Word: niger
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...Niger No Limits President Mamadou Tandja has been cleared to run for a third term after Nigerois overwhelmingly voted in a referendum to overturn a constitutional two-term limit. Opposition leaders accused Tandja, in office since 1999, of destroying the nation's democratic institutions and voiced their concerns about Niger's possible slip into dictatorship. Tandja defended the move, saying he needed more time to oversee large-scale foreign investments...
...opens to outsiders and word of its treasures spreads, so too does the interest in the books from outside collectors. In some ways, saving these old manuscripts could imperil them further. In decades past only the hardy visited Timbuktu; the journey required days of travel up the malaria-infested Niger River. Today, dozens of tourists arrive several times a week on small commercial planes from Bamako, the capital of the former French colony. Timbuktu has become a favorite jumping-off point to explore the world's biggest desert. As the modern world rushes in, attitudes among Timbuktu's youth...
...Rush to Save the Treasures Sitting at a junction of the Sahara's historic commercial routes on a lazy bend of the Niger River, Timbuktu used to be a hectic crossroads where gold traders heading north met herders and salt merchants trekking south across the desert. The city's lucrative trade fueled Mali's empires as well as a rich ethnic blend of black Africans and Mediterranean people, and an intellectual ferment with dozens of Koranic schools. Refugees from the Inquisition in Spain brought their libraries with them, and soon began writing and buying more books. Timbuktu's literary output...
...Islamist group is not the only threat facing Nigeria. The country is one of Africa's biggest oil exporters, and yet some 70% of its people live in abject poverty. A string of devastating attacks by militants demanding a greater share of the oil wealth in the Niger Delta, in the south, has reduced oil output by a third, hitting government revenues. This week's fighting will add to the sense that the government is losing control. "The government is no longer in control of the security situation outside the main cities," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Abuja...
...months, investors have plowed billions of dollars into oil futures. If the U.S. and other major industrial economies rebound, oil supplies could be depleted because the recession has prompted producer nations to freeze hundreds of projects to open new oil wells or upgrade existing ones. In the oil-rich Niger Delta, a major Nigerian government offensive against rebels has seriously disrupted production for several weeks. Venezuela's Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in Vienna that his country could not afford to invest in major new oil exploration unless prices rise further. "We need a level of at least...