The top 10 'loser' moments by professional athletes

CC Realtime

The Zinedine Zidane headbutt still takes the cake for me. I actually wanted him to decapitate that Italian hissicuff but just wished it did not have to cost that French team the FIFA World Cup™.

Here are the top 10 "what where they thinking" moments in professional sports.

Floyd as only Mayweather can do.....

CC Videorama

In this video (below) Floyd Mayweather gets into it with former ESPN personality Brian Kenny. The latter seemed to get under Mayweather's skin a few times and in typical Floyd fashion, he (Floyd) got personal and continually stressed (as we have all come to know) that he made more money than Brian Kenny.



Still along the lines of Mayweather's penchant for the obtuse and downright petty (although always entertaining), he responded to rapper 50 Cent's challenge that he (50 Cent) would donate $750,000 to the charity of Mayweather's choice if the champ could read a single page of a Harry Potter book without struggling.

Those surely were fighting words from the rap mogul as shown (below) by the response from 'Money' (via Instagram) to the challenge.

“Read this $72,276,000.00,” Mayweather wrote. “God bless.”

floydmayweather

1 day ago

138862 likes

26558 comments

Seems rather obvious Mayweather's sense of self-worth is wholly predicated on his wealth. He had better not lose it then and even more important, he may want to ensure he pays his taxes as I do not see any Federal or State withholding on both checks.

Tesla to extend warranty for model S sedan to shore up customer loyalty

By Editor-in-Chief

Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors has decided to increase the warranty for the Model S sedan to 8 years, regardless of mileage. Hence, the usual "3 years or 30,000 miles" language common with most traditional car manufacturers will not apply to the owners of the Tesla S sedan.

There is however one caveat. The "extended warranty" applies to vehicles that have already been sold and the warranty is also transferable.

Although such a gesture may invariably have a negative impact on the company's bottom-line, Tesla believes that it will come out at the positive end of this in the long-run, as the gesture is unprecedented and may end up engendering brand loyalty.

In the future, the California-based company also plans to expand its line of vehicles (as early as 2016) to include a possible "fighter line" called the Model 3 Electric Sedan to compete with the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes Benz C-Class.

The Model 3 is expected to be developed based upon a different (original) platform from the Model S and will go primarily against the very popular BMW 3 Series.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, also intimated that the cost of the Model X Electric Crossover (fall 2015 targeted delivery for new reservations) will essentially be commensurate with that of the Model S.

Tesla Model X Electric Crossover

The Model X will however incur a $10,000 additional charge that will affect the installation of a full drive and one motor.

Hence, at a price of just around $80,000, look for the Model X Electric Crossover to give the big players in the SUV target market a sure run for the money.

The Model X is designed from the ground up to provide the best of an SUV with a tinge of a minivan. Look for the soccer dads to now find it sexy to take their kids to those championship games they have avoided in the past (can't blame them).

Should be an exciting fall for Tesla and its customers.

Opinion: Barack Obama's hollow Africa summit

Obama's US-Africa summit was indeed a head-scratcher

By Adekeye Adebajo

Barack Hussein Obama, a Kenyan-American and the first "black" president of the United States (U.S.), hosted 45 African leaders in Washington D.C. last week in the first ever U.S.-Africa summit.

This empty summit embarrassingly exposed the widespread myth across Africa that Obama's 2008 election would help transform Africa's political and economic fortunes. 

Amidst cheap flattery about "Rising Africa" and empty slogans about "good governance", this summit was effectively a talking shop unlikely to produce concrete results.

By hosting this summit, the U.S. is merely catching up with China, Japan, France, and the European Union (EU) which have all hosted periodic meetings with African leaders. There is a sense that Washington is particularly concerned about Beijing's growing presence on the continent, which has made it Africa's largest bilateral trading partner at over $200 billion. 

The U.S.-Africa summit focused on investment; peace and regional stability; and governance. A U.S.-Africa Business Forum was also convened. Other sideline events included fora with youth, faith-based groups, and civil society; and sessions on trade, women, health, food security, and wild-life trafficking.

As the presidential motorcades swept down Pennsylvania Avenue and Africa's flamboyant "First Ladies" paraded their haute couture, this summit was dogged by controversy. There were damaging allegations of Obama treating African leaders like supplicant "tribal chiefs" being summoned to Washington to pay obeisance to America's "Commander-in-Chief."

Unlike other African summits with Japan and China, Obama refused to have any bilateral meetings with the 45 African leaders. Following much criticism, his Vice-President, Joe Biden, met with the leaders of South Africa and Nigeria.

In a further breach of protocol, American cabinet ministers were asked to host African leaders to private dinners without Obama's presence. Leaders from Zimbabwe, Sudan, Eritrea, Central African Republic (CAR), and Guinea-Bissau were excluded from the summit for not being in "good standing" with Washington, even as autocrats from Gambia, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Congo-Brazzaville, and Chad made the guest list. The presidents of Liberia and Sierra Leone cancelled the trip to deal with the Ebola crisis.

There were other discordant notes that put Obama's diplomatic orchestra out of tune. 

Senegal's Mackie Sall and Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete criticised the American media for continuing to stereotype Africa; Sudanese billionaire, Mo Ibrahim, berated U.S. companies for dodging taxes in their African operations; while hundreds of demonstrators protested against the leaders of Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

The dinner that Obama hosted for his African guests was not at the level of an official state dinner. The presidents were served grilled beef with coconut milk and cappuccino fudge cake with vanilla-scented papaya which must have left many of them feeling home sick!

One cannot assess this summit without providing the broader context of Obama's African policy over the last six years. The president has continued several of the truculent George W. Bush's most egregious policies. About 1,500 American soldiers remain in Djibouti to track terrorists. 

U.S. drones continue to be used in Somalia and Mali. Despite the killing of about 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood protesters, and the organizing of sham presidential elections by the Pharaonic military strongman, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Washington has continued to supply arms to the regime and condoned its human rights abuses.

Rather than challenging French neo-colonial interventionist policies in Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, and the Central African Republic, Obama has instead legitimized the continuing treatment of parts of Africa as a Gallic "sphere of influence." In the critical area of health, Washington drastically cut AIDS funding to Africa by $200 million in 2012. About 75 per cent of American imports from Africa still consist of oil.

Part of the problem of past African summits with external powers like China is that the continent's leaders have often failed to define their own interests clearly, and have consequently had plans which lack "ownership" foisted on them by external powers. 

This Washington summit followed a similar ignominious pattern. This gathering saw pledges of $14 billion from America's private sector. Obama's "Power Africa" also unconvincingly promised to provide electricity to 20 million Africans two years after he has left office. The proof of such promises is, however, in their delivery. 

As with any such bazaars, Africans should sensibly adopt the mantra "Buyer beware!" as much of these investments are unlikely to materialize. They should instead insist on the American saying: "Show me the money!"

As Obama leaves the White House in two years, his foreign policy towards his ancestral homeland has mirrored the tradition of "malign neglect" of the continent of his presidential predecessors. 

The fact that no substantive final document was produced from this Washington summit is the clearest sign, if any were needed, that this "photo-op" gathering represented a triumph of symbolism over substance.

Did Michael Brown attempt to 'bum rush' officer Wilson?

AG Eric Holder has been dispatched to Ferguson

CC Insight

While the usual suspects such as Al Sharpton have rushed to the scene in Ferguson, MO and wholly immersed themselves in the dirty politics of the 'race industry' (one that has made Sharpton quite wealthy and more of a national figure), it would seem that the facts of this case may indeed shock many who have already jumped to the obvious conclusion.

A Michael Brown shooting crime scene video going viral on YouTube may lend credence to the “bum rush” theory an alleged friend of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson has voiced. 

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the Ferguson riots and looting initially prompted Governor Jay Nixon to call in the Missouri State Highway Patrol to attempt to restore calm to the city. Over the weekend the Ferguson protests once again prompted criminal activity and the National Guard has now been called into enhance security patrols in the St. Louis suburb. Captain Ron Johnson remains on the scene urging residents to protest peacefully and legally. 

The second wave of rioting began in the late evening hours on Friday after Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson released a media packet containing images of a man identified as Michael Brown, robbing a local convenience store. Brown and a pal who spoke on camera to the media after the shooting, allegedly participated in a strong arm robbery – garnering about $50 worth of Swisher Sweets cigarillos.

Michael Brown shooting witnesses have uttered conflicting stories of how the shooting of the unarmed black man by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson unfolded. Some witnesses claimed the teenager was running away from Wilson, others told police and reporters that that Brown was facing the Ferguson police officer with his hands in the air surrendering. Leaked details of the Michael Brown autopsy indicate the young man was shot six times, all from the front, and not from point blank range.

The viral video of the Michael Brown shooting captured background conversations which may support the bum rush claims by a Ferguson police officer. At about the 6:30 mark in the Brown shooting video, residents gathered around police tape staring at the body on the street, indicate that the teenager may have rushed Darren Wilson.

Transcript from the Brown shooting video as published by multiple media outlets:

• #1 How’d he get from there to there?

• #2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck

{crosstalk}

• #2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him

{crosstalk}

• #2 Then the next thing I know he doubled back toward him cus – the police had his gun drawn already on him –

• #1. Oh, the police got his gun

• #2 The police kept dumpin’ on him, and I’m thinking the police kept missing – he like – be like – but he kept coming toward him

{crosstalk}

• #2 Police fired shots – the next thing I know – the police was missing

• #1 The Police?

• #2 The Police shot him

• #1 Police?

• #2 The next thing I know … I’m thinking … the dude started running … (garbled something about “he took it from him”)

An individual claiming to be a friend of Darren Wilson called into Dana Loesch’s radio show program on Friday and said that the Ferguson police officer has been attacked multiple times by Michael Brown before the shooting. “Brown just started bum rushing Wilson. He just started coming at him full speed. And, so Wilson just started shooting,” the supposed Wilson friend said.

Video discussing allegations that Michael Brown charged the police with excerpts of the audio from the removed YouTube Video:

Nigeria’s renewal: Delivering inclusive growth

Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

McKinsey Global Institute

As global investors and business leaders look to Africa as the next region of transformative economic growth, they are paying increasing attention to Nigeria. With about 170 million inhabitants, the country has long been the most populous in Africa, but it is only now being recognized as the continent’s largest economy. 

In April 2014, the government began to release “rebased” data that showed a gross domestic product of $510 billion in 2013, compared with $354 billion for South Africa. The rebased data also revealed an economy that was far more diverse than previously understood and that, with the right reforms and investments, could become one of the world’s leading economies by 2030. 

A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), Nigeria’s renewal: Delivering inclusive growth in Africa’s largest economy, examines how the country can live up to its economic potential while making growth more inclusive, thus bringing more Nigerians out of poverty.

Progress and productivity

Nigeria’s troubled history and its ongoing struggles with terrorism and poverty are well known. Yet the country has made solid economic progress since 2000, averaging annual GDP growth of 8.6 percent under civilian rule from 1999 to 2010, according to pre-rebased data, compared with just 1.5 percent a year under military rule (1983–99). And the new data show Nigeria is no longer just a petro-economy. While oil and gas remain critical sources of government income and of exports, the country’s entire resource sector today accounts for just 14 percent of GDP. Agriculture and trade are larger and faster growing. In addition, it is not generally recognized that Nigeria’s productivity, albeit low, has been growing recently and now contributes more to GDP growth than the country’s expanding population.

Yet the results of Nigeria’s economic progress have not been spread evenly. More than 40 percent of Nigerians live below the official poverty line. Seventy-four percent (around 130 million people) live below the MGI Empowerment Line,¹ a level of consumption that constitutes a decent, “economically empowered” standard of living, which we calculate for Nigeria as $1,016 per person a year in cities and $758 in rural areas. The primary reasons for this persistent poverty include low farm productivity and an urbanization process that has largely failed to raise incomes and living standards.

While crop yields have improved in recent years, they remain far below those of peer nations, as Nigerian farmers have limited access to productivity-improving inputs, such as fertilizer and mechanized tools. In addition, between high postharvest losses and an inefficient market system, farmers receive a small share of the value their work creates. Urban poverty is driven by poor employment options and low productivity: in Nigeria, workers in urban-oriented industries such as manufacturing actually have lower productivity than farm workers. This is the opposite of what normally happens as economies develop and urbanize—productivity and incomes are supposed to rise in tandem as people move off the farm and take up work in the city.

Opportunities for growth

We believe that Nigeria can build on the momentum of the past decade and, if all goes well, achieve 7.1 percent annual GDP growth through 2030 (exhibit). The country is well positioned to benefit from trends such as rising demand from emerging economies, growing global demand for resources, and the spread of the digital economy. Nigeria also has a young and rapidly growing population and an advantageous geographic location in West Africa, which enables trade within the continent, as well as with Europe and North and South America.

Exhibit

Should Nigeria reach its full potential, annual GDP could exceed $1.6 trillion in 2030 and the country could be a top-20 economy.

Our forecast is based on a bottom-up analysis of the potential for five major sectors of Nigeria’s economy:

• Trade. Given the expansion of the consumer class, we project that consumption could more than triple, rising to almost $1.4 trillion a year in 2030, an annual increase of about 8 percent. This would make trade the largest sector of the economy and provide a particularly good opportunity for makers of packaged foods and fast-moving consumer items such as paper goods, categories that could grow by more than 10 percent a year.
• Agriculture. Improvements on several fronts could help raise both the volume and the value of Nigeria’s agricultural production in the next 15 years. The economic value of agriculture, already the largest sector of the economy, at 22 percent of GDP, could more than double, from $112 billion a year in 2013 to $263 billion by 2030.
• Infrastructure. On average, the value of a nation’s core infrastructure—roads, railways, ports, airports, and the electrical system—represents about 68 percent of GDP, but in Nigeria it is only about 39 percent. Between core infrastructure and real estate, total infrastructure investments in Nigeria could reach $1.5 trillion from 2014 to 2030. This would make building infrastructure not only a major contributor to GDP but also an enabler of growth across the economy.
• Manufacturing. Though growing rapidly, manufacturing in Nigeria contributed just $35 billion to the economy in 2013, or about 7 percent of GDP. If Nigeria could match the performance of nations such as Malaysia and Thailand when their manufacturing sectors were expanding rapidly, output could reach $144 billion a year in 2030.
• Oil and gas. While the oil-and-gas sector is expected to grow by 2.3 percent a year at best, its success is still vital to Nigeria’s economy. With the right reforms, we estimate that liquids production could increase from an estimated 2.35 million barrels a day, on average, in 2013 to a new high of 3.13 million by 2030. Oil and gas would then contribute $108 billion annually to the economy, compared with $73 billion in 2013. However, this estimate of potential output assumes renewed investment to reverse the production declines of recent years.

If Nigeria can achieve the upside economic-growth scenario, it could lift 70 million people out of poverty and bring as many as 120 million above the MGI Empowerment Line. To tie growth to rising living standards across the economy, the country will have to raise farm incomes and create more formal urban jobs. 

Meanwhile, the government will have to take such steps as reconsidering tariffs that raise the cost of imported food and the spending needed to reach economic empowerment. The most important step that government can take, in our analysis, is to improve its delivery of programs and services. A critical initiative for Nigeria, then, will be to adopt the best practices that have been well established around the world for doing just that.

About the authors

Acha Leke is a director in McKinsey’s Johannesburg office; Reinaldo Fiorini is a director in the Lagos office; Richard Dobbs is a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, where Fraser Thompson is a senior fellow; Aliyu Suleiman is an associate principal in the London office; and David Wright is a consultant in the New York office.

About McKinsey Global Institute

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the business and economics research arm of McKinsey, was established in 1990 to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving global economy. Our goal is to provide leaders in the commercial, public, and social sectors with the facts and insights on which to base management and policy decisions.

Disturbing video of Boko Haram fighters severing the head of Nigerian Air-force Officer

CC Video Evidence

While the liberal propaganda of Amnesty International continues to portray the Nigerian Armed Forces as willful violators of international law in their battle against the insurgency of Boko Haram, this video (below) is shows that the theater of battle in Northern Nigeria is not one for the faint-hearted.

In the video, several members of the murderous Boko Haram Islamic sect are seeing praising the name of Allah, while the head of a captured member of the Nigerian Air-force is being severed from his body (after they had interrogated him).

You would obviously never see this from Amnesty International and their political lackeys, but we present to you evidence that more than shows that the Nigerian Armed Forces are justified, in using any means necessary to deal with the savage insurgency of the murderous Islamic sect.

Warning: This video contains a very graphic image that most people may find disturbing.

Nigerian soldiers in hasty retreat from Boko Haram fighters

Jonathan in pensive mood

CC Global News

Some units of the Nigerian Army 213 battalion, Operation Task Force Mike and 234 battalion, which attempted to retake Gwoza Township from Islamist militant Boko Haram, beat a hasty retreat on Thursday night as the militants showed superior firepower to the Nigerian forces.

The soldiers were reported to have been led into the battle by Lieutenant BMG Martins and Lt. Colonel Agu of the 234 Battalion, formerly Special Operations Battalion (SOB), but they were given the surprise of their lives when they ran into stiff resistance from the militants as they advanced on Gwoza from the Madagali axis.

The soldiers retreated but the militants set off in hot pursuit, chased them and snatched one of their tanks as well as the driver of the tank.  They then called the soldier’s wife and informed her that her husband was in captivity.

Col. Agu has reportedly gone AWOL and has not been seen since. 

The defeat of Nigerian soldiers in Gwoza puts the strategic town firmly in the hands of Boko Haram militants three days after they first invaded the town, killing over 100 civilians and several soldiers.

It is the second time in 24 hours that Nigerians soldiers were defeated by Boko Haram in an attempt to retake Gwoza.  The army had recently retaken Damoboa, over two weeks after Boko Haram overran the town and planted its flag.

Nigerian army sources in Abuja said that following the attack, they have yet to find Lt. Col Agu.  They further confirmed that about three military alpha jets have been deployed to the area to assist in the rescue of soldiers who might be trapped in mountains surrounding Gwoza.

Military sources blame the Brigade commander for asking the contingent to withdraw from Gwoza after they made contact with the terrorists, adding that the hasty retreat emboldened Boko Haram militants to chase and kill the soldiers during the unusual retreat.

This event marks another black eye for a once-proud army that has recently been underfunded and misused (for political gain) by the corrupt and tyrannical leadership of Goodluck Jonathan.

That thousands of troops are sent to intimidate, harass and bully political opponents, while mere hundreds are deployed on a mission such as this, is befuddling and shows gross incompetence and dereliction of duty on the part of President Jonathan and his security chiefs.

Obama says U.S. to invest $33 billion in Africa

CC Breaking News

The United States is to commit $33 billion in investing and related financing to Africa as a fall-out from the on-going summit with leaders from the vast continent.

The devil is obviously in the details, including whatever "strings" may be attached to the proposed long-term investment.

US President Barack Obama expects this "to support development across Africa and jobs in the United States."

More to follow.

US/Africa Summit: Two African leaders stay away while Nigeria's delegation supposedly tested on arrival for Ebola?

US and African leaders to meet in Washington

By Olalekan Adetayo

The Presidency on Sunday said no member of President Goodluck Jonathan's delegation to the United States for the US/American Leaders Summit was screened for exposure to the dreaded Ebola virus on arrival at Washington DC.

Jonathan and some top government officials arrived the US on Sunday for the summit billed for Monday (today).

Some members of the President's advanced team had arrived the US on Friday and Saturday.

President Barack Obama was quoted on Friday as saying that some African participants attending the summit would be screened for exposure to the dreaded virus which is currently ravaging some West African countries.

Obama explained that the action would be taken to protect the US from the outbreak of the disease.

He said, "Folks who are from these countries that have even a marginal risk, or an infinitesimal risk of having been exposed in some fashion, we're making sure we're doing screening."

A Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, had died in a Lagos hospital of the dreaded virus.

All those who had contacts with the deceased whose remains had since been cremated were being observed by the Federal Government.

Although no other case of the virus has so far been established in Nigeria, Obama's statement fueled speculations that Jonathan and members of his entourage might be subjected to screening before they could be allowed into the country.

But shortly after arriving the US, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, disclosed on his Twitter handle that no member of the President's entourage was screened.

"Nobody took any Ebola test, please," the presidential spokesman wrote in a response to a question raised by one Okunola Bukky.

Abati had earlier twitted some of the photographs of the President taken on his arrival at the airport while being received by top US and Nigerian government officials.

Based on the photographs, Bukky asked Abati, "please, confirm to us if the entourage took Ebola test…"

Independent investigation conducted by our correspondent also showed that none of the members of the President's advance team who arrived in the US on Friday and Saturday was screened of the virus.

"Why will we be screened? How? By who? There is nothing like that. At least, nobody screened me," a member of the President's advance team who arrived in the US on Saturday told our correspondent on Sunday.

Two African leaders had already said that they would not attend the meeting because of the outbreak of the Ebola disease in their countries.

The leaders are the presidents of Liberia and Sierra Leone, Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Ernest BaiKoroma, respectively.