Congolese in Kabila coup plot plead not guilty in S.Africa!

Twenty Congolese nationals who went on trial in South Africa on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges of plotting to assassinate Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila and topple his government.

A Pretoria court formally indicted the men with mercenary activities and conspiracy to murder, 18 months after their arrest in South Africa.

State prosecutor Shaun Abrahams listed the firearms and ammunition which he said the accused collected for a training camp in the north of South Africa. He said they had planned to target high-profile Congolese officials including President Kabila and his interior minister.

After hearing the charges against them, the men stood up one by one and entered pleas of not guilty.

"My client said that he has never recruited or trained anybody to commit a crime. He didn't even know all the accused," said Portia Phahlani, defence lawyer for the group's alleged leader Etienne Kabila, who claims to be Kabila's brother.

The trial got underway a day late after the accused applied Monday to have their charges overturned. The judge dismissed the application.

The court will hear new objections to the charges in the next few days, after which prosecutors will start calling witnesses, including undercover policemen whose work led to their arrest.

Officers arrested the suspects on February 5 last year, six months after an agent infiltrated their group.

He filmed several meetings and exchanged emails in the alleged preparation of the coup.

If convicted, the suspects face several years in prison.

The DRC, which is almost as big as Western Europe, has been shattered by decades of strife, particularly in its mineral-rich east.

Kabila took power in 2001 at the height of a devastating conflict that became known as "Africa's Great War".

International envoys have expressed concern he could run for a third term in office, flouting constitutional term-limits.
Source:AP

Interactive Map Shows Ebola Virus Spread!

ABC news report has it that HealthMap's interactive Ebola outbreak map starts with just one dot, representing 23 deaths in Guinea from a “mystery hemorrhagic fever” on March 19, 2014. At the time, officials didn't know they were dealing with what would become the largest Ebola outbreak since the deadly virus was discovered in 1976.

At first the map had just a few dots, but by yesterday, it was pockmarked with Ebola cases – 1,603 of them in four West African countries including 887 deaths.

"It paints a picture of how this outbreak has slowly spread across international borders and is building up and remaining uncontrolled," said John Brownstein, a computational epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who also served as a consultant for the 2011 movie "Contagion."

Brownstein co-founded HealthMap, an interactive outbreak mapping tool, nearly a decade ago. His team of about 45 people uses code to scour the web for outbreaks, sifting through news websites, government pages and social media in 15 languages across the globe.

HealthMaps created a separate Ebola page shortly after the current outbreak began this spring, but its traffic has skyrocketed in recent days. On Monday, the page got more than 50,000 hits.

According to Brownstein this Ebola outbreak is unique because it is the first time health workers have been unable to quickly limit Ebola transmissions.

"What we've seen here -- because of inadequate public health measures, because of general fear -- is it truly hasn't been kept under control," he said. "The event started, calmed down and jumped up again. Now, we're seeing movement into densely populated areas, which is highly concerning."

How other countries are scrambling for Africa alongside the U.S!

Currently in Washington, African heads of state are converging for a landmark series of meetings with the United States officials and businesses. The event has been billed as the clearest sign yet of the Obama administration's desire to reassert American interests in the continent, which have taken a back seat to the United States' long-standing foreign policy headaches in the Middle East and west Asia.

Africa is home to six of the world's 10 most dynamic economies and is a huge untapped market for American goods and services. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, the co-chair of a U.S.-Africa business forum on Tuesday that was part of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, expects that event alone to "serve as a catalyst for more than $14 billion in business deals with benefits that travel in both directions across the Atlantic."

But that tantalizing sum will be tempered by other concerns. On the eve of the summit, Human Rights Watch urged the United States to use the occasion to press numerous African governments on questions of human rights. On Monday, Vice President Biden lectured African officials on the importance of safeguarding and deepening democratic institutions while developing their economies. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together," Biden  said, invoking an oft-quoted African proverb.

After centuries of rapacious European colonialism, it's unclear how much patience many African dignitaries may have for Western moralizing — not least because the United States is far from Africa's sole suitor. There is a 21st-century scramble for Africa, where dozens of nations — now on a more even footing — are engaging a host of old powers and emerging economies. In 1992, for example, Brazil, China and India accounted for just 3 percent of Africa's trade; now they represent a quater of it. Here's a rundown of some of the biggest foreign players on the continent.

Although the Obama administration is forever at pains to stress that it does not see China as a competitor, the shadow of China's enormous stake in Africa undoubtedly hangs over proceedings this week in Washington. China's annual trade with Africa stands at around $200 billion, double the U.S. total. Chinese state companies are heavily invested in the extraction of natural resources across the continent, including oil, natural gas, minerals and ores. Roughly a million Chinese have moved to the continent as part of a workforce that has built massive infrastructure projects, ranging from dams and airports to highways and railroads. Africa is also a huge market for Chinese goods, including textiles and cheap electronics. Here's a recent Agence France-Presse map of Chinese investment in Africa.

Credit: Washington Post

Icon Weekly apologises to Tubaba over false publication!

A Lagos based soft-sell magazine, Icon Weekly, pulled in, a scandalous story it published about an illicit affair between Nigerian music artiste Innocent Idibia popularly known as Tubaba and a Lagos banker, and has issued an apology to the singer. 




The publication reported that a Lagos-based banker, named Teniola – a graduate of the University of Lagos, is expecting a child for the singer. 
It was learnt that Tubaba’s management team, 960 Music Group debunked the report and slapped the publication with a N100M lawsuit. 



Editors, please avoid the pit fall of rushing to publish unverified stories all in the name of 'breaking a news, or having exclusives'....it's un-ethical.

Nicki Minaj Sexxy T shirts goes on sales!

Photos of Minaj's sexxy T/ shirts believed to be on sales.

Well folks, you can order for yours too.

In Photos: President Jonathan and United States Vice President Joe Biden at a bilateral meeting at Roosevelt Room, White House!

President Jonathan & US VP Joe Biden at a bilateral meeting at Roosevelt Room, White House on Teusday.

Crash investigators find human remains in Malaysian wreckage; fighting rages nearby!

Crash site investigators in Ukraine found more human remains Friday among the first small patch of wreckage they searched in the village where the fuselage of the Malaysia Airlines plane landed.

Head of the Dutch-led recovery team Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, said no bodies were found, only remains. They are expected to take at least three weeks to complete their work, he said, longer if delays arise due to fighting between government troops and rebels who control the crash site.

The body parts, whose condition Aalbersberg declined to describe out of respect for the surviving family members, were taken away in ambulances. They will be transferred to refrigerated train cars, and eventually flown to the Netherlands for identification, he said.