Kidnapped China executive "not in danger" in Niger

BEIJING, July 9 (Reuters) A Chinese company executive kidnapped in Niger was not in danger, Chinese state media said today, quoting the Chinese embassy in the West African country over the weekend.

The rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), made up largely of Tuareg and other nomadic tribes, seized Zhang Guohua, an executive at the China Nuclear International Uranium Corp (Sino-U), on Friday close to the oasis town of Ingall.

The rebels accuse Sino-U of helping to fund government arms purchases to suppress their uprising and it said Zhang's kidnapping was meant as a warning.

Zhang was ''now in the hands of Tuareg tribes and his life is not under threat'', the China Daily said, quoting the Chinese embassy in Niger as saying on Saturday without explaining how the embassy had received the information.

A company official in Beijing said she could not comment.

Since February, the MNJ has launched a series of attacks against military and mining concerns in Niger's mineral-rich north, home to the world's fourth biggest uranium mining industry, killing at least 33 soldiers.

''We demand that all countries with expatriates in the conflict zone who are there for exploration and exploitation of mining resources (and not development projects) order them to leave...for their own safety,'' the MNJ said in a statement posted on its Web site.

Reuters SBA VP0715