Nigeria, Others to Have Largest Working-Age Population By 2035'!

McKinsey & Co, a global management consulting firm has predicted that the working-age population of Nigeria and other African countries will be the largest in the world by 2035.

The New York-based company specifically stated in a report titled "Lions Go Global: Deepening Africa's Ties to the United States," that the working-age population in Africa would be larger than that of China or India by 2035.

It pointed out that in a world where many countries are aging, including China, Africa stands out for the relative youthfulness of its population-a potential demographic dividend. However, it noted that the task ahead would be for Africa's leaders to bolster education and provide young people with the skills they need to secure employment, and to accelerate job creation.

In 2012, only 29 percent of Africa's labor force had stable, wage-paying jobs. The rest were employed in a variety of self-employment and household enterprises, scraping a living from subsistence agriculture or informal jobs in urban areas.

"Africa's trade ties with the world are expanding. In 2012, the continent's flows of goods, services, and finance were worth $1.6 trillion, or 82 per cent of gross democratic product (GDP), up from just $400 billion, or 60 percent of GDP, in 2000. 

"As in other countries, goods flows are Africa's largest, with inflows and outflows worth $1 trillion in 2012. Flows of services and finance are smaller, totaling around $300 billion each," it noted.

Although commodities continue to be a large share of Africa's exports, they account for less than half of goods exported by the continent. Capital-intensive goods, labor-intensive manufactured goods, and knowledge-intensive manufactured goods together comprise the majority of the continent's exports.

This, the report noted is a clear sign of structural change in Africa's economies, adding that the shift toward manufacturing and services needs to be accelerated.

It pointed out that in many African countries; the share of manufacturing in the economy had been stagnant or even declining over the past decade.

"Today may present a historic opportunity to boost Africa's goods flows even further. As wages rise in China, production is shifting to lower-wage Asian economies-and to some African countries.

"Manufacturing already receives most of the FDI in some countries including Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Mozambique, and Egypt. "On current trends, manufacturing is set to create eight million jobs by 2020, a testament to wages and productivity levels that are competitive with other global low-cost manufacturing hubs," the report stated.

According to the report, evidence showed that productivity of African workers in well-managed factories was comparable with that in other countries.

However, it noted that Africa was yet to be fully engaged in the global economy as its potential suggests it could be.

The new McKinsey Global Institute Connectedness Index ranks countries based on goods, services, finance, people, and data and communication flows. The index shows that Africa ranks the lowest of any region in the world on its connections to the global economy.

Source: ThisDay news

Newly Wed Nurse Is Ebola Case No 10!

According to reports, a newly wed nurse who treated Patrick Sawyer in hospital is the 10th confirmed case to test positive for Ebola virus disease, 22 days after the disease hit Nigeria.

The nurse joined seven others in quarantine and treatment after she was diagnosed at the weekend, but her husband is under surveillance, health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.

Some 177 people are now under surveillance, up from 139 announced Friday.

Treatment of the eight people quarantined in past weeks has primarily involved antibiotics, electrolytes replacement to combat dehydration in the absence of definite response from the United States for experimental drug ZMapp, which was administered to two American doctors who contracted the virus in Liberia.

But Chukwu said the eight on treatment were responding and getting "ready to go."

Case fatality rate for Ebola in Nigeria still is under 30% in Nigeria, compared with 55% in the three other affected countries in West Africa where death toll from the disease nears 1,000.

Chukwu said Nigeria and its partners in the subregion would continue struggle against ebola but would not close its borders until it absolutely has to.

He ruled out possibility that Sawyer's deliberate evasion of authorities and trip which imported Ebola to Nigeria would be construed as a diplomatic incident.

"The Liberian Government has expressed its deepest sympathies and regrets that Mr. Sawyer had even embarked on this tragic journey, which has brought needless sufferings, death and has placed an unnecessary stress on our health system," he said.

"In the same spirit, we share in solidarity, the grief of the governments and people of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone as we confront this challenge together."

Source: Daily Trust

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.