Mauritania news stories on Newser

North Africa Sees Wave of Fiery Copycat Suicides

Kevin Spak — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:44:58 CST

A restaurant owner screaming anti-government slogans set himself on fire outside the Egyptian parliament in Cairo today, in the latest of several attempted self-immolations mimicking the one that set off Tunisia’s uprising last month. But security officials, with the help of passing motorists, doused the blaze with fire-extinguishers, thwarting the...

Mauritanian Girls Force-Fed for Marriage

Katherine Thompson — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:00:01 CST

A military coup in Mauritania has erased years of advances in women's rights, bringing a resurgence of the practice of force-fattening young girls to prepare them for marriage, the Guardian reports. "A woman's size indicates the amount of space she occupies in her husband's heart," explains an activist, who says...

Coup Leader Takes Over Mauritania

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:38:00 CDT

The military junta that overthrew Mauritania's government last week adopted a law today transferring the power of the presidency to the head of the junta. A statement by the junta blames the deteriorating condition of daily life in Mauritania, the president's stonewalling of various government institutions, and his firing of...

Army Seizes Power in Mauritania

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:38:21 CDT

Soldiers in the West African nation of Mauritania mounted a coup d'etat today, arresting the president and prime minister and shutting down state radio and television, the Guardian reports. Troops entered the capital and apprehended Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the country’s first democratically elected president, after he began taking steps...

Gunmen Attack Israeli Embassy in Mauritania

Jason Farago — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:18:00 CST

Six gunmen armed with automatic weapons opened fire on the Israeli embassy in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott today, wounding five people. The attackers shouted "God is great" before the shooting, reports AFP. Although the gunmen fled and remain unidentified, an American terrorist monitor noted that an al-Qaeda leader exhorted...

Bush Hooked On FON-iks at UN

Peter Fearon — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:17:20 CDT

A draft of President Bush's speech to the United Nations included phonetic spellings to help him pronounce difficult names like sar-KOzee, according to a copy of the speech accidentally posted for a time on the UN website. It was up long enough for reporters to see it, much to the...