Mauritania

Mauritania's government named nine new ministers on Sunday in the first Cabinet reshuffle since President Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya was re-elected last year. No reason was given for the reshuffle, but it comes a week after the President publicly vowed to fight corruption. Five of the outgoing ministers were accused in February of skimming 325 million ouguiyas ($1.25m) from an aid project distributing food donated by the UN World Food Program, the US and other international donors.

A Mauritanian court will rule next month in a case involving controversial business dealings by the son of France's late president Francois Mitterrand, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, a lawyer for the prosecution said Monday. Mitterrand, who is already under investigation for alleged corruption, money-laundering and illegal arms sales to Africa, particularly Angola, is accused of having cut former business partner Olivier Collonge out of profits in Iwik, a Mauritanian-based fisheries firm they ow...read more

The government of Mauritania has refused to even consider legalising a new pro-Islamic opposition party set up by supporters of former president Mohammed Khouna Ould Haidalla. Last Wednesday they filed a request to legalise the new Party for Democratic Convergence with the Interior Ministry. However, on Sunday, Cheick Ould Horma, the party's president, said the government had refused to even accept the application for processing.

A group of prominent Mauritanians who backed former president Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla in his failed bid to regain power in last year’s presidential election, filed papers for the creation of a new political party on Wednesday. Opposition political sources said papers seeking to legalise Ould Haidalla’s new Party for Democratic Convergence were submitted to the Interior Ministry in the capital Nouakchott.

The editors of four independent weekly newspapers, "L'Eveil Hebdo", "L'Authentique", "Le Journal" and "Al Moujtamaa", have been sued for allegedly libelling Bodiel Ould Houmeid, a leading member of the ruling Socialist Democratic Republican Party (PRDS) and a close associate of President Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya. According to Media Foundation for West Africa-Mauritania's sources, the editors were first brought before the state prosecutor in the capital, Nouakchott, on 31 March 2004. After...read more

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