AES Interrupts A $50b Shakedown In The Sahel
In the shadow of the Aïr Mountains, along the southern edge of the Sahara, a Nigerien town has been poisoned. The lands around the town of Arlit, home to 200,000 Nigeriens, is scarred by an enormous open-pit uranium mine run by a French company known as Orano.
Following the 1960's independence struggle in Niger, Orano, a French state-owned enterprise, entered into a number of joint ventures with the neocolonial government of Niger as well as those of Spain, and Japan. These ventures (known as SOMAÏR and COMINAK) have since extracted over 145,000 tons of uranium from the mines around Arlit.