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Sunday, August 09, 2009 NOUAKCHOTT: 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 said. "They are in hospital, they are unharmed, but in shock," he added. "The Westerners are in hospital but their lives are not in danger," a police official said. The bomber had a belt laden with explosives, police said, adding that he staged the explosion a little before 7:00 pm local time near the wall of the French embassy complex in Nouakchott. The attack comes three days after the west African country's coup leader, who staged a widely condemned putsch a year ago, took power in the former French colony following contested elections. On June 23, a US national working in Mauritania, 4...

Monday, July 20, 2009 NOUAKCHOTT: The army general who led a military coup that toppled Mauritania's first elected head of state last August was on Sunday declared the winner of a presidential election organised by his junta.Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz, who resigned his commission to stand, won 52.58 of ballots cast in the first round of voting on a turnout of 64.58 percent, according to provisional results released by his interior minister, Mohamed Ould Rzeizim.During a press conference awaiting validation of results by authorities managed by the government installed after the coup, Ould Abdel Aziz dismissed opposition claims of a voting "charade.""Whatever (they) say, our camp did not engage in fraud," he said. "It's not enough just to say there has been fraud -- you have to provide proof."That is now a matter for the constitutional council and the interior minister -- the law is very clear on that point."He promised to fight against disease w...

Sunday, July 19, 2009, NOUAKCHOTT: Mauritania's coup leader Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz took a commanding lead in the presidential election winning 52.2 percent of votes with more than half the ballots counted, the electoral commission said Sunday. According to the partial results released with 61.17 percent of ballots counted, the nearest challenger was parliamentary speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the anti-coup front candidate, with 16.63 percent of votes. In third place was the head of the main opposition party, Ahmed Ould Daddah, with 13.89 percent of votes. Out of a field of nine candidates for president, the moderate Islamist Jemil Ould Mansour has garnered 4.66 percent of the vote and the former junta chief in 2005-2007, colonel Elu Ould Mohamed Vall, 3.78 percent. The electoral commission said voter turnout was at 61 percent. If the tendency is confirmed, the leader of last August's coup, who ceded control as head of the junta in April and resigned from the army to conte...