If a Revolution Happens In the Desert and Nobody Cares, Does It HAve an International Impact?

Apparently not. Ya go away for a few days, and ya come back and nobody tells ya that the Mauritanian dictator was overthrown! What, you mean you didn't know either? And you really don't care? For the record, Mauritania is a small nation at the western end of the Sahara Desert, on the Atlantic Ocean. Its dicator, Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, was overthrown while he was away attending Saudi King Fahd's funeral. The coup leaders are a military junta, which has vowed to hold elections within two years. (Aren't military juntas so very twentieth century; maybe this is the beginning of a whole new retro fad, complete with summary executions and crocodile tears for "democratic" leaders). According to the BBC, the coup had an impact comparable to a football playoff-game victory:

Following the announcement on national radio, people took to the streets of Nouakchott in celebration, hooting their car horns. "I can hear the cars now and people running in the streets. People are celebrating," resident Hassan Ahmed told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme... Shops immediately shut down and civil servants left their offices.

So the Junta Leaders win in the semifinals, but will face a tough challenge in the final, where they'll face a smack-talking coalition of African Union and U.N. leaders. Whether Annan, Obasanjo and Tandja will back their words up with a strong performance on the field remains to be seen.