Amadou Toumani Touré
President

(pronounced "AH-mah-doo too-MAHN-ee TOO-ray")

"My first ambition is to reconcile my country with its 50 years of tumultuous political history plagued with fratricidal struggles, with its sorrows, exclusions, tragedies, intolerance and lack of consensus."

The Republic of Mali, formerly the French Soudan, is a landlocked nation in West Africa. The mighty Niger River and its tributaries run through much of the southern half of the country, but the northern half is made up of the Sahara and Sahel region bordering the desert. Its neighbors are Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, and Mauritania. The country takes its name from the ancient West African empire of Mali that was at its height in the fourteenth century, controlling much of the savanna area of West Africa. The Republic of Mali has an...