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The South African Consulate in Abuja has denied players of the Nigerian U-18 boys’ basketball team visas to participate in the  2024 FIBA U18 Afrobasket tournament.

The tournament is scheduled to take place in Cape Town from December 14 to 22.

Confirming the development to newsmen, the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) frowned at the sudden denial of visas, which they claimed was done without explanation.

The Vice Chairman of the Youth Development Committee of the Nigeria Basketball Federation, Ugo Udezue, described South Africa’s actions as total sabotage.

“First of all, it’s rather unfortunate that an African country needs a visa to travel to another African country. Secondly, this is against the spirit of sportsmanship. These kids have sacrificed too much for a visa consular officer to deny them the opportunity to represent Nigeria globally.

The act of refusing the team visas seems like a deliberate attempt to stop the Junior D’Tigers, as the South African Embassy in Lagos cleared the girls to travel, and they are already in Pretoria and set for their opening match against Egypt on Tuesday,” Udezue said. #Instablog9jaNews #Information #Awareness #StayUpdated

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German automotive giant Volkswagen (VWAGY) is considering significant cost-cutting measures to restructure amid an "extremely tense" economic situation as it faces increasing international competition and pressure on profits as it transitions to producing more electric vehicles.

Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume said in a statement that the company is facing a "very demanding and serious situation" in Europe's automotive market, meaning the company must "act decisively" to remain competitive.

The company said the Performance Program it launched last year, with a stated goal of creating 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in savings by 2026, is no longer enough to meet the "enormous challenges" it faces.

The company behind a number of car brands from its namesake Volkswagen to luxury names like Audi, Lamborghini, and Porsche is considering ending a decades-old job security pact with German employees as it works to resolve an "extremely tense" economic situation.

"The goal must be to optimise product costs, material costs, and sales performance, as well as factory and labour costs," the company said. "In the current situation, even plant closures at vehicle production and component sites can no longer be ruled out without swift countermeasures. The situation is extremely tense and cannot be resolved through simple cost-cutting measures."

Unions and trade groups have spoken out against the statement, with the union representing the company's German workers saying it would be prepared to fight any job cuts, the reported.

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Broadcom (AVGO) shares may see heightened volatility this week, with the chipmaker slated to release its fiscal third-quarter earnings report after the closing bell on Thursday. Investors will likely be scrutinizing the company’s artificial intelligence sales growth and full-year outlook, which have benefited in recent quarters from growing demand for its custom AI chips.

The chipmaker’s stock, which trades around 11% below its record close, spent most of last month recovering from a recent steep correction that was triggered by a broad-based sell-off in technology stocks and profit taking after the shares underwent a 10-for-1 stock split in July.

Below, we zone in on Broadcom’s technicals and identify key price levels to watch out for leading into the company’s quarterly report.

Since setting a record high in mid-June, Broadcom shares fell as much as 31% before staging an impressive recovery throughout most of August to reclaim the 50-day moving average (MA) by the end of the month. However, it’s worth pointing out that recent buying has occurred on decreasing volume, indicating a lack of institutional activity.

Leading into the Broadcom’s quarterly results, investors should keep their eyes peeled on several important chart levels that could come into focus.

The first lower price level in play sits around $157. This area, currently situated about 4% below Friday’s close, could find support from a horizontal line connecting recent swing lows in June and August.

A failure to hold this important location could see the shares drop to the $141 area, a location on the chart where investors may look for buying opportunities near a four-month period of sideways drift in the stock between Match and June

An initial move higher from current levels may propel a jump to $168, where the stock could run into resistance near several gap trading levels that formed on the chart in June and July. The area also sits closely positioned to last month’s high and a trendline joining the June and August peaks.

To project a price target above the all-time high (ATH), we can extract the stock’s trending move from December to March that commenced with similar price action to last month’s recovery and reposition it from the August swing low. Such a technique forecasts an upside target of around $195, about 5% above Broadcom’s record high.

Broadcom shares were down 1.3% at $160.70 in premarket trading around 7:10 a.m. ET Tuesday.

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The Federal Reserve hasn't cut interest rates yet, but financial planners say it's not too early to start reviewing high-interest debt.

The Federal Reserve has worked to tame inflation by raising its influential benchmark rate to record highs, raising borrowing costs of all kinds. However, the central bank seems to be on the cusp of cutting interest rates, with the first cut widely expected at the Fed's September meeting.

Financial planners recommend being proactive so you can be prepared to make money moves in reaction. Here are three things experts recommend you do before the Fed cuts rates.

It may be time to investigate refinancing your mortgage, financial planners said.

According to Investopedia's research, homeowners who bought after the Fed began its campaign against inflation took on mortgage rates that were more than 8% on average at their peak. Those homeowners may now be able to refinance at a rate more than 1.5 percentage points lower.

Shaun Williams, a certified financial planner for Paragon Capital Management, recommends refinancing if you can afford the time and money associated with the process—and you can find a rate at least half a percentage point lower than your current rate.

For example, refinancing a 30-year mortgage with $250,000 remaining from 7.79% to 7.29% could lower the monthly payment by more than $85, saving nearly $31,000 in interest total, according to Investopedia's calculations.

Mortgage debt isn't the only kind of debt planners say people should seek to refinance. Interest rates on credit cards have risen by seven percentage points since the Fed began fighting inflation, something many cardholders aren't aware of.

Trading one debt for another might be beneficial, perhaps through lower-interest credit cards or personal loans, according to Robert Persichitte, certified financial planner at Delagify Financial.

“Credit cards are just a piece of our life that most people don't think about,” said Sarah Paulson, certified financial planner for Valkyrie Finance. “I try to encourage my clients if they have the credit score for it, ‘Can we refinance credit card debt into either a balanced transfer card or would a personal loan be a better interest rate?’"

There are ways to save money even when everything feels more expensive.

Socking away money in a high-yield savings account can help you take advantage of interest rates. Not only will this earn you more than an average savings account, but it can also deter you from spending money on unnecessary expenses, Paulson said.

You should also be intentional about where you put your savings, experts said. While CDs are popular with interest rates still near all-time highs, it may not be necessary to lock the money up or face penalties for early withdrawal if savings rates are high enough elsewhere, according to Persichitte,

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Visa Inc. (V) is a digital payments brand that provides services globally to consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments. The company offers authorization, clearing, and settlement services for financial institutions and merchants.

Visa does not issue credit or debit cards. It provides services to the businesses which issue the cards and the consumers who use them.

Visa's rivals include Mastercard Inc. (MA) and American Express Co. (AXP), as well as digital payments companies like PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL).

Visa reaches more than 200 countries and territories, 14,500 financial institutions, and 130 million merchant locations. The company offers services including credit, debit, prepaid, tap-to-pay, click-to-pay, and tokenization through four segments:

For its fiscal year 2023, Visa reported revenues of $32.7 billion, a gain of 11% year over year. Visa posted a loss of $12.3 billion in client incentives, paid to financial institution clients, merchants, and business partners to grow payment volume, entice new routing transactions, and drive innovation.

Service revenues contributed $14.8 billion to overall performance, Data Processing added $16 billion, and International Transactions brought in $11.6 billion. Revenue for other services like licensing fees and marketing was $2.5 billion.

Ryan McInerney became chief executive officer of Visa, Inc. in February 2023.

Visa Inc. traces its origins to Bank of America's launch of BankAmericard, the first card with a revolving credit feature, in 1958. By 1976, BankAmericard became Visa.

In 2023, Visa completed 283.2 billion transactions valued at $15.1 trillion.

In 2024, Visa announced a partnership with HSBC Group to support the bank's new international multi-currency payments app, called Zing.

In 2022, Visa acquired Tink, a Europe-based open banking platform that enables banks, financial technology companies (fintechs), and startups to develop data-driven financial services.

In 2023, Visa signed an agreement to acquire Pismo, a cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform with operations in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. 

After 20 years of litigation, Visa and the merchants who accept its card reached a settlement over the fees it charges in March 2024. The agreement lowers credit interchange rates and caps the lower rates until at least 2030.

Interchange rates, also called "swipe fees," are the fees that merchants pay credit card companies whenever a customer uses one of its credit or debit cards.

Visa is subject to various cybersecurity regulations and cyber incident reporting requirements across many jurisdictions. Short timeframes are mandated to report cyber incident reporting. If Visa fails to follow the rules and timeframes, the company faces monetary damages, civil and criminal penalties, litigation, and damage to its brand.

As of 2024, Visa has about 4.3 billion cards worldwide.

Visa employs 28,800 workers worldwide.

In 2023, Visa reported fiscal year revenues of $32.7 billion. The company's data processing operations generate the largest proportion of its revenue. Data processing provides clearing, settlement, authorization, value-added, network access, and similar services.

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If you're struggling with depression, the most important question about taking an antidepressant is whether it will work. But another question on your mind may be whether it will fuel weight gain.

A new study provides some context by suggesting how much weight, on average, people taking one of eight commonly used antidepressants might expect to gain. This insight is valuable, since people with depression often stop taking antidepressants because they don't like the effect on their weight, a Harvard expert says.

"It's important to acknowledge that weight gain is a key reason that some people decide to stop antidepressants, even if they're otherwise working well," says Dr. Roy Perlis, associate chief of psychiatric research at Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's also a reason people may be reluctant to start them in the first place, even if they're quite depressed or anxious."

What did the study look at?

Published July 2024 in Annals of Internal Medicine, the new study drew on data from more than 183,000 people between ages 20 and 80. Their average age was 48, and 65% were women. Most were overweight or obese at the study's start.

The researchers analyzed participants' electronic health records and body mass index. They gauged weight gain or loss at regular intervals — six, 12, and 24 months — after people began taking an antidepressant for the first time.

The study compared the weight-related effects of sertraline (Zoloft) to seven other antidepressant medications:

What did the research find?

The antidepressants led to the following average weight gain:

Citalopram, fluoxetine, and venlafaxine didn't confer lower or higher odds of weight gain than Zoloft, the study found. And only bupropion was associated with a small amount of weight loss — 0.25-pounds — at six months. But that trend reversed at 24 months, when bupropion led to an average weight gain of 1.2 pounds.

What does the study tell us?

"Weight gain is common among antidepressant users, even if the amounts gained on average are modest," says Dr. Perlis, who was not involved in this new study. It underscores similar findings from other studies of antidepressants, including research he published with colleagues a decade ago.

"While differences in weight gain for specific antidepressants tend to be small, there are certainly some — like bupropion — that tend to cause less weight gain," he notes.

It's crucial to keep in mind that the study points out average weight gain. Many people taking antidepressants won't gain any weight and others could gain more. "Still, having average values to work with — and seeing that these averages line up well with prior studies — at least lets us give people a sense of what they might expect," he says.

"One caution is that some people lose weight as a result of depression, which can impact appetite," he adds, "so some of what we're seeing may be people regaining weight they'd lost as their depression or anxiety improves."

What additional limitations did the study have?

Other limitations may have shaped the findings. The study was observational, meaning it cannot prove that antidepressants cause weight changes, only that they were linked with them. It wasn't a randomized, controlled trial — considered the gold standard in research — and the participants taking antidepressants weren't compared to a control group not taking the medications.

Additionally, only about one in three participants was still taking their initially prescribed medication six months after the study started. That makes it difficult to link any later weight changes with a specific medication.

"As with any study that's not randomized, we don't know if the differences between medicines could reflect other differences in who gets prescribed these medicines," Dr. Perlis says. "But, for circumstances where a randomized trial is unrealistic, health records can be a helpful way of trying to study side effects and at least generate a partial answer to these important questions."

What else should you consider?

Another thing to consider, if you're taking an antidepressant, is what types of side effects you're willing to tolerate in pursuit of its mood-smoothing benefits.

"The best way to manage side effects is to anticipate them — to have an open conversation with your doctor about the potential risks and how we'll manage them if they occur," Dr. Perlis says.

What can you discuss with your doctor?

If weight gain is a particular concern for you, you may also wish to consider nondrug treatments for depression. They include:

"We know that certain kinds of talk therapies, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, can be very effective for treating depression and anxiety disorders," Dr. Perlis says. "Whether people choose talk therapy or antidepressant medications can depend on their preference. It's important to have multiple options."

Source: Harvard Health Publishing