Zimbabwe is hosting a warm-up cricket tournament against Afghanistan and Pakistan for their under-19 teams. The series starts this month in Harare. According to Zimbabwe Cricket director Givemore Makoni, these matches offer vital practice ahead of the larger ICC U19 Men's Cricket World Cup, which Zimbabwe will co-host with Namibia next year.
The games will rotate through several local venues, including Harare Sports Club and Sunrise Sports Club. Makoni noted this setup also helps test operational logistics for the upcoming global event. The top two teams from the round-robin stage will compete in a final scheduled for early January.
DStv's SuperSport is unlocking a month of top football for subscribers starting December 18th. This promotion includes expanded UEFA Champions League and Premier League coverage on channels like SS Football Plus for customers on the Access package and above. It serves as a lead-up to the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, which begins in Morocco later that month.
A dedicated AFCON pop-up channel will also launch, running through January 19th. This channel will offer 24/7 coverage featuring tournament previews, classic matches, tactical analysis, and player profiles. The move aims to provide a comprehensive buildup for the continental tournament at no extra cost to eligible viewers.
The roadside assistance firm AA is exploring a potential sale or public listing. Private equity owners Warburg Pincus, TowerBrook, and Stonepeak have hired advisers JP Morgan and Rothschild for the review, valuing the business around five billion pounds. This follows a similar evaluation by rival RAC, which is also considering a London IPO next year.
Both companies have worked to reduce their heavy debt loads ahead of any move. The AA reported higher revenue and profit recently, with its net debt leverage falling to 4.1 times earnings. The RAC also showed improved finances, with leverage down to 4.6 times earnings.
These possible listings could provide a needed boost for London's quiet market for new share offerings. The AA has a...
New FCA data shows crypto ownership in Britain is dropping. Just eight percent of UK adults now hold digital assets like Bitcoin, down from twelve percent last year. This suggests the retail crypto boom is fading amid market swings and unclear rules.
Those still invested, however, are committing more cash. The share of holders with between one thousand and five thousand pounds worth grew to twenty-one percent. Smaller holdings, under one hundred pounds, became less common. The regulator released these findings alongside its own proposed framework for overseeing the sector.
The FCA's plan would impose rules on crypto firms similar to traditional finance, covering areas like market abuse and custody. They stress these rules won't erase...
City Minister Lucy Rigby claims the UK can absolutely compete with the US to become a global crypto hub. This follows the government's introduction of long-awaited legislation to regulate digital assets like Bitcoin. The proposed framework aims to provide regulatory clarity by 2027, with the Financial Conduct Authority tasked with designing the detailed rules.
Rigby described the UK's approach as comprehensive and forward-leaning, arguing it offers needed consumer protections. The move addresses industry concerns that Britain was falling behind both the US, where President Trump has championed crypto, and the EU, which already implemented its own regime. Around seven million UK adults reportedly own cryptocurrencies despite current...
The UK employment tribunal system is buckling under a massive backlog. Active claims have ballooned to 515,000, with employment tribunal cases alone hitting 52,000. This crisis raises major questions about enforcing Labour's proposed Employment Rights Bill, which would grant new protections to millions.
Legal experts warn the system is at a breaking point, with some regions scheduling hearings for 2028. Unfair dismissals made up the biggest chunk of new claims last quarter, followed by disability discrimination and wage disputes. The pending bill could worsen this drastically, extending unfair dismissal rights to an estimated six million more workers by shortening the service requirement.
Business groups previously fought the bill...
McKinsey is reportedly planning significant job cuts, targeting its own non-client-facing departments. The global consulting giant is considering reducing those internal teams by up to ten percent. These cuts, potentially numbering a few thousand roles, could roll out over the next couple of years.
The firm's leadership cites advancing AI as a key reason, stating that technology is reshaping how their own internal work gets done. They emphasized a continued focus on hiring client-facing staff while rethinking back-office operations. This follows a previous round of layoffs last year, which reduced total headcount from a peak of 45,000 to around 40,000.
These internal moves mirror the cost-cutting advice McKinsey often gives its...
The UK jobless rate just hit 5.1 percent, according to new ONS figures. That's the highest mark seen since early 2021. Payroll employment also shrank, dropping another 38,000 positions last month. Younger workers, those between 18 and 34, are getting hit hardest with an 8.7 percent unemployment rate.
Wage growth is slowing down overall. Average earnings increases dipped to 4.7 percent. A huge split showed up between public and private sector pay, though. Private sector wage growth slumped to 3.9 percent, the weakest in years, while public sector pay jumped to 7.6 percent. Redundancies are also climbing at their quickest pace since February 2021.
This all lands right before the Bank of England's next rate decision. Some economists...
quietformat dropped a new plugin called Cassette LT-1. It's basically a cassette tape simulator for your digital audio workstation. This thing models the wobble, noise, and muffled highs of old tapes. It comes in at under fifty bucks normally, with a cheaper intro price.
You get four main tape presets, going from mint condition to totally busted. Instead of tweaking a million knobs, you just pick a setting and crank the input level. The plugin then reacts like real tape, adding its own pitch drift and distortion. They built it by studying an actual cassette multitrack setup in their studio, aiming for that overall vibe rather than cloning one specific machine.
A weird but cool feature is the built-in reverb. It runs your reverb tail...
