RSS
Almost twenty years to the day after Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote his op-ed “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” about his visit to Niger to confirm if the country was supplying Saddam Hussein with uranium yellowcake, the U.S. found itself again focused on the African country.
On 26 July, Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, was ousted by his presidential guard, and the guard commander and coup leader, General Abdourahmane Tchiani, was named president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland. It was the seventh coup in the region since 2020, not including a previous attempt in Niger in 2021 that was put down by the same presidential guard.
The coup was condemned by the U.S., France, the UK, the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, numerous African governments, and ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States.
The ECOWAS deadline to reinstate President Bazoum was ignored by the generals, and Niger’s new leaders closed the country’s airspace and accused foreign powers of preparing to attack. ECOWAS leaders will now meet in Nigeria on Thursday to discuss next steps.
Last week, the ECOWAS military leaders prepared a plan to reinstate President Bazoum, which will probably be discussed at the Thursday meeting. However, the Nigerian Senate has rejected military intervention in Niger and without Nigeria, which has a 1,600 kilometer border and the largest military in the region, nothing will happen.
Last week, the deputy leader of the military government visited Mali to request the “rapid deployment of Wagner forces to [Niger]” to help the military regime. And Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops would be able to help Niger – what one researcher called a “nightmare scenario” for the U.S. in Africa’s Sahel region.Related: Iraq Unwilling To Resume Crude Exports From Kurdistan To Turkey
The military government in Niamey received pledges of support from neighbors Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea. Algeria condemned the coup, and Libya said the takeover was “not acceptable.” However, last week the chief of staff of the Algerian Army visited Moscow for a meeting with Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu and Niger was surely discussed.
According to the BBC, Wagner Group appeared in Libya in 2019, backing General Khalifa Haftar, a longtime U.S. asset. Libya, whatever it said last week will be focused, first and foremost, on avoiding another surge in refugees that followed the 2011 NATO attack on the Ghaddafi government. If Wagner can revive its network in Libya, Russia may have a secure overland route and air corridor to Niger.
If Algeria and Libya allow the transshipment of material to Niger – possibly to restore order and prevent another exodus of refugees to Europe – the coup government would garner significant relief and access to the sea lanes.
Media concern has focused on the fact that Niger is a supplier of uranium, and is a key supplier to France, though France also buys uranium from Kazakhstan. The French nuclear fuel cycle company, Orano, which operates a uranium mine in Niger reported its operations were not hindered or endangered.
Though uranium attracts more news coverage, Niger’s biggest export is gold, which accounted for over 70% of exports in 2021.
The military government reportedly halted uranium and gold exports to France, though Reuters later reported that Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso not halting exports of uranium and gold.
One thing that got halted, however, is the $13 billion USD, 5,600-kilometer Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) which was slated to deliver 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas to Europe. The pipeline would riun from Warri, Nigeria, via Niger, to the Hassan R’Mel gas hub in Algeria where it would connect to existing gas pipelines to Europe.
The pipeline is a joint effort by Algeria, Nigeria, and Niger, and in July 2022 the countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of the pipeline. The delay of the project comes at a bad time for Europe as it recently lost gas from the Nord Stream pipelines due to sabotage, and the East Med pipeline after the U.S. government killed it by raising environmental objections. The two pipelines were expected to deliver 120 bcm of gas per year.
After the loss of Nord Stream, Europe was forced to import liquified natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. at a higher price than it was paying the Russians.
The presence of Wagner troops in Niger is enough to stop the pipeline unless someone steps in, a country like China for example, which is typically risk averse, but has a long history in Africa, but may be interested in scooping up another 30 bcm of gas every year. The three founding governments haven’t foreclosed additional partners but a previous Algerian energy minister said, “only partners that can bring something to the project, not just money, should be there.” Of course, it might be easier for China to just add capacity in Nigeria where it is a major investor, but Nigeria is also unstable due to an ongoing insurgency in the Niger Delta.
And Russia may get a vote, or a piece of the action, as the military government in Niger has aligned itself with Moscow with its request for the intervention of Wagner PMC, and Moscow will want to capitalize on the goodwill from the Russia-Africa Summit in July, which ended with no revived grain deliveries (yet) but Russia did cancel $23 billion in debt.
On the other hand, sending the gas north will allow Beijing to deepen relations with Morocco, Algeria, and Libya, the latter of which has agreed to coordinate its national development plans with Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative via the Five Year Plan for China Arab Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation (2022-2026) in recognition of China’s long-term economic involvement in Libya.
China is now developing Algeria’s El Hamdania Central Port, Algeria’s largest and first deep-water port. China also helped complete the 750-mile East-West Highway connecting Algeria to Morocco and Tunisia, and about 1,000 Chinese companies operate in Algeria, their way eased by the wavier of the “51/49” requirement that required majority Algerian ownership of all new businesses with the exception of “strategic sectors.”
According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, “Algeria has the world’s 11th – and 16th -largest proven reserves of natural gas and oil, respectively, and was the 10th-largest natural gas producer as of 2019. It is also estimated to have the world’s 3rd -largest recoverable shale gas reserves.” The country exports 85% of its gas to Europe.
Algeria has the fourth-largest economy in Africa with a 2021 GDP of $167.98 billion. Oil and gas income increased by 70% in the first half of 2022, and energy income is expected to total $50 billion by end of year. The World Bank reported Algeria’s economy “expanded by 3.9% year-on-year during the first nine months of 2021, after contracting by 5.5% in 2020,” largely due to increased European gas demand. Hydrocarbons account for 95 percent of export revenues and about 40 percent of government income.
If China doesn’t take the gas but agrees to deliver it to Europe it will increase its influence there, just as the U.S. did by increasing deliveries of LNG after it stopped the Nord Stream and EastMed pipelines.
The European Union seeks a “long-term strategic partnership” for natural gas and electricity with Algeria. And France is seeking to repair relations via economic cooperation, though China is now Algeria’s biggest trade partner. If Europe expects more energy from Algeria or elsewhere in Africa, though, it may have to pay up to finance expansion of production, or participate in the TSGP, though that may be opposed by Washington if it will dent lucrative U.S. liquified natural gas sales to Europe or offer relief to Niger. And France may find it cramped in the cockpit if it has to share participation with China.
Ideally, the U.S. should be interested in anything that brings more oil and gas online and stabilizes the market. But it also has to consider if its involvement in Niger would help prop up France’s troubled colonial empire in Africa, or to give China entrée to more opportunities in Africa, a region it has habitually ignored and will again as soon as Niger is sorted out or at least fades from the front page.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
A 2,000 pipeline constructed by the Chinese national oil company from Niger to Benin is 90% complete. Niger should be able to export almost 100,000 barrels per day.
A summary of how African countries must accommodate themselves to the business and needs of the white countries or they bombard or invade them in the name of freedom and democracy as a lesson.
That’s why everyone who can leave the south and go north, at least in the north they get better pay and it’s less easy to get killed. Immigration is nothing else and is the result of the so-called Western civilization.
let’s hope niger stands strong and refuses to bend to the will of the former hegemon and it’s disgusting toady vassals, or in this case it’s froggy vassal. the african people seem ready to finally push these colonialist parasites out of their homelands. the people of niger overwhelmingly support the coup with 4 out of 5 in favor of their actions. now is the time….africa unite!
Video Link
Ideally for the U.S., yes. There is only 1 slight problem, it is too little too late, the show is over, the curtain is coming down and Uncle Sam is sliding into rot and irrelevance.
Benin doesn’t need this natgas. All it can do is liquefy this gas to deliver it worldwide via refrigerated tankers, at a cost five times higher than pipeline delivered gas directly to Europe.
Excellent article. West Africa is rebelling against French colonial rule. Yes, it still exists. Materials are exported to France far below the world price. They gave up and let Mali go free last year, now other nations are following. The Americans wanted to intervene, but were tied up with their stupid Ukraine adventure.
Video Link
The choice Europe now has to make is whether it will sink with the Exceptional Empire or take the opportunity to free itself of its master. How ironic it is for Europeans to have to learn this lesson from Africans.
“The slave that does not rebel, does not deserve pity”
– Ibrahim Traore, President of Burkina Faso, ally of Niger, and leader of that countries coup against their French overlords.
I wouldn’t mess with this Traore guy.
Nor this white guy standing next to Traore
Authorites should improve their brains in order to understand
that the public disarmament encourages the crime business.
Niger to Benin – Under African ownership, control, management, and on completion of the deal with the Chinese, that pays them for whatever finance and labour-management, the deal allowed them to put in.
and no more accomodation of EU when it comes to the organization and focus of the development and marketing of African energy and general mineral resources. such focus must be replaced by focus on the development of the African market as awhole, as the basic point of it all, that assures, guarantees African independence itself, with relations with such as the Chinese/Russians/Indians, even the EU itself, as subsidiary, and mutually beneficial
screw western civilization as anything fundamental, basic, essential to human survival interests, nbasic needs or anything of the sort! Western civilization isonehuge murderous, genocial live that has and continues to reduce humanity to murderous, criminal ignorance inorder tor try to survive!
let the west take back and keep its civilization so that ‘we’ can end this north eastern migration scourge, turn it around, reverse it…stay home, build- indeed rebuild our own civilization.. and live life there.
that would leave western civilization completely to the west, westerners such as they currently- we can finally prevent them from expanding anymore to terrorize the rest of the world as they have for centuries now. that should make them happy as they claim all the time, yet it bothers them exceedingly all these white supremacists, for they love to have the world they stole, genocided enslaved… all to themselves, as they are superior/supremacists, they and their civilization chosen over the rest of us, imposed on us by god itself, and as such they and are fixated on telling us what to do, how to do it, how to live, where to do it…far away from them yet controlled and managed by them – that is if they allow us to live at all
far away from them and decimated, depopulated …that would render all these boys and girls here on racism inc, i.e UNZ Nazion.com exceedingly happy and hopefully -to the great relief of whatever reading world that survives- quiet!!!
I’m incredulous that we’re seeing gas wars.
I guess I built too many gas plants to believe this. There is no shortage of gas, except Europe of course.
The Mediterranean is full of gas, Africa has lots as well, yet somehow Europe is starved. What gives?
Clown World indeed.
And the sooner France is kicked out of Africa the better – it’s been nothing but tiresome meddling by this “former” colonial master. Uranium is all over the world. Tell Frenchie to take a bus to Uranium City (abandoned yet completed gov’t town in northern Saskatchewan), they can bring shovels and get to fucking work. Why you would structure your power grid to be completely dependent on other countries is a mystery for sure and goes to show how backwards the EU really is.
Why not use thorium? There’s no shortage of that and it will never melt down a reactor – it was abandoned early in the Manhattan Project research as it can’t reach saturation / runaway no matter how pure.
Which brings up another ugly truth about the nuclear industry – governments fund it because it’s tied to weapons programs. If they were truly honest they could separate power generation from threatening to nuke other governments.
Jul 30, 2023 Coup D’ETAT: ECOWAS Imposes No Flight Zone On Niger Republic
Video Link
Apr 3, 2023 Mapping Faultlines: African Countries Defy Western Pressure to Pursue Own Interests
In this episode of Mapping Faultlines, NewsClick’s Prabir Purkayastha and former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar talk about how African countries are dealing with changing global geo-political developments. They discuss how African countries have more options with the emergence of China and Russia, and how they are rejecting the western model of militarization in favour of a different style of development.
Video Link
This should be of use here.
A bit of History – Information. Africa remains colonized & occupied by Imperialist Soldiers.
Video Link
Note the ethnicity of the 4* General assigned to obfuscate (lie) to Congress & our citizens.
The terrorist USEUNATO conglomerate and their Chinky/Russky partners in Moscow and Beijing have made it so all costs, in blood and treasure, for global crises, be that the global COVID-19 plandemic or the staged “war” in Ukraine, or Taiwan tensions, etc., be transferred to taxcattle worldwide. Chinks not sent to war are gonna keep going to Shanghai’s Disneyland and Russkies not sent to war are gonna keep maintaining the Russian pipelines that criss-cross EUkraine to provide the West and EUkraine with Russian fuels.
The US-led terrorists’ “rules-based order” out of chaos went full “multipolar” with the plandemic, and the fucks in China and Russia elites have embraced it like they’ve embraced the UN/WHO and lockdowns, mandatory “vaccines”, and AI-powered mass-surveillance and population control.
What’s another fabricated crisis to expand the scope of the the false “unipolar-multipolar” dichotomy?
I appreciate these types of articles because I know nothing of the subject discussed. However, it should be remembered that neither the US, China, Russia, nor any world power, has any interest in who or what governs any African territory as long as the material wealth of said territory can be accessed. It is true of course that the Chinese government possesses a fundamental difference from the current US regime – the Chinese politicians are not at open war against their fellow Chinese. Naturally, the Chinese pol has the luxury of having a Chinese constituency rather than feral, ungovernable savages.
Long live the patriotic junta of Niger 🇳🇪!
I think 2023 is going to be turned even more upside down and inside out than it already is!! Aren’t enough sabers being rattled already??
Took me five seconds.
https://human-intelligence.org/africans/
Read Blood of the Celts
Read The One Eyed God
R1b1a Are the PIE who left the Steppe and conquered the settled agricultural people. You are another pretentious pseudo-intellectual posting on Unz afraid to admit the easiest of truths. Keep cheerleading for EASTZOG.
It has nothing to do with being “white”. It has everything to do with Stalin’s “rootless cosmopolitans” and Hitler’s “international financiers”.
What’s the total value of mineral wealth in Niger that we are allowing the niggas in fancy getups to parade before international audiences?
Hold on a minute there Anonymous416. There are Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Niger. Soon with France as its Ally, the US War Machine will be bringing Freedom and Democracy to Niger. Ya see…it’s all about the World needing a Rules Based Order and the US of A, as the Exceptional Nation is going to straighten Niger out. One bombing Mission at a time.
And Niger can thereafter happily join the beneficiaries of the spread of democracy, human rights and rules based order, a la Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Afghanistan opted out of that noble mission by the reckless whupping of American a$$es.
My post (#21) was intended as a response to yours, but somehow got messed up. Here it is:
And Niger can thereafter happily join the beneficiaries of the spread of democracy, human rights and rules based order, a la Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Afghanistan opted out of that noble mission by the reckless whupping of American a$$es.
While America is of course the usual warmonger for “democracy and anal sex”, the French (gov’t) are also a disgrace, never wanting to give up their colonial dreams even as they are being colonized themselves. Those frog fuckers — especially (((Sarkozy))), but Macron and others too — were also very much into bombing Libya and Syria, second only to the U.S.
I don’t know what average French people think of this crap, but it is not helping anyone in France. Very much the opposite in fact, as France is becoming the first fully African country in Europe, and reaping the rewards of terrorism at home too (Islam/Mossad).
And the connards even lost the World Cup to Argentina, who had a whiter team — Messi is basically fully Italian.
I don’t understand why nobody is talking about the real issue here, millions more Africans moving to Europe. If Niger erupts into violence then people all over Africa will claim they are from Niger, this will surpass all the previous mass migrations into Europe the last few decades.
The negro invasion of Europe must be stopped. Over Specter’s dismembered dead body.
Everyone is standing relaxed with open fists except Traore standing with clenched fists and menacing. He means business
I’m sensing a trend. Anytime Europe tries to get some cheap gas, something happens. An explosion. An accident. Putin. Ukraine. A coup.
Seems like someone really doesn’t want Europe to have cheap gas supplies.
Who could that be?
there is no terrorism in france, only false flagsdone by kabbalists. and major sports are rigged circuses, used for social engineering. messi kissed the wailing wall, he sold himself out long ago for fame and riches.
In a related matter, I bet info-babes and other teleprompter readers are on pins and needles these days with stories about Niger.
It has to be Papua New Guinea. Who else?
or use the gas itself in energy-intensive production of glass, steel, and so on.
Speaking of Papua New Guinea, between 1941 and 1945 , The ZOG US government conscripted 690,000 American goys to go kill Japs over control of Papua New Guinea. Most of these drafted young Americans never saw a Japanese soldier but instead spent months in hospitals dealing with a tropical disease.
caveat: Memorandums of Understanding are the International Relations version of a JOKE> they are non binding, non enforceable. Countries sign MoUs left and right. Most of them come to naught.
have you noticed the new Nigerian prez (likely a US asset) resembles Samuel Jackson a bit? Also, given that the Nigerian prez came to power well before the niger coup, i think the whole situations smacks of problem-response-solution game dynamics: the US likely planned the Niger Coup, to bring Nigeria as full time proxy for the US in the region, like an Erdogan.
When I go out to do errands I try to not look at our United States society crumbling all around me: it is very heartbreaking!! America has been hijacked!!
WHY IS THE WEST SO WEAK (AND RUSSIA SO STRONG)? BY GAIUS BALTAR
https://alethonews.com/2023/08/11/why-is-the-west-so-weak-and-russia-so-strong/
It is becoming increasingly clear to more and more people in the West that something has gone terribly wrong with the Ukraine project. Predictions and projections didn’t pan out and the West doesn’t seem to know what to do. The Russian economy wasn’t a house of cards as predicted, Russian weapons weren’t inferior as predicted, Russian soldiers and commanders weren’t incompetent as predicted, and Russian technology wasn’t inferior as predicted.
Broke Buck Marine
“That’s where you’re wrong bucko. Russians are white niggers. Can I interest you in the plight of the Chechens?” John Johnson
ohhhhhh shieeeettttttt, the nigers are coming.
LOL!
[Sorry. Out of buttons.]
And when that happens, Africans in France and other EU countries are really gonna get the party started.
After the 2 megawatt prototype has undergone tests in September, China plans to build its first commercial thorium reactor.
A 2 megawatt reactor is tiny, so the Chinese are being quite conservative. I have my doubts about the utility of this technology, and they must as well, for the followup – assuming success of the prototype – is only 100 megawatts. That’s still very small.
What on earth are you on about? Oh, I see, you’ve dug up a pseudo-intellectual site in 5 secs – wow, what an achievement. Goes to show where you get brainwashed 🤣
Call it a hunch.
But there is something about this man. He has strength and focus, and the youth and energy to use it for decades to come. I think we will see much more of him in future.
The future of nuclear reactors is for small isolated northern communities.
Personally I disregard China as the world leader in anything but stolen tech from someone else.
Thorium is 1940s Manhattan Project.
Which makes it Farmer’s Tech of Today.
Fuck China.
Excellent info. you cant find any where in propaganda media!!!!!!
Good to know you are a butthurt subhuman. Enjoy life being retarded.
Waiting to read more about
https://www.dawn.com/news/1769423/massive-crime-if-contents-of-leaked-cipher-true-says-pm-shehbaz
pak usa imran and the threat in subtle and not so subtle ways to crime ridden nepotistisc ethnic vulture – Pak Military .
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/
from UNZ
For the ur canadian readers, this might help explain a few things
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/08/10/democracy-far-down-list-of-canadian-interests-in-niger/
For France.
Some shithole in the Sahara will have minimum impact on an advanced economy like France. Hell the whole continent of Africa will have a tiny impact on the French economy. France held on to special relations only because it was not comfortable with Washington’s domination and wanted more global power in response and something Leftists like Mitterrand wanted. François Mitterrand, a Socialist, emphasized the preservation of France’s special relationships with its former colonies in the face of “Anglo-Saxon influence.” But even Mitterrand admitted that in many cases the former colonies do not leave Daddy France alone.
Many of these countries even interfere in the French elections and fund elections so that they get maximum aid if their favoured candidate wins in the French elections. WHy should foreign countries have a right to interfere in French elections?
Anyways, France leaving Africa alone, will only benefit France. What is likely now is France will concentrate more on European affairs. It is a reversal of more than a century of history, where France humbled by losses the Germans in the France-Prussian wars, decided to build up an Empire in the Sahara to assuage it’s wounded pride. Now the whole thing is reversing.
African people, do not bend over to american, british and the jewish oligarchs. Your lands and resources do not belong to these criminal thieves. Do not submit to be only a vassal state feeding them fat and easy lives, like they have always done for hundreds and hundreds of years.
African people, do not bend over to american, british and the jewish oligarchs. Your lands and resources do not belong to these criminal thieves. Do not submit to be only a vastaa state feeding them fat and easy lives, like they have always done for hundreds and hundreds of years.
“Hell the whole continent of Africa will have a tiny impact on the French economy.”
So… where is the uranium from that powers the French power grid?
It COULD be Australia, Canada, anywhere really.
But right now, it’s Niger.