end of 21 years of authoritarian rule in a bloodless coup 15 months ago. Voting commenced at 7am local time and Mauritanians have 12 hours to cast their ballots at 2 336 polling stations scattered across this mainly Sahara desert country straddling West Africa and Arab North Africa.
Voters in the poverty stricken West African nation of Mauritania overwhelmingly approved a new Constitution in a weekend referendum, Interior Ministry officials said on Monday. Officials said that based on early returns they believed that 80% to 90% voted on Sunday to approve the Constitution.
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/ 10 January 2006
French title holder Cyril Despres, riding a KTM, on Monday broke through the pain barrier of a recently dislocated collarbone to win the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally, which was marred by the death of Australian rival Andy Caldecott. The car stage was won by Frenchman and defending champion Stephane Peterhansel.
Australian motorcyclist Andy Caldecott has been killed in a crash during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally, organisers said on Monday. KTM rider Caldecott, who won the third stage of the rally from Nador to Er Rachidia in Morocco last Monday, fell 250km into the 599km stage between Nouakchott and Kiffa, Mauritania.
French driver Thierry Magnaldi won the eighth stage of the Dakar Rally on Saturday as two-time defending champion Stephane Peterhansel regained the overall lead in his Mitsubishi. Magnaldi, in a Schlesser-Ford, took the 508km stage from Atar to Nouakchott in five hours and 56 seconds to celebrate his second stage win on this year’s event.
Two-time defending champion Stephane Peterhansel, driving a Mitsubishi, won the gruelling seventh stage of the Dakar Rally between Zouerat and Atar, Mauritania, on Friday. The Frenchman clocked five hours, 52 minutes and 18 seconds over the 499km timed section. Giniel de Villiers of South Africa, who had been the overnight leader, was fourth on the stage and is now fourth overall.
France’s Thierry Magnaldi in a Schlesser-Ford won the car section on the sixth stage of the Dakar Rally in Mauritania on Thursday, with South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers grabbing the overall lead. Magnaldi clocked three hours, 22 minutes and 54 seconds over the 444km timed section on the 792km-long run.
African Union envoys who met Mauritania’s new military strongman said on Wednesday they were reassured by the country’s junta leaders, and urged them to follow a plan to hold democratic elections in less than two years. Pointedly, they said nothing about restoring to power the country’s exiled president.
Mauritania’s self-declared head of state named a new prime minister to replace the former premier who resigned along with his Cabinet after last week’s coup. A judge also freed 21 people who had been detained for plotting against the ousted regime. Junta leader Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall named Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar as prime minister.
African leaders have condemned the coup in the West African state of Mauritania, saying the days of authoritarianism and military rule must end across the continent. A military junta toppled Mauritania’s autocratic president while he was abroad, replacing him with the longtime chief of this oil-rich desert nation’s police force.
A group of army officers in Mauritania announced the overthrow of President Maaoya Sid’Ahmed Taya on Wednesday. Earlier, troops took control of the national radio and television stations and seized a building housing the army chief of staff’s headquarters while the president was out of the country.
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/ 28 February 2005
In the wooden shanty town of Elmina on the outskirts of Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, Aids educators do not let religious or cultural conservatism get in their way. A wooden dummy of a penis fitted with a condom is used to instruct people about the dangers of unprotected sex — a somewhat unexpected sight in a country that is almost entirely Muslim, and where discussions about sex have tended to be taboo.
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/ 3 February 2005
A Mauritanian court ended a mass coup trial on Thursday, condemning four top soldiers to life in prison and others to lesser sentences. Three main opposition leaders were acquitted, including Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, a former military dictator who overthrew current President Maaoya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya two decades ago.
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/ 13 October 2004
The Mauritanian government has arrested Saleh Ould Hanenna, the mastermind of last year’s military uprising against President Maaouiya Ould Taya, who had been on the run for 16 months. Attorney General Mohamed El Ghaith Ould Oumar said the former army major was caught on Saturday in Rosso, a town on the southern border with Senegal.
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/ 22 September 2004
In the deep south of Mauritania, swarms of locusts appear on the horizon like dark menacing sand storms and then arrive to swirl around the countryside like blizzards of thick, yellow snowflakes. The grasshopper-like insects settle on every tree, plant and bush and begin to munch away at the green vegetation.
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/ 30 December 2003
Former Mauritanian president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah has been released from prison after receiving a suspended prison sentence for plotting to overthrow the current head of state, Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya. The five-year suspended sentence effectively bars him from mounting a fresh challenge through the ballot box.
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/ 30 December 2003
Former Mauritanian president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah has been released from prison after receiving a suspended prison sentence for plotting to overthrow the current head of state, Maaouiya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya. The five-year suspended sentence effectively bars him from mounting a fresh challenge through the ballot box.
At Kiffa, in the heart of the "triangle of poverty," the desert is synonymous with scorching winds, sand in the streets and a sky tinged by red dust.