Mauritania’s Parliament Endorses Coup

Over two thirds of Mauritania’s legislators have signed a formal declaration endorsing the country’s new ruling junta and urging world governments to recognize the new military “High Council” as Mauritania’s legitimate government. In the declaration, the legislators describe last week’s coup as an act of “change that occurred in the interest of the Mauritanian people. This action contrasts sharply with widespread international condemnation of the military coup, which toppled the country’s first democratically elected government since independence in 1960. [PE]