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Mauritania: Countries
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Mauritania (Arabic: Muritaniyyah), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the south-west, by Mali on the east and south-east, by Algeria on the north-east, and by Moroccan-annexed territory of Western Sahara on the north-west. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast. It is named after the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania.
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Mauritania is a large country located on the Atlantic side of north-west Africa. Much of the country is a low plateau (below 500 m above sea level) and 70% of the territory is a desert with scattered oases. Adequate rainfall is only found along the southern border. The majority of the people lives on the southern borderlands and in the capitaland port city of Nouakchott. Formerly a French colony, Mauritania gained its independence on November 1960.
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Population: According to the 1988 census, Mauritania had 1,864,236 inhabitants. The 1997 estimated population was 2,449,130, giving the country an overall population density of 2 persons per sq km (6 persons per sq mi). The majority of the population consists of Moors (of mixed Arab and Berber ancestry), many of whom lead nomadic existences. More than 90 percent of the population lives in the southern quarter of the country. About 30 percent of the people are black African farmers, who are settled in the Sénégal Valley.
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There are no reports that Mauritania has ever produced or exported antipersonnel mines. Reacting to last year’s Landmine Monitor report on the origin of Mauritania’s antipersonnel mine stockpile, the National Humanitarian Demining Office (NHDO) claimed that the majority of the mines came from Warsaw Pact countries, mainly the USSR and Czechoslovakia, and that Egypt ... donated antipersonnel mines during the war. No mines were imported from China, and very few from Italy.[4] The precise types of mines have not been revealed.
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Mauritania, formerly part of French West Africa, achieved full independence on 28 November 1960 (having become a self-governing member of the French Community two years earlier). Moktar Ould Daddah, leader of the Parti du regroupement mauritanien (PRM) and Prime Minister since June 1959 became Head of State at independence, and was elected President in August 1961. After independence all parties merged with the PRM to form the Parti du peuple mauritanien (PPM), with Ould Daddah as Secretary-General, and Mauritania became a one-party state in 1964. The country moved away from the French sphere of influence and towards closer relations with Arab nations. Under a tripartite agreement of November 1975, Spain ceded Spanish Sahara to Mauritania and Morocco, to be apportioned between them. The agreement took effect in February 1976, when Mauritania occupied the southern portion of the territory.
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In 1974 Mauritania nationalized the mining industry as a part of its effort to establish economic independence under the second development plan. With substantial assistance from Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mauritania bought out the European owners of MIFERMA. Transfer of ownership to the newly formed SNIM was smooth; the terms of the transfer kept the foreign expert personnel and managers on the job and maintained the commercial relationship with the former owners of MIFERMA.
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