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{{Ghana’s capital, Accra, has been tipped to be the fastest growing city for Africa millionaires starting from the end of 2012 to the year 2020.}}

According to the annual New World Wealth update report which was released on Monday, August 5,2013, the number of millionaires in Accra is projected to grow by 8% a year.

Durban in South Africa would have the fastest growth in South Africa at 3.7 per cent, while seven other cities will grow millionaires faster than it.

Johannesburg topped the list with 23,000 millionaires at the end of 2012, followed by Cairo with 12,000 millionaires and Lagos with 9,800 millionaires respectively.

The city of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre currently ranks third in the league of cities with the highest number of millionaires in Africa, a report by the Oxford-based wealth consulting firm has said.

Lagos which is also widely acknowledged as the most populous city in Nigeria, the second fastest growing city in Africa and the seventh fastest growing city in the world, equally commands a huge presence of people from diverse cultures and race.

The city’s prosperity has been attributed to its diversity coupled with superfluous natural and human resources as well as a huge quantum of daily commercial activities and transactions, especially from the sea ports and other high turn over business ventures.

In addition, four South African cities were placed in the top 10 of the rankings and at 48,000 individuals, thereby making her the country with the highest number of millionaires in the continent.

The report added South Africa’s increase represented growth of 9% from the 2011 fiscal year.

Cape Town was ranked fourth with 9,000, Durban had 2,700 while Pretoria was ranked in the eighth place with 2,500 millionaires.

The report further stated that although the number of millionaires in other African countries was growing at a fast rate, South African cities were still expected to dominate the top 10 list in 2020.

The report further projected that Johannesburg millionaires would grow to 30,000 by 2020 and would maintain its first position, as Lagos would only follow at a wide remove with 15,800 millionaires then.

Pretoria’s millionaires, according to the report, would increase at 3.5% a year and Johannesburg’s at 3.4%. Meanwhile, Cape Town did not feature in the list of fastest growing cities for millionaires in the next eight years.

The New World Wealth’s list includes high-net worth individuals with net assets of $1 million or more, including their primary residence.

The report also provides information and customised products to Africa’s wealth sectors such as luxury goods companies, private banks and fund managers among others. It has a sample of more than 120,000 worldwide high-net individuals on its database.

{{Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat thanked his Italian counterpart Enrico Letta, saying the decision would “reinforce” ties between the countries.}}

Malta had resisted EU pressure to take in the migrants, insisting the tanker should take them to Libya.

It argued that to accept them would set a “dangerous precedent”.

The tiny island state receives thousands of illegal migrants heading to Europe each year.

The oil tanker M/V Salamis, which picked up the migrants en route from Libya to Malta, was heading for the Sicilian port of Syracuse as of Wednesday morning, according to the Marine Traffic website.

According to the Times of Malta, a new group of 86 migrants was brought to Malta on board a patrol boat on Wednesday morning, after being rescued off the coast.

On Sunday, 111 mainly African migrants arrived in a rubber dinghy at Delimara, on Malta’s south-east coast.

BBC

{{Tens of thousands of protesters marched peacefully in the Tunisian capital on Tuesday evening demanding the resignation of the Islamist-led coalition government as the political crisis in the north African country grew.}}

Around 40,000 people took to the streets of Tunis, according to police, while opposition leaders put the protest figures between 100,000 and 200,000.

They waved Tunisian flags and chanted slogans against the moderate Islamist movement Ennahda that heads a three-part government coalition.

The protesters were largely middle-class Tunisians from the capital, according to Eileen Byrne, Sunday Times correspondent.

“When I ask people why they come to demonstrate, why they don’t like this Islamist-led coalition government, they talk about the economic situation,” Byrne told FRANCE 24 by telephone from Tunis. “They say the middle classes have seen their standard of living erode.”

The country has been wracked by political unrest since the July 25 murder of opposition lawmaker Mohamed Brahmi. Tuesday’s protests marked the biggest anti-government demonstration since the assassination.

Brahmi’s murder, as well as that of another opposition politician, Chokri Belaid, have been blamed on radical Islamists, with the Ennahda-led cabinet criticised for not doing enough to prevent them.

“[Protesters] are not happy with religious ideology in government, they are not happy with the rise of fringe extremism which has led to the killing of two politicians,” Byrne said.

The protest on Tuesday marked the six-month anniversary of the assassination of the left-wing leader Belaid.

“They don’t feel confident that the coalition that is led by the Islamists will assure free and fair elections, although the last elections in 2011 were generally free and fair, but they don’t have confidence that success can be repeated,” she added.

Earlier on Tuesday, the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) – a body elected in 2011 to forge consensus on drafting a new constitution – was suspended.

The political impasse seemed likely to continue, with the political opposition refusing to hold talks with the government until it steps down while Ennahda has ruled out any dialogue intended to dismantle its authority.

{agencies}