Messages, appeals and statements of Comintern (SH)

What does the coup in Niger have to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki ?

What does the coup in Niger have to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki ?

No single oil-based bomb can blow up an entire city, but nuclear-based bombs can do.

The global Uranium battle in Niger

What is Niger about ?

 
It is not about the population of Niger, but about the raw materials, especially those raw materials that are needed for the production of nuclear bombs. And whoever rules over nuclear weapons also rules the world. No wonder, then, that the world powers are fighting over uranium deposits in Niger.
World domination = domination over world profit.
In Niger, the world imperialist powers are fighting over who gets to exploit and oppress Niger in the future. The old colonial masters are being replaced by the new colonial masters - but not in a peaceful way, but through a war of displacement, which is not taking place on the economic battlefield, but also in the military field, the war of robbery as the ultimate means of the distribution struggle between the western (old) and eastern (new) camps of world imperialism.

Who profits from Nigerien uranium?

First, the reverse question:
Who does not benefit from it ?
The working people of Niger !
Today, 80% of Nigerians do not even know that there is uranium in Niger and 99% never benefit from it.
Niger is desperately poor and ranked last among the 187 countries in the UN Human Development Index 2012. This ranking is not least due to the very high illiteracy rate (89%), which is even more pronounced among women.
The health and education infrastructures are not only catastrophic, but practically non-existent.
Three quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day, malnutrition is widespread and the country is plagued by droughts.
Russia bombs Ukrainian wheat to act as "Samaritan" with Russian wheat in Niger - displacement of the old wheat business by new ones with extreme military means. In the Third World War there will then be no more wheat, at least not for millions of starving people in the world, espoecially in Africa.
Although mining accounted for 70.8% of Niger's exports in 2010, it contributed only 5.8% of the country's gross domestic product.
The French imperialists did not have to pay any export duties on uranium, or any taxes on materials and equipment used in the mines. Accordingly, the levies amounted to only 5.5 per cent.
For the uranium in Niger, the mining companies, above all the French Areva, pay only one third of the world market price !
Workers, on the other hand, earn about 138,000 CFA a month for cleaning and packing uranium ore, which is 245 dollars.

Niger is the country with a gross national income that hovers around 900 dollars a year.
Labour unrest results from abject poverty, and protests against poor treatment of workers. The mining companies can do whatever they want with the workers, because the state is neither willing nor able to stand up to the power of the mining companies.
The contracts and agreements signed by mining corporations in Niger, in Africa or elsewhere in the world - are pure colonial contracts.
In the socialist revolution, these contracts must be torn up and the mining corporations must not only be held accountable, but they must also be tried. They have to pay for the damage they have done. And they must make full restitution for everything they have taken out of the country in terms of profit.
* * *
1957 was the discovery of uranium in Niger.
"Liberated" from French colonialism in 1960, t he slavery returned with a radioactive face.
The mines are operated by Areva, a nuclear energy services company 70% owned by France, the colonial power that ruled Niger between the 1890s and 1960.
The two Areva mines produced more than €3.5 billion (£2.9 billion) worth of uranium in 2010, but Niger received only €459 million, or 13% of that amount. In 2012, Areva received tax exemptions worth €320 million. They paid no export taxes. Both the uranium purchase price and the mechanism for setting this price are kept secret from the public.
The global uranium business is in few hands.
The nuclear industry functions like a global oligopoly. Oligopoly is a capitalist form of economy in which the entire world market is dominated by a few capitalists. In a figurative sense, we also speak of the influence of oligopolies on politics (political oligopolies).
Smash the Nuclear capital globally !
Expropriate the Nuclear-companies !
No Nuclear-Industry !
 
Niger, the poorest state in the world, is the third largest uranium producer in the world with a market share of 9%.
Niger, which has the highest-grade uranium ores in Africa, produced 2,020 tonnes of uranium in 2022, equivalent to about 5% of global mining production, according to the World Nuclear Association.
And the nuclear powers' ambitions in Niger continue to reverberate today, as Niger's remote and inhospitable northern desert landscape is home to the world's fifth-largest mineable uranium reserves, about 7% of the global total.
According to the EU's nuclear agency Euratom, more than a quarter of the uranium imported into the EU came from the African country in 2022.
Russia still contributed 20 per cent of uranium imports in 2021, which filled Moscow's war chest by half a billion euros.
Niger provides around ten per cent of the precious fuel for France's nuclear power plants and even a good 25 % for the entire EU.
France gets 75 % of its electricity from nuclear energy, but has never stated to what extent it relies on uranium from Niger for its 58 nuclear reactors.
It is said that "one in three light bulbs in France are fuelled by Niger uranium".
 
Environmental impact