French state-owned company Areva continues to deny any wrongdoing after findings that populated areas in Niger remain contaminated with high levels of radio-activity. The company seems to be escaping censure partly because of lack of data on cancer-related causes of death among Nigeriens working at or living near the uranium mines.

Domestic and international investors are taking over increasing amounts of arable land in Mali. In the Macina commune of south-central Mali, a giant irrigation canal is in the final stages of construction. Libya is in the process of developing 100,000 hectares of land it has leased adjacent to the Niger River.

In meetings with media stakeholders, Niger's transitional Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda is promising full press freedom. Already, prison sentences for journalists are repelled and the Niamey House of the Media is reopened.

The African Union (AU) has demanded an urgent election timetable, leading to the return to constitutional order in Niger following the ousting of President Mamadou Tandja in a coup on 18 February in the West African nation.

Niger's ruling Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD) has stopped all demonstrations in support of the military junta which seized power in the West African nation 18 Feb., according to statement from the junta.

Members of Niger's military junta and the interim administration it is setting up will not be allowed to run future democratic elections. Junta spokesman Abdoul Karim Goukoye reiterated that the coup leaders' priorities were to hold transparent polls and restore democracy.

The African Union has condemned a coup in Niger, where soldiers have detained President Mamadou Tandja. AU chief Jean Ping said he was watching developments "with concern" after a day of gun battles culminated in a takeover led by Colonel Salou Djibo.

Niger exports enough uranium to France to generate 50 per cent of the latter’s electricity supply, writes Khadija Sharife. But ordinary Nigeriens reap little benefit from France’s control of their country’s uranium resources, with over three-fifths of the population living below the poverty line and reports of radioactive contamination of water, air and soil by multinational mining operations.

Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, on Wednesday opened the campaign for 27 December local elections and urged his compatriots to turn out in their numbers to elect their representatives for the 266 local councils.

High school students in the Niger capital, Niamey, learned to put HIV/AIDS and reproductive health in a broader context during a recent essay contest. "In preparing my essay I learned that AIDS is not a death sentence," said one female student who requested anonymity. "This kind of exercise should be encouraged because it allows students to increase their knowledge of AIDS and its consequences."

Reporters Without Borders has noted the release from prison of Abdoulaye Tiémogo, editor of the independent weekly Le Canard déchaîné, after his sentence was reduced on appeal. The journalist, who is in poor health, had been held in custody since 1st August. He had been found guilty of “discrediting a judicial decision”.

Despite efforts to accommodate disabled students in Niger's schools, a lack of trained specialists limits the number of children schools can serve, according to the NGO Handicap International. "Schools for blind and deaf persons do not have qualified teachers to work with this population," Abdourhamane Barké, an outreach worker with Handicap International in the capital Niamey, said.

The response of Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua's regime to the Niger Delta crisis jeopardises the country's entire existence, writes Sabella Ogbobode Abidde in this week's Pambazuka News. With the president only interested in pursuing brutal, military 'solutions' aimed at completely annihilating 'trouble-makers' in the region, fears around the launch of a full-scale invasion seem set to be realised. Calling for a national sovereign conference to establish a lasting, long-term solution, Abidde stresses that no amount of bombing will ever lead to a sustainable peace.

The four-decade situation in the Niger Delta is a ‘crisis that will not go away,’ Sabella Abidde writes in Pambazuka News, which ‘if not properly addressed may reverberate across international systems.’ Given that the Nigerian government has proven itself 'incapable' of solving the problem, Abidde argues the case that ‘the time is now for the international community – especially the United States of America – to step in.'

Niger's president Mamadou Tandja is ready to dialogue with the opposition following a crisis triggered by a controversial referendum which has approved an extra three years for him, the head of a delegation of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), Mr Alassane Sawadogo, has announced. "President Tandja presented himself to us as a man ready for dialogue, anxious for peace, stability and Niger's supreme interest," Mr Sawadogo, PAPMP for Burkina Faso, said at the end of an audience with the Niger president.

On August 28, 2009, President Mamadou Tandja signed into law a bill granting him absolute control over the Supreme Council for Communications (CSC), the country's media regulatory body. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that Article 130 of the new Constitution that was recently adopted under a controversial referendum in early August has reduced the previous 11 members to seven. It also gives the president the power to appoint four members, including the CSC's president.

Since the conflict between the Nigerien government and Tuareg groups intensified in 2007 following the creation of the Mouvement Nigérien pour la Justice, around 11,000 people have been displaced from their homes in mountainous areas north of Agadez. The conflict has abated in 2009, and many of the internally displaced people (IDPs) have started going back to their homes, whether spontaneously or with assistance from the local municipalities and the international community.

The ECOWAS Parliament has called on ECOWAS and the African Union to "intervene immediately" for the restoration of constitutionalism in Niger, where President Mamadou Tandja has changed the country's constitution to allow him to run again when his second term runs out in December. The call was contained in a resolution of the ECOWAS Parliament, adopted Wednesday at the current 2009 Second Ordinary Session held in Abuja, the seat of the parliament.

The Niger Delta amnesty won’t bring real or lasting peace to the region, Sabella Abidde tells Pambazuka News, because despite the government's haste to hurry through a deal, it hasn’t set out its plans for what the amnesty will mean in practice for local communities. The amnesty is a ‘band aid’ solution for a ‘festering wound’, says Abidde, which if left untreated has the potential to ‘undo’ Nigeria.

Despite a two-year-old law in Niger penalizing discrimination against people infected with HIV, seropositive women say they still receive substandard health care, are denied employment and risk losing their children because of their status. “When a woman is divorced as a result of her HIV status, it is difficult for her to keep her children,” said Sona Soumaré Conté, president of a local NGO that works with HIV-positive women. "Their husbands are afraid their children will not be well taken care of or will become contaminated.”