Given the serious health issues surrounding the two Areva-owned uranium mines in Niger, an agreement was finalised in 2009 providing for the setting up of a health and safety observatory: medical staff, appointed by a joint committee representing the company and civil society, would examine any former miners who requested a check-up. If an occupational complaint linked to radiation was diagnosed, Areva would pay for treatment., However, writes Herve Kempf in The Guardian, "A year later there is still no sign of the observatory." Furthermore, Kempf continued, in February Greenpeace and Criirad, the independent French laboratory that has monitored radioactive contamination at the mines and in the communities, published another report alleging that there were serious hotspots in the town itself."