http://www.odyssei.com Western Sahara, - lately on the site en-us Sun, 09 Apr 2006 18:20:42 +0200 Sun, 09 Apr 2006 18:20:42 +0200 pet@odyssei.com (Piotr Jaworski) pjm@odyssei.com (Pawel Jaworski) http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/9673.html Located in northern Africa on the Atlantic Ocean, Western Sahara is surrounded by Algeria to the east, Morocco to the north, and Mauritania to the south. About the size of Colorado, it is mostly low, flat desert with some small mountains in the south and [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/9673.html http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/9672.html Legal status of the territory is disputed and sovereignty unresolved; a UN referendum on the issue is planned. The territory is contested by Morocco and the Polisario Front, which in Feb. 1976 formally proclaimed a government-in-exile of the Saharawi Arab [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/9672.html http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8933.html The original inhabitants of North Africa were berber nomads called Bafour. Around the seventh century A.D., Muslim Arabs began their invasion of North Africa coming from the East. Many of these nomads were converted to Islam during this Arab expedition to [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8933.html http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8932.html Western Sahara has no railways, and only 6,200km of roads, of which 1,350km are metalled. Ports include Ad Dakhla, Cabo Bojador, Laayoune (El Aaiun). The longest conveyor belt in the world is 100 km long, from the phosphate mines of Bu Craa to the c [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8932.html http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8931.html Telephones - main lines in use: about 2,000 (1999 est.) Telephones - mobile cellular: 0 (1999) Telephone system: sparse and limited system domestic: NA international: tied into Morocco's system by microwave radio relay, tropospheric scatter, and s [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8931.html http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8930.html Morocco virtually annexed the northern two-thirds of Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara) in 1976, and the rest of the territory in 1979, following Mauritania's withdrawal. A guerrilla war carried by the Polisario Front contesting Rabat's sovereignty [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/8930.html http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/1496.html The Moroccan Wall, dubbed by the Sahrawis The Wall of Shame, is a 2,500 kilometer long system of defensive walls, known as berms: sand walls about three meters in height with bunkers, fences and landmines, running mainly through the Morocco-occupied Weste [...] http://www.odyssei.com/travel-tips/1496.html