First Independent Mena Newspaper
As Mauritania heads towards presidential elections next year, the regime of Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz has warned the opposition to refrain from wooing the army to intervene in the country’s politics. The warning was made by Defense Minister Jallow Mamadou Bhatia Sunday at a press conference in capital Nouakchott. The opposition, Middle East Monitor reports, […]
Moroccan security and customs services have foiled in a couple of days smuggling attempts at Guerguarate crossing point, in the southernmost tip of the country on the borders with Mauritania. In the night from Wednesday to Thursday, they blocked a drug smuggling attempt and seized 653 kg of cannabis on board a truck transporting goods. […]
Mauritania’s economic outlook is favorable due to sustained commodity prices and ongoing economic policy efforts, but there are still considerable challenges for inclusive growth, said the International Monetary Fund. “The economic recovery continues, with growth estimated at 3-3½ percent in 2017 and 2018, and moderate inflation of 2.3 percent on average in 2017”, said IMF […]
Despite international outcry against slavery across the globe, Mauritanian authorities continue their crackdown on anti-slavery activists with the arrest recently of abolitionist Biram Ould Abeid who was interrogated by authorities following three days of demonstrations led by the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA). Analysts consider his arrest as a move by the government to […]
Algerian officials continue to issue statements calling for reviving the paralyzed Maghreb Union, a five-member regional grouping also comprising Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia and Libya. Recently, President Abdelaziz Boutefika sent messages on the 29th anniversary of the Union to Maghreb leaders urging collective efforts to reinvigorate the union. Few days later, Algeria’s Foreign Minister said, during […]
A crisis is brewing between the two West African neighbors, Mauritania and Senegal. It all started after Mauritanian coast guards shot dead two Senegalese fishermen. The incident has propelled Senegal to deploy a warship in its sea borders with Mauritania. Senegalese voiced their outrage at the killing of the two fishermen with hundred protesters taking […]
The African Union rebuked Mauritania for falling short of fully eliminating slavery after the country handed out lenient sentences to a slave owner. Mauritania should “give due regard to the issue of slavery and make the elimination… one of its priorities,” the pan-African body said in a statement on its website. The statement was published […]
The UN Secretary General’s Personal Envoy for the Sahara, Horst Kohler, invited the “parties to the conflict” to “separate talks” in Berlin, Moroccan media reported. The invitation was addressed after Kohler’s ten-day tour in Europe and Africa to relaunch talks, said le360.ma. According to the news portal, Morocco, the Algerian-backed Polisario and Mauritania are the […]
The participants in the International Rally-Raid, Africa Eco Race, ignored the threats and injunctions of the Polisario and crossed safely the Guerguarat crossing post at the Moroccan-Mauritanian border this Monday (January 8). During the crossing, under the watchful eye of the MINURSO, participants who came from the city of Dakhla, were brandishing posters stating the […]
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has warned the Polisario of obstructing commercial traffic flow between Morocco and Mauritania, after the Algerian-sponsored separatist group deployed militiamen in an area that is supposed to remain demilitarized under the UN brokered 1991 ceasefire agreement. “Regular civilian and commercial traffic should not be obstructed and no action should […]