Word: niger
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...Niamey, the tiny capital of Niger, the dust clouds rise at midday to nostril level. They made no exception last week for the 13 African chiefs of state who met there to discuss the future of their Afro-Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM), including efforts to persuade the European Common Market to renew their tariff concessions. There was something else in the air, however, that proved even more pervasive than dust: the unmistakable presence of France...
Nationalities show up most quickly. Most of Adzope is African, of course, but the people have surprisingly wide backgrounds. The Ivory Coast itself counts some 64 dialects, and different quartiers in town speak different languages. Economic prosperity has drawn settlers from poorer neighbors to the north--Mali, Niger, and Guinea...
...federal army that totals about 50,000 men, Biafra nonetheless seems ready to fight for the last inches of its turf. Pushed out of the Midwestern state, which they had seized in a daring raid, Ojukwu's men have hurled back boatloads of troops trying to cross the Niger River after them. One big government ferry got stuck on a sandbar in midpassage; while searchlights lit it up, Biafran guns splintered it, and hundreds of men drowned. Elsewhere, the war has become a kind of ballet, with bands of roving soldiers often straying back and forth across each other...
...done little but add to Nigeria's long list of problems. The economy is rapidly stagnating. Lucrative oil wells in Nigeria's Midwest and East have stopped flowing, and harvests have been disrupted. The exodus of skilled Ibos has crippled the North. Long range development projects, like the Niger River hydroelectric dam, have been delayed or suspended. Perhaps most devastating, though, the insurrection is likely to discourage foreign investment long after the soldiers lay down their arms...
...African regions are divided neatly by a boundary running northeast through Ghana, Togo, Dahomey, Upper Volta, Niger, Mali, and into Algeria (see map). To the east of the boundary lies the Pan-African region, dated as 550 million years old. West of it is the 2-billion-year-old Eburnean area. According to Bullard, if the South American bulge had once fitted under the bulge of Africa, the continuance of the delineation between the two rock regions would be found running southwest through Brazil from a point near the city of Sao Luis 2,070 miles north...