Since 1975, Niger has celebrated Arbor Day as part of its Independence Day: 3 August.

President Compaoré has mediated a political crisis in Togo and helped to resolve the Tuareg conflict in Niger.

Chad has been an active champion of regional cooperation through the Central African Economic and Customs Union, the Lake Chad and Niger River Basin Commissions, and the Interstate Commission for the Fight Against the Drought in the Sahel.

Delimitation of international boundaries in the vicinity of Lake Chad, the lack of which led to border incidents in the past, has been completed and awaits ratification by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.

Hausa is also spoken various parts of Cameroon and Chad, which combined the mixed dialects of Northern Nigeria and Niger Republic, French has made a great influence in the way Hausa is spoken by the native Hausa speakers.

The NTC has been in negotiations with Algeria and Niger, neighboring countries to which members of the government and defecting military commanders have fled, attempting to secure the arrest and extradition of Al-Saadi Gaddafi and others.

Libya also has sought to expand its influence in Africa through financial assistance, ranging from aid donations to impoverished neighbors such as Niger to oil subsidies to Zimbabwe.

Mali has no seaports because it is landlocked, but Koulikoro on the Niger River near Bamako, serves as a principal river port.

Mali has 1, 815 kilometers of inland waterways, principally the Niger River, some portions of which are navigable for medium and large shipping during the rainy season ( June / July – November / December ) in years of normal rainfall.

Considerable evidence indicates that about 60, 000 years ago, humans inhabited what has since become the desolate Sahara Desert of northern Niger.

Niger borders seven countries and has a total of 5 697 km of borders.

Niger also has short borders in its far southwest frontier ( Burkina Faso at 628 km and Benin at 266 km ) and to the northnortheast ( Libya at 354 km ).

Niger, is a landlocked Sub-Sahara African nation, and over the past two decades has consistently been ranked near or at the bottom of worldwide indexes of the Human development index, GDP, and percapita income.

An Indian proposal has surfaced to link the railways in Benin and Togo with landlocked Niger and Burkino Faso.

Kaura-Namoda via Sokoto to Birnin-Konni ( about 250 km altogether ) on the border with Niger, which has no railway.

Niger has maintained close ties with France, its former colonial power.

A conservative foreign policy has meant that under Niger's first president and — following military coup — the 1974 – 1991 military government, Niger maintained good relations with the United States, Israel, and NATO governments in general.

Niger has close relations with its neighbour Mali, with large scale trade links and sizable population movement between the two nations.

Niger has only 24 permanent embassies abroad, although more have permanent representation in Niamey, either through national embassies or other representatives.

Libya has in the past claimed a strip along their border of about 19, 400 km² in northern Niger.

An agreement has been completed and awaits ratification by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.

Niger has ongoing processes delimiting sections of their borders with Burkina Faso and Mali, disputes which date back to the colonial period.

The country has two major rail lines: one connects Lagos on the Bight of Benin and Nguru in the northern state of Yobe ; the other connects Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta and Maiduguri in the northeastern state of Borno.

* Conflict in the Niger Delta ( 2004 – present ) – an ongoing conflict in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

* USAID Assistance to Niger / Sahel-Information on relief efforts and ongoing bilateral assistance from the United States Agency for International Development

The region has, however, seen a number of bloody civil wars, including the Nigerian Civil War ( 1967 – 1970 ), two civil wars in Liberia in 1989 and 1999, a decade of fighting in Sierra Leone from 1991 – 2002, a Tuareg Rebellion in Niger and Mali in the early 1990s, and an ongoing conflict in Côte d ' Ivoire that began in 2002.

The attack came in the context of an ongoing conflict in the Niger Delta over indigenous rights to oil resources and environmental protection.

With rapidly growing populations and the consequent competition for meager natural resources, lifestyles of these two types of peoples have come increasingly into conflict in Niger in recent years.

Despite the occasional recurrence of a border conflict over Lete Island in the Niger River, Benin and Niger, both former French subjects of French West Africa, relations are close.

Israel withdrew its embassy in 1973 in anticipation of an African Union boycott and popular unhappiness in Niger over Israeli conflict with its neighbours.

In the early 1990s formal relations were again reestablished, only to be severed by Niger over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The conflict was caused due to the tensions between the foreign oil corporations and a number of the Niger Delta's minority ethnic groups who felt they were being exploited, particularly the Ogoni and the Ijaw.

The Colonial Office's bold strategy brought it into conflict with the Royal Niger Company, chaired by Sir George Goldie, which possessed title rights to large stretches of the Niger.

* The Nigerian civil war ( also known as the Biafran war ) during the 1960s among Igbos, Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba ; today's ethnic and oil-related conflict in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.

Isoko North contains oil producing regions, and is the location of some of the recent conflict in the Niger Delta.

Mediation efforts by President Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo and President Seyni Kountché of Niger to resolve the conflict were unsuccessful and sporadic clashes continued into early 1975.

During Watts's tenure as managing director of Shell Nigeria in the early 1990s a major area of exploration in the country was the oil-rich Niger River delta and here Shell came into conflict with the Ogoni people.

Other widely spoken Afroasiatic languages are Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, with 18 million native speakers ; Somali, spoken by around 19 million people in Greater Somalia ; and Hausa, the dominant language of northern Nigeria and southern Niger, spoken by 18. 5 million people and used as a lingua franca in large parts of the Sahel, with some 25 million speakers in total.

Countries where ASL or a derivative of ASL is the national or a widespread language include Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana ( with BSL ), Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d ' Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Kenya ( minority use ), Liberia, Madagascar ( minority use ), Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Philippines ( L2 use ), Puerto Rico, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, and Zimbabwe ( with ZSL ).

* Easternmost point – unnamed location on the border with Niger, Est Region

In 2006, an Indian proposal surfaced to link the railways in Benin and Togo with landlocked Niger and Burkina Faso.

Nineteen provinces of Burkina Faso are joined with contiguous areas of Mali and Niger under the Liptako-Gourma Authority, a regional economic organization.

After siding with Pescennius Niger against the victorious Septimius Severus, the city was besieged by Roman forces and suffered extensive damage in 196 AD.

Links with Niger, north of Lake Chad, are practically nonexistent ; it is easier to reach Niger via Cameroon and Nigeria.

Delimitation of international boundaries in the vicinity of Lake Chad, the lack of which led to border incidents in the past, is complete and awaits ratification by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria ; dispute with Nigeria over land and maritime boundaries around the Bakasi Peninsula and Lake Chad is currently before the ICJ, as is a dispute with Equatorial Guinea over the exclusive maritime economic zone.

French Guinea, along with Senegal, Dahomey, Cote-d ' Ivoire and Upper Senegal and Niger each were ruled by a lieutenant governor, under the Governor General in Dakar.

The Niger Delta comprised numerous city-states with numerous forms of government.

The Igbo lived east of the delta ( but with the Anioma on the west of the Niger River ).

In 1882 he began a connection with West Africa which lasted the rest of his life, by accepting the chairmanship of the National African Company, formed by Sir George Goldie, which in 1886 received a charter under the title of the Royal Niger Company and in 1899 was taken over by the British government, its territories being constituted the protectorate of Nigeria.

Lafofa ( Tegem ) was for a time classified with Talodi, but appears to be a separate branch of Niger – Congo.

In contrast, Fezzan's borders with Algeria, Niger, and Chad are seldom crossed because of the almost total emptiness of the desert countryside.

Archeologists in Niger have much work to do, with little known of the prehistory of the societies that inhabited the south, the home of the vast majority of modern Nigeriens.

As the Sahara dried after 2000 BCE, the north of Niger became the desert it is today, with settlements and trade routes clinging to the Air in the north, the Kaouar and shore of Lake Chad in the west, and ( apart for a scattering of oases ) most people living along what is now the southern border with Nigeria and the southwest of the country.

There continue to be three large parties, and several smaller ones, with no single party gaining a majority in the National Assembly of Niger.

Broad changes were made to the Council of Ministers of Niger, with MNSD-Nassara continuing to take the majority of portfolios, but with the CDS, RDP-Jama ' a, and NDP-Zaman Lahiya retaining Ministerial appointments.