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Mauritania government has increased security for tourists in the country following the abductions last week of two Italian tourists near the border with Mali. Sergio Cicala and his wife Philomene Kabouree were kidnapped in an area of Mauritania where armed groups with links to Al-Qaeda are known to operate, diplomats said. There are suspicions the couple may have been smuggled into neighbouring Mali. "After these new kidnappings, it has been decided to adopt all necessary measures to ensure the personal security of foreigners in our country," the government said, quoted on Monday by pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi. It was the...

SNIPPET: "Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped in the North African nation Mauritania on Sunday. Spain’s Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, expressed his concerns that kidnappers could be members of the North African branch of Al Qaeda." SNIPPET: "The names of the workers kidnapped are Alicia Gámez, Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta. Vilalta’s father, Albert Vilalta is a former regional councilor for the environment."

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: al-Qa'ida Threat to Americans in Mauritania during Ramadan CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Mauritania 23 Aug 2009 U.S. Embassy Nouakchott issued the following Warden Message on August 23, 2009: Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) may use Ramadan as an opportunity to conduct further attacks against American citizens. Both U.S. Government officials and private Americans working for faith-based organizations may be particularly targeted. American citizens traveling to or residing in Mauritania should maintain a sense...

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the French embassy in Mauritania's capital, wounding two members of staff. Mauritanian police say the suicide bomber was a wanted "member of the jihadist movement". AFP - A suicide bomber died Saturday after staging an explosion near the French embassy in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, as two members of staff were jogging nearby, police and embassy staff said. Two French nationals, security employees at the French embassy, were near the man at the moment of the blast," embassy official Marc Flattot told AFP. "They are in hospital, they are unharmed, but in shock,"...

More than half a million slaves are at the heart of a presidential election battle in the former French colony of Mauritania. A year after she ran away from her master, Barakatu Mint Sayed prays that the election on July 18 will mark the beginning of the end of slavery in Mauritania. Her nation is one of the last places on Earth where large numbers of humans are still kept as property.

SNIPPET: "So, what I’m seeing here is that the death of these two Mauritanian scholars offered a convenient opportunity for al-Qaida to start co-branding Abu Yahya al-Libi and Atiyah abd al-Rahman (Attiyatallah) together as the unified tip of al-Qaida’s ideological spear. In other words, the leadership transition has begun. The heirs are no longer apparent. They have been named. It began with letters to al-Zarqawi and videotaped interviews and recorded statements and sermons. The naming continued with getting props in Exoneration and photoshoots and now joint releases. This jointly written eulogy release (I have never seen AQ release a two-authored...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Mauritania Kidnapping Threat CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Mauritania 27 Jun 2009 U.S. Embassy Nouakchott released the following SMS Warden Message on June 27: Embassy advises American citizens in Nouakchott of a credible threat of a kidnapping attempt tonight, June 27. Americans should exercise utmost security and remain securely locked in their residences and take extreme caution while in vehicles or offices. RELATED REPORTS 23 Jun 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: MAURITANIA SECURITY AWARENESS FOLLOWING U.S. CITIZEN MURDER 12 Jun...

Gunmen shot and killed an American man Tuesday as he left his car in the capital of the West African nation of Mauritania, police and witnesses said. Two men had initially tried to kidnap the man, but he resisted and they shot him when they realized they could not overpower him, a police officer said. The office did not give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Witness Bilal Ould Mohamed and other neighbors said the man was a U.S. professor teaching at a center specializing in computer science in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood...

The Foreign Ministry said Friday it had closed its embassy after the government of this overwhelmingly Muslim West African nation asked the Israeli ambassador and his staff to leave. The move came after Mauritania's military junta recalled its own ambassador from Israel last month. In January, Mauritania said it was suspending ties with Israel over its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza. "Following the Mauritanian government's decision, on January 16th 2009, to freeze diplomatic relations with Israel, and at its request, Israel will close its embassy in Nouakchott as of today," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said in a...

Fears are growing for the fate of thousands of young girls in rural Mauritania, where campaigners say the cruel practice of force-feeding young girls for marriage is making a significant comeback since a military junta took over the West African country. Aminetou Mint Ely, a women's rights campaigner, said girls as young as five were still being subjected to the tradition of leblouh every year. The practice sees them tortured into swallowing gargantuan amounts of food and liquid - and consuming their vomit if they reject it. "In Mauritania, a woman's size indicates the amount of space she occupies in...

Israel's air force fired around 20 missiles at targets in Gaza City on Saturday, causing heavy damage, a Reuters witness said. The IDF has confirmed the report. (Hanan Greenberg and Reuters)

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

Al-Qa'ida Calls on Mauritanians to Establish Islamic Caliphate The Media Line, NY - Aug 13, 2008 Al-Qa'ida's branch in Iraq announced at the end of 2006 the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in a Sunni region in southern Iraq. ...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Army officers upset with government overtures toward Islamic hard-liners staged a coup in Mauritania on Wednesday, overthrowing the first government to be freely elected in this sprawling desert nation in more than 20 years. The coup in Africa's newest oil producer took place after the president and prime minister fired the country's top four military officials, reportedly for supporting lawmakers who had accused the president of corruption and disagreed with how he was reaching out to Islamic hard-liners. A brief announcement read over state television Wednesday said the new "state council" will be led by presidential guard chief Gen. Mohamed...

President held in Mauritania coup NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) — Troops overthrew Mauritania's president in a military coup on Wednesday after he tried to sack senior army officers accused of being behind a political crisis destabilising the country. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was arrested as troops rolled through the capital Nouakchott and took over the presidential palace and the prime minister's office. They chased staff from the headquarters of state radio and television, though there was no sign of fighting in the city. A statement read on public radio said the coup was led by the head of the presidential guard,...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

Nouakchott - The Mauritanian army has arrested eight suspected al-Qaeda militants. One of them is accused of killing four French tourists in December last year but managed to escape from police custody in April. His escape was an embarrassment to the authorities and raised questions over their ability to fight al-Qaeda rebels. Another one of the militants is seen as the mastermind behind a shooting attack on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott in February. The killing of the French tourists led to the famous Dakar Rally being called off in Mauritania.

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Mauritanian police have stormed a building in the capital Nouakchott, searching for fighters suspected of links with al-Qaeda. The suspects, however, managed to flee before the security forces arrived. A bomb-making factory was found but the gunmen, who're suspected of killing four French touists in December are still on the run. The raid followed a gunfight between police and fighters on Monday night, at the same house. The attack on the house followed street clashes in which 2 persons were killed and at least 8 members of the security force were injured. Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the president of Mauritania...

Skyra is a runaway Mauritanian slave. Her earliest childhood memories are of fetching water, tending animals and cooking and cleaning. "I was tied up all night and all day. They only untied me so I could do my chores. In the end I could barely move my limbs." She never earnt a single penny. "All those years," she told me, "and I don't even own a goat". Mohamed could not tell me his surname or his age. As a slave he didn't own the right to either. But in a candlelit shack in the sandy outskirts of the capital, Nouakchott,...

Four months after taking office, the newly elected Mauritanian government criminalized slavery in August 2007. Human rights advocates, however, are concerned at the lack of progress on prosecution. Slavery has been illegal in Mauritania since 1981, but the law has not been enforced. The military dictatorship that ruled the country for more than 20 years denied that slavery existed in Mauritania. The country is listed on the Tier Two Watch List for the U.S. State Department for its inaction in eradicating slavery. In August, the democratically elected President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi introduced legislation that required mandatory time in...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

The 2008 Dakar Rally has been cancelled because of safety concerns in the African republic of Mauritania. Four French tourists were murdered in Mauritania on 24 December, which led to the French government advising against any travel to the country. Eight of the rally's 15 stages were due to pass through Mauritania. The event's organisers, the Amaury Sport Organisation, said there had been "direct threats against the race issued by terrorist groups". The annual car and motorcycle marathon had been due to start in Lisbon on 5 January with the finish coming in Dakar on 20 January. "Following several consultations...

- Al-Qaida threats against the Dakar Rally and an attack in Mauritania forced organizers to cancel the annual race on Friday, the eve of the 5,760-mile trek across North African desert scrubland and savannah. It was the first time the automobile, motorbike and truck rally has been called off in its 30-year history. In a statement, organizers blamed "threats launched directly against the race by terrorist organizations." the Dec. 24 killings of a French family and international tensions. The race's central appeal—its course through African deserts, scrubland and savannas—is also its weak point, making it difficult to protect thousands of...

Still in Control Pervez Musharraf was calm, confident and—despite a flurry of rumors—not about to announce his resignation. Instead, the Pakistani president's "concession" to his troubled nation was an announcement that he would allow Britain's Scotland Yard to help local law enforcement agencies with their investigation into last week's assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Speaking in a nationally televised address two hours after Pakistan's election commission announced the postponement of the ballot to Feb. 18, six weeks later than had been scheduled, Musharraf was notably deferential in his remarks about Bhutto, often invoking her "martyrdom" and extolling...

Prosecutors in Mauritania have alleged that men suspected of murdering four French tourists are linked to a group allied to al-Qaeda. At least two of three suspects now being hunted by authorities were linked to the group by prosecutors. Four tourists - apparently members of the same family - were shot by gunmen near the town of Aleg on Monday

Calculating the Risks in Pakistan A small group of U.S. military experts and intelligence officials convened in Washington for a classified war game last year, exploring strategies for securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country's political institutions and military safeguards began to fall apart. The secret exercise — conducted without official sponsorship from any government agency, apparently due to the sensitivity of its subject — was one of several such games the U.S. government has conducted in recent years examining various options and scenarios for Pakistan's nuclear weapons: How many troops might be required for a military intervention in...

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritanian police detained several suspects and scoured the south of the Saharan country on Tuesday in a hunt for three gunmen who killed four picnicking French tourists in a Christmas Eve attack, officials said. Authorities initially said robbery appeared to be the motive behind Monday's shooting at Aleg, 250 km (160 miles) southeast of the capital Nouakchott, in which turbanned gunmen armed with automatic rifles killed three members of a family and a friend. A fifth member of the French group was injured and survived, Police had not ruled out the possibility the attack was the work...

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is “Arab”Wednesday, December 19th, 2007Arabs have been unanimous in rejecting the idea of Israel being a “Jewish state.” Their reasons are that, by definition, a Jewish state would be discriminatory against Arabs and Muslims.If you define “Jewish” in purely religious terms, that would mean that any state that defines itself as “Islamic” is, by definition, equally guilty of this discrimination. If you define “Jewish” in ethnic or national terms, then any state that defines itself as “Arab” would be equally guilty of the racism that Israel is being accused of. Time to check out the official hypocrisy...

JIMMY CARTER THE CRIMINAL   Jimmy Carter - infamous worst ex US president that is largely at fault for the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran (by putting extra pressure on the Shah), ultimately resulting in 1) Islamic Republic of Iran's oppression of millions of Persians, and 2) the planet in peril at the hands of that nation's mullahs' nukes.   Jimmy Carter has his hands blooded in every single violent action being perpetrated by that Islamic republic on a daily basis since 1979, including the crimes against humanity like the massacres in the 1980's, the terrible persecution on minorities such as:...

NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - Mauritania's national assembly late Wednesday adopted a law criminalizing slavery for the first time. The practice has persisted in certain parts of the north African country despite its official abolition in 1981. Under the new law, voted unanimously, people convicted of acts of slavery will risk between five and 10 years in prison. The bill, initially seen as insufficient by several human rights organizations, was beefed up by the deputies and the final result was hailed by SOS-Esclaves, an anti-slavery group. "We are very satisfied, it's a great victory for the democrats and the people of Mauritania...

Update: According to video top right here, the Feds have moved to put a hold on the SC suspects as regards their immigration status, which means even if they do make bond they would be transferred to Federal Prison instead of being released. Also, even if cleared of any current charges, they could be deported depending on the outcome of that process. Also court documents specifically state "several pipe bombs" were in the trunk of their vehicle. While the FBI has now seized home computers and Wal-Mart security tape in the investigation into Yousseff Samir Megahed and Ahmed Abda Mohamed...

Derived from both diabolical motives: Arab Racism & Islamic Apartheid Leading government cleric, author of country's religious curriculum: Saudi Sheik: 'Slavery is a part of Islam'http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35518 Islam's Black slaveshttp://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/04/05/segal/ Libya, Slaveryhttp://www.mathaba.net/sudan/comment.htm Who was the real Slave Master?http://answering-islam.org.uk/Bailey/real_slave_master.html Arabs and Slave Tradehttp://www.answering-islam.org/ReachOut/slavetrade Goverment Sponsored Genocide in Sudanhttp://www.religioustolerance.org/geno_su.htm Slavery in Sudanhttp://members.aol.com/casmasalc/newpage8.htm Slavery in Sudan - hamlinehttp://www.hamline.edu/cla/academics/global_studies/Slavery_2004/Sudan.html Slavery in Mauritaniahttp://members.aol.com/casmasalc/mauritan.htm Slave Girls and Their Rights in Islamhttp://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/SStephan/slavegirls.htm Darfur slaughter rooted in Arab-African slaveryhttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001970382_slavery02.html Islam, Racism, Slavery...http://www.geocities.com/hammihanirani/islam.html ARAB MASTERS-BLACK SLAVEShttp://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2252001.htm Islamic Slaveryhttp://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/SStephan/islamic_slavery.htm BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Probe of Darfur 'slavery' startshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6468097.stm Slave Trade Thrives in Sudanhttp://www.domini.org/openbook/sud80210.htm Saudi UAE ARE SLAVERY: ALL ARAB...

New Mauritanian Democracy Inspires Arab Liberals and Unnerves Arab Autocrats, But Some Mauritanians Complain of the Race Card On April 19, 2007, Sidi Ould Sheikh 'Abdallahi was sworn in as Mauritania's first president to be elected in free and fair democratic elections. While the ceremony was attended by many heads of state from sub-Saharan African countries, no Arab head of state was in attendance (the Arab League country with the most senior representation at the ceremony was Morocco, which sent its prime minister). This fact was noted in the Mauritanian press and by Arab liberals in the Middle East, who...

Mauritania's day of hope arrives http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6438061.stm Voters are going to the polls on Sunday in the north African country of Mauritania. Nineteen candidates are standing in what is being seen as the first fully democratic election to choose a leader. ... "Until now all the candidates were from the Arab community. This country has never advanced because of the problem of racism. The Arabs are number one and we are nothing."

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Canary Islands (AP) - A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled a hijacker by braking hard upon landing, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell, flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people pounced on him, Spanish officials said Friday.

The pilot of a hijacked Air Mauritania plane deliberately made a rough landing so passengers and crew could tackle the gunman, Spanish officials say. He tipped off passengers about the plan after realising the hijacker spoke no French, one official told AP agency. The hijacker was overpowered after being knocked over as planned during the landing in Spain's Canary Islands. Mauritanian police are investigating how the hijacker boarded the Boeing 737 with two loaded handguns. 'Boiling water' The gunman seized the jet soon after take-off from the capital, Nouakchott, and demanded to be flown to France to seek asylum, officials...

MAURITANIAN PASSENGER PLANE HIJACKED TO WESTERN SAHARA - MAURITANIAN POLICE

Arab Racism, Arabism, Arabization, Islamism - Islamofascism, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, etc. Arab Racism, Arabization, Islamism - Islamofascism, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, etc. On Blacks, Africans * Kurds * Berbers * Israelis * Jews * Afghanis * Iranians, Farsi * Pakistanis * English * Asians * Europeans * Marsh Arabs * Nubians * Al Akhdam * Iraqi Arabs vs Ahwazi Arabs * by "palestinians" (on others) General Arabism Equals Racismhttp://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24912 FrontPageMagazine.com October 13, 2006 ThereÂ’s an expression, "The pot calling the kettle black." It refers to someone claiming a sin in others that is at least as prevalent - if not...

Islam does, of course, contain within itself an Arab supremacist ideology, as one can easily begin to comprehend, and the Arab treatment of non-Arab Muslims (Berbers, Kurds, black Africans in Darfur) is on display right now, for all the world's non-Arab Muslims, and its Infidels, to view and come to understand. If there is any "racism" charge to be flung, it must be flung at Islam, as a vehicle for that Arab imperialism that has been the most successful imperialism in history, causing those non-Arabs conquered to desperately wish to become, in some way, just like the Arabs who conquered...

Obesity is so revered among Mauritania's white Moor Arab population that the young girls are sometimes force-fed to obtain a weight the government has described as "life-threatening". A generation ago, over a third of women in the country were force-fed as children - Mauritania is one of the few African countries where, on average, girls receive more food than boys. Now only around one in 10 girls are treated this way. The treatment has its roots in fat being seen as a sign of wealth - if a girl was thin she was considered poor, and would not be respected.

NOUAKCHOTT, 23 November (IRIN) - Provisional results from historic legislative and municipal elections in Mauritania indicated on Thursday that opposition parties that had defied the country's previous military regime had made a strong showing. The Rally of Democratic Forces (RDF), which struggled against former military ruler Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, won 12 of 43 National Assembly seats in the 19 November polls. Sixty-three percent of municipal posts went to opposition parties, mainly in urban areas. Other parties that opposed the Taya government won seven assembly seats. They include the Progressive Popular Alliance, which represents former slaves who say they...

Interior ministry says vote counting continues at slow pace due to complexity of balloting system. NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritania's opposition coalition is leading the former ruling party, according to partial results Tuesday from the country's first elections since the military ousted an autocratic regime last year. Full results that had initially been promised for Monday night are now expected Tuesday evening as vote counting continued at a slow pace due to the complexity of the balloting system, sources in the ministry of interior said. The weekend polls gave Mauritanians their first chance to vote for legislators and local government officials since...

Nouakchott, 20 Nov. (AKI) - Vote counting is underway after historic elections in Mauritania amid initial indications that turnout at the polls was around 70-80 percent. Some 1.3 million Mauritanians were called on Sunday to elect 91 members of parliament, at least one fifth of whom must be women, just one year after a bloodless military coup that ended two decades of authoritarian rule. Municipal elections were held at the same time in voting stations spread across the mainly-desert republic. The first provisional results are expected late on Monday. The head of the junta, Colonel Ely Ould Mohammed Vall, pledged...

The African Liberation Forces of Mauritania Speak on Slavery and Genocide Tuesday, 17 October 2006 The African Liberation Forces of Mauritania Speak on Slavery and Genocide in the Sahel, not only to free Mauritanians from racism and slavery but also to build a more democratic country. The Arab-dominated regime does not want to do anything to bring peace in Mauritania. We cannot really talk about democracy when 120,000 refugees are left behind, and we cannot talk about democracy when people are enslaved. Before organizing elections in Mauritania, we must free those who are still enslaved, and bring the refugees back....

Mauritanians have overwhelmingly approved term limits for elected presidents in a referendum marking the first of many planned polls during the transition from military to democratic rule. Although the results are only partial, they send a clear signal of Mauritanians' desire for change. The results indicate more than 95 percent of Mauritanians from throughout the country approved the constitutional changes. They include replacing open-ended six-year presidential mandates with two five-year terms. Candidates are required to be between 40 and 75. Any elected president will have to swear on the Koran that he or she will not alter the law on...

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritanians voted in a referendum on Sunday on whether to amend their constitution, a ballot aimed at ending decades of coup attempts and one-party rule in the Islamic Republic. The polls in the impoverished nation, which straddles Arab and black West Africa, are the first since a military junta seized power in a bloodless putsch last August and lay the foundation for a presidential election next March. If approved, the changes will make Mauritania one of few Arab nations to limit the number of terms a president can serve, and set it apart from sub-Saharan Africa where...

NOUAKCHOTT, 23 June (IRIN) - Mauritania's new military leaders are encouraging voters to massively take part in a referendum on Sunday aimed at promoting democracy and preventing presidents from remaining in office for more than two terms. The country's former president of over 20 years, Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, was ousted in a coup in August 2005, leaving power in the hands of a military junta headed by Colonel Ely Ould Mohammed Vall that pledged to restore democracy as quickly as possible. Vall is the main proponent of the referendum that will, if passed, prevent future heads of state from...