Two humanitarian organisations and a Mauritanian-born Frenchman, Mohamed Baba, have sued Mauritania's police for allegedly torturing Baba. The complaint was filed in a court in Clermont-Ferrand, France, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) has announced.

Declared an LDC because of pervasive poverty, Mauritania is in the process of modernising its economy. However, social progress can't seem to keep up: purchase power continues to slide; wages and working conditions have stagnated at 1980s levels and the countryside and shantytowns are poverty-stricken. In very precarious conditions themselves, trade unions struggle to pull their country out of misery and neglect. Natacha David spoke recently to Abdallahi Ould Mohammed (Natah), General Secretary of the General Confederation of Mauritanian Workers (GTM) for the ICFTU spotlight interview.

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by SOS-Esclaves and Rencontre Africaine pour la défense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO), both members of the OMCT network, that Mauritanian Popular Front (MPF) opposition party president Mr. Mohamed Lemine Ch'Bih Ould Cheikh Malainine, and party members Mokhtar Ould Haibetna and Bouba Ould Hassann, have been convicted and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, on June 14th. Mr. Ch'Bih was arbitrarily arrested on April 8th, 2001 and was initially detained incommunicado for 10 days.

Opposition parties in Mauritania and human rights groups condemned on Thursday the five-year prison term handed down to the leader of the opposition Front populaire party, Chbih Cheikh Ould Malainine. The Criminal Court in Aioun, 800 km east of the capital, Nouakchott, sentenced Malainine and two others on Thursday for plotting to overthrow the government, media organizations reported.

Composer/Producer Paul Anderson has been running 2 internet music stations dedicated to getting people focused on the crisis of Slavery in Africa.
Paul hopes to hear from organizations that are making legitimate efforts to end this situation, and to prevent it from being so low on America's foreign policy agenda. "People have to be shown that Slavery is not a thing of the past! In the hearts,and minds of all that will listen, I hope our efforts will make have an impact!"