Scott's : Current News

1:55 PM

Mauritania officer takes over president palace

There is a pure artistry in the design and sound of every guitar, not two of them will ever be or sound quite the same. They have a proud history, legacy and development throughout the ages, with many guises and faces throughout time. The acoustic, non-electrical, variety, classical, stringed instrument  has been coming of age in recent decades and centuries.

It makes the practice of music easy, if you have the right type of instrument- intimate, personal and well-made, lovingly, masterfully played to yield beautiful sounding music. It comes as no surprise then, that if you ask most people, what this is, they would be able to point you in the direction pretty quickly. It is well-loved and recognized throughout the world as the people�s instrument. It is used to serenade, accompany, support and make merriment.

When you entrench and engross yourself in the tales or origin and history of the classical guitar, its music and playing techniques, you will quickly notice that the line can in all probability be traced via baroque models, but some of its earlier inspirations were drawn from instruments like the ancient well-loved and soothing varieties from the stringed family. the lute, vihuela, even resemblances and commonalities with the Renaissance five-string guitar.

In many ancient artifacts, pots, murals and paintings, dating back to 2000-1500 BCE, unearthed in Iran, similarities are undeniable, between what these figures are playing as sketched and what we today know and love as the guitar. It has a long and proud history of approximately 5,000 years. The Asian cithara and numerous other musical objects from earlier times, all contributed to the sound-box, with neck, strings and tuning pegs type design that we have today. Carvings and artifacts only tell some of the tale of the guitar.

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6:02 AM

Mauritania officer takes over president palace

Source: Washington Post

Mauritania forces stage coup after officers sacked

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Presidential guardsmen seized Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a coup on Wednesday after he sacked several top army officers, and announced that he had been deposed.

Soldiers gathered at the presidential palace after Abdallahi replaced senior army officers during a political crisis in the northwest African country, one of the continent's newest oil producers which also mines iron, copper and gold.

A "State Council" led by one of the sacked officers, former presidential guard chief Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, said Abdallahi was now "former president" and annulled his previous decree sacking Abdelaziz and the heads of the army and Gendarmerie.

The communique, described as the council's "Statement No. 1," was broadcast by Gulf-based al-Arabiya television. State television and radio in Nouakchott had both ceased broadcasting earlier in the day.

Abdallahi won elections last year and took over from a military junta that had ruled since it toppled President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in a bloodless coup in 2005.

"The security agents of the BASEP (Presidential Security Battalion) came to our home around 9.20 (5:20 a.m. EDT) and took away my father," Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, the president's daughter, told Reuters.

A presidency official who declined to be named said the president, prime minister and interior minister had been arrested and taken to an unknown destination.

Largely desert Mauritania, a former French colony of more than 3 million people, straddles black and Arab Africa.

Abdallahi replaced one government in May following criticism over the government's response to soaring food prices and to attacks over the last year carried out by al Qaeda's north African arm.

But the new government resigned last month in the face of a proposed no-confidence vote.

A new one was formed but without the opposition Union of Forces for Progress (UFP) and Islamist Tawassoul parties which had formed part of the previous government.

This week most of the members of parliament belonging to Abdallahi's PNDD-ADIL party walked out from the party en masse, in a move some political sources said were supported by senior military officials.

 

 

 

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