By Abdoulaye Massalatchi

NIAMEY, May 16 (Reuters) - Niger's parliament has approved more than $60 million in extra budget funds to help the government confront attacks by Tuareg rebels in the desert north which are threatening uranium mining and oil exploration.

"Today security, along with other sectors, is one of the government's priorities," Minister for Institutional Relations Salifou Madou Kelzou said after the assembly passed the 30 billion CFA francs of additional 2007 financing late on Tuesday.

Kelzou said the government was able to count on extra funds coming from contractual obligations paid by Chinese uranium and oil companies operating in the landlocked former French colony, the world's third largest producer of uranium.

Encouraged by rising demand for the mineral on international markets, Niger's government has granted a wave of fresh uranium and other exploration permits over the last year to companies from China, India, Canada, Britain and France, among others.

But the vast, northern Agadez region where most of these concessions are located has seen an upsurge in attacks this year by nomadic Tuareg rebels who have long complained of neglect by the central government in Niamey.

The rebels fighting as the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) demand that income from natural resources be more fairly shared out. They attacked a French-run uranium mine near the Algerian border last month and have warned employees of the Chinese National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) to leave the region.

Niger's government, while refusing to recognise the MNJ and dismissing its fighters as bandits and drug-traffickers, has been forced to send army reinforcements to the north, pushing some of the rebels over the border into Mali.

"The government will use these resources to guarantee the best possible development prospects for Niger, whether it be for security, rural development or infrastructure," Kelzou said. Health and education will not be neglected, he added.

Despite mineral riches which, besides uranium and oil, include iron ore, coal, copper, silver, platinum, vanadium, titanium and lithium, Niger was listed bottom of a 2006 U.N. development index ranking countries by quality of life.

Uranium is used as a nuclear fuel in power stations and atomic submarines and vessels, in the production of nuclear weapons and armour-piercing bullets and in the aviation sector.

Military experts say Niger's northern rebels come from the numerous ethnic Tuareg, Arab and Toubou groups which staged an uprising in the 1990s demanding more autonomy from the black African-dominated government in Niamey.

Most groups accepted peace deals in 1995 but insecurity remains rife, with frequent acts of banditry, carjacking and kidnapping by former rebels who say they are still marginalised.

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