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ARY NEWS

AFP

  • ‘Largest ever’ Med gas field found off Egypt

    The discovery, confirmed by Egypt’s oil ministry, could hold a potential 30 trillion cubic feet (850 billion cubic metres) of gas in an area of about 100 square kilometres (40 square miles), Eni said in a statement.

    The so-called Zohr project is “the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea,” it said, adding the find would meet Egypt’s own natural gas demands for decades.

    The “supergiant” field — potentially one of the world’s largest natural gas finds — is located at a depth of 4,757 feet (1,450 metres) in the Shorouk Block, Eni said.

    The firm said it would “immediately appraise the field with the aim of accelerating a fast track development of the discovery”, giving a timeframe of four years.

    It added Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, has visited Cairo and discussed the discovery with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab.

    “This historic discovery will be able to transform the energy scenario of Egypt,” Descalzi said in the statement.

    Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, in a message to Descalzi, congratulated the oil company for the “extraordinary” discovery.

    “A find of this size should be enough to cover a lot of Egypt’s energy gap,” Robin Mills, a Dubai-based analyst at Manaar Energy Consulting, told Bloomberg News.

    “They’ll likely have to meet domestic needs first, before any export plans are discussed. This will also put a damper on Israeli plans to export gas to Egypt,” he added.

    Egypt, the largest country of the Arab world, is of strategic and economic interest to Italy. In the past Italy invested heavily in neighbouring Libya, but for the past four years Libya has been mired in chaos and violence.

    In recent years the western Mediterranean has seen seen a jump in gas exploration. In 2010, a major natural gas fields was found off Israel.

    In March, British energy giant BP unveiled plans to invest $12 billion (10.7 billion euros) in Egyptian offshore gas fields with Russian partner DEA, despite the slump in world oil prices.

    It said the investment in the West Nile Delta fields aims to develop five trillion cubic feet of gas resources and 55 million barrels of condensates, with output expected to begin in 2017.

  • EU ministers to meet September 14 for urgent migrant talks

    “The situation of migration phenomena outside and inside the European Union has recently taken unprecedented proportions,” said the statement from Luxembourg, which holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency.

    “In order to assess the situation on the ground, the political actions underway and to discuss the next steps in order to strengthen the European response, the Luxembourg Minister for Immigration and Asylum Jean Asselborn decided to convene an extraordinary JHA (justice and home affairs) Council,” said the statement.

    The call for a meeting of the EU’s 28 member states follows a joint call for the talks by Germany, France and Britain earlier in the day.

    Germany’s Thomas de Maiziere, Britain’s Theresa May and France’s Bernard Cazeneuve held talks Saturday on the issue, on the sidelines of a meeting in Paris on transport security.

    The trio “underlined the necessity to take immediate action to deal with the challenge from the migrant influx”.

    They also called for reception centres to be set up urgently in Italy and Greece in order to register new arrivals, and for a common EU list of “safe countries of origin” to be established.

    Berlin, which is expecting to receive 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, has been pushing for such a list, arguing that it would free up resources to help those fleeing war and persecution.

    The number of migrants reaching the EU’s borders reached nearly 340,000 during the first seven months of the year, up from 123,500 during the same period in 2014, according to the bloc’s border agency Frontex.

  • Islamic State executes at least 90 in month: monitor

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 32 civilians were among 91 people executed for “crimes” in the jihadist group’s self-proclaimed caliphate between July 29 and August 29.

    The toll included Islamic State members, rebel fighters and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

    Witchcraft, homosexual acts and working with the US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria are among “crimes” punishable by death for the group.

    Since it announced its “caliphate” in June 2014, IS has swept across Syria, seizing swathes of land in central Hama and Homs provinces, Deir Ezzor and Hasakeh in the east, and the north’s Raqa and Aleppo.

    According to the Britain-based Observatory, the latest monthly toll has brought to 3,156 people the number of IS executions in Syria since the caliphate was announced.

    The number includes 1,841 civilians.

    IS has become notorious for its gruesome displays of violence, often shown in videos posted on the Internet, including beheadings, stoning and pushing victims off rooftops.

    The US-led coalition has been bombarding IS in Syria since September 2014.

    On Saturday, eight IS fighters were killed in a coalition air raid on Raqa, the de facto “capital” of their caliphate.

    Further west, in Aleppo province, IS has been fiercely attacking rebel groups and its jihadist rivals, Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

    Late Saturday, an IS car bomb on Tal Rifaat, in Aleppo province, left 11 fighters and eight civilians dead.

    Tal Rifaat lies along a key rebel supply route from the Turkish border to the north.

    The town is located near Marea, the main rebel stronghold in Aleppo that has been under fierce IS attack for months and is now completely encircled by the jihadists.

  • Eleven dead, dozens hurt in fire at Saudi Arabia housing complex

    The fire started in the basement of a tower in the eastern city of Khobar, the kingdom’s civil defence said on Twitter.

    It added that several of the injured were in a “critical condition” and that the casualties were from “various nationalities,” without giving details.

    Photographs published on the civil defence website showed plumes of black smoke rising from the windows of one of the buildings.

    Authorities said that residents of nearby towers were evacuated as helicopters took part in the firefighting operations.


    Several dead in fire at Saudi Arabia housing… by arynews

    Firefighting teams “are combing all towers to ensure there are no people” trapped inside, said the civil defence.

    “The incident is currently under control and cooling operations are ongoing,” it said in another tweet later in the afternoon.

    Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company in terms of crude production and exports, released a statement confirming the fire at the residential complex, adding that the incident was being investigated.

    The company says it employs more than 61,000 workers worldwide from 77 countries.

  • India lead Sri Lanka by 132 runs

    Skipper Virat Kohli was unbeaten on one and Rohit Sharma was on 14 after the tourists were reduced to 7-3 by the sixth over.

    India made 312 in their first innings and Sri Lanka replied with 201 on a day in which 15 wickets fell at the Sinhalese Sports Club.

    Sri Lanka won the opening Test in Galle by 63 runs and India drew level with a 278-run victory in the second match at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo last Monday.

  • Pakistan will continue to respond to India border attacks: Asif

    Nine died near the city of Sialkot and more than 40 were wounded on Friday, less than a week after high-level talks were aborted amid a row over Kashmir.

    India said at least four villagers were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir by Pakistani fire.

    “We will counter this situation on all levels. If war is forced on us we will take good care of them,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told AFP.

    “Absolutely we have the right to retaliate, and retaliate in kind, retaliate in full force,” Asif said after he visited the wounded in hospital.

    He added: “If India crosses the international border and aggression is committed again, we will defend our homeland and inflict much more damage than 1965,” Asif said.

    The 1965 war between the two countries took place over two weeks in September, and each September 6 Pakistani media eulogises the army for thwarting Indian “aggression”.

    Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would raise the issue of continued aggression at a UN General Assembly session next month, Asif said.

    A meeting between the Indian and Pakistani national security advisers in New Delhi on Sunday was called off at the last minute following a dispute about whether the agenda should include Indian occupied
    Kashmir.

    Shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) and the “working boundary” in Punjab — has been on the rise this month.

  • Pujara’s comeback ton lifts India

    The tourists, who resumed at 50-2 after a rain-curtailed opening day, moved to 292-8 by stumps on the second day at the Sinhalese Sports Club with Pujara holding fort on a watchful 135 not out.

    Pujara, who had been dropped for India’s last four Tests across Australia, Bangladesh and the ongoing series, may not have played this match too if both regular openers Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan had been fit.

    The 27-year-old grabbed the chance to notch up his seventh Test century that has so far included 13 boundaries.

    Fast bowler Prasad bowled superbly to take four wickets in the innings, including two off successive balls on either side of the lunch break that reduced India to 119-5.

    Number nine batsman Amit Mishra came to India’s rescue with a defiant 59 during an eighth wicket stand of 104 with Pujara which boosted the total.

    Just 15 overs had been bowled in the 75 minutes of play possible due to rain on the opening day after India had been sent in to bat on a greenish pitch under overcast conditions.

    When play resumed under bright skies on the second day, the tourists were restricted to 22 runs in the first 15 overs by some accurate bowling by the Sri Lankans.

    Indian skipper Virat Kohli survived a torrid opening over from Prasad in which he was lucky to escape a loud shout for leg-before off the second ball and was beaten by the final ball of the over.

    Kohli added four runs to his overnight score of 14 when Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews, who replaced Prasad at the bowling crease, had his counterpart caught behind by Kusal Perera.

    Rohit Sharma added 55 runs for the fourth wicket with Pujara, scoring 26 with three fours and a six before he edged a catch to first slip off Prasad in what became the final delivery of the morning session.

    Prasad, who still had one ball to bowl in the over on resumption, trapped Stuart Binny leg-before with the first delivery to open up India’s lower order.

    Debutant wicket-keeper Naman Ojha helped Pujara add 54 for the sixth wicket, himself making 21 before he holed out in the deep attempting to smash off-spinner Tharindu Kaushal out of the ground.

    Prasad removed Ravichandran Ashwin with the first ball of a new spell, caught behind by Perera for five, but Mishra joined Pujara to frustrate Sri Lanka.

    Mishra reached his half-century by driving seamer Nuwan Pradeep to the cover fence for his seventh boundary, but fell soon after when he was stumped off left-arm spinner Rangana Herath.

    The series is locked at 1-1 after Sri Lanka won the opening Test in Galle by 63 runs and India drew level with a 278-run win in the second match at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo on Monday.

  • In first, headscarf-wearing woman named minister in Turkey

    Aysen Gurcan, a 52-year-old academic, was appointed Friday to be the minister in charge of family and social policies in the provisional government of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that will run the country until November 1 elections.

    The mother of three is also a member of the board of the Foundation for Youth and Education (TURGEV), of which Bilal Erdogan, a son of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is an executive.

    The NGO was at the centre of a corruption scandal involving Erdogan, who was then prime minister, as well as his family and political entourage.

    Over the past two years, Turkey has lifted bans on women and girls wearing headscarves in schools and state institutions, moves denounced by opponents as undermining the basis of the country’s secular society.

    Erdogan, who co-founded the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), called new elections after Davutoglu failed to form a coalition government with the opposition after June polls.

  • Sleep-deprived kids are more tempted by food

    Five-year-olds who slept less than 11 hours a night were more eager to eat at the sight or reminder of a favorite snack, compared to those who slept longer, researchers reported in the International Journal of Obesity.

    The children who slept less than 11 hours at night also had a higher body mass index – a measure of weight in relation to height – than those who slept 11 hours or more. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 11 to 12 hours of sleep for pre-school children.

    “There is now accumulating evidence in both children and adults to suggest that short or insufficient sleep increases reward-driven (‘hedonic’) eating,” said Laura McDonald, the study’s lead author and a researcher at University College London, in email to Reuters Health.

    “This is, of course, a concern,” she added, “given that we live in a modern ‘obesogenic’ environment” where tasty, high-calorie foods “are widely available and cheap to consume.”

    Previous studies have shown that too little sleep significantly increases the chances that a child will be overweight or obese, McDonald and her team point out. But less was known about how sleep affects daily calorie intake.

    “Some studies using brain imaging in adults have shown that sleep restriction increases responsiveness in reward centers of the brain in response to images of palatable food . . . however, no studies in children have examined whether sleep changes food responsiveness,” noted McDonald.

    The new study involved 1,008 five-year-olds born in 2007 in England and Wales. The researchers had mothers answer a questionnaire about their youngsters’ responsiveness to food cues and their behavior toward food when they were presumably full, soon after eating.

    The average sleep duration for the children in the study was 11.48 hours.

    Among kids who slept less than 11 hours a night, food responsiveness was 2.53 on a scale of 1 to 5, compared to 2.36 for those who slept 11 to 12 hours, and 2.35 for those who got at least 12 hours of sleep a night.

    “In children who do not get enough sleep at night, limiting exposure to palatable food cues in the home might be helpful at preventing overconsumption,” McDonald said.

    The study found no link between sleep duration and whether kids were still willing to eat when they were full.

    While the study can’t prove that less sleep causes more eating, McDonald said another possibility is that the reverse might be true. “It is definitely a possibility that food responsiveness might impact sleep behavior,” she said. “For example, it could be that children who are more food responsive are also more difficult to settle at night (when adults or older children might be eating).”

    Emerson Wickwire, director of the Insomnia Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told Reuters Health by email that the study adds a new twist to research showing sleep is a risk factor for obesity.

    “The current study suggests a new potential explanation (hedonic eating) for weight gain among children who sleep less . . . in other words, kids in the study who slept less were more susceptible to unhealthy food cues in the environment,” said Wickwire, who was not involved in the study.

    Wickwire said the study also showed the importance of sleep for children.

    “We know that parents have a huge influence on the sleep patterns of five-year-olds. So really, it’s incumbent on parents to make sure their kids are getting enough sleep,” said Wickwire, a board-certified sleep specialist.

  • India reel under twin blows from Sri Lanka

    The tourists, who resumed at 50-2 after a rain-curtailed opening day, plodded to 119-4 by lunch at the Sinhalese Sports Club with the recalled Cheteshwar Pujara holding fort with an unbeaten 55.

    The side is batting at 125/5 Pujara and Naman Ojha at the crease.

    Rohit Sharma, who added 55 runs for the fourth wicket with Pujara after the early dismissal of skipper Virat Kohli, was removed in the last over before lunch to leave India in trouble.

    Sharma made 26 with three fours and a six before he edged a catch to first slip off fast bowler Dhammika Prasad, who was rewarded for a hostile spell in the session.

    Pujara, playing for the first time in the series, has so far hit six boundaries in his seventh Test half-century.

    Just 15 overs were bowled in the 75 minutes of play possible due to rain on the opening day and in that time India, sent in to bat on a greenish pitch under overcast conditions, lost two wickets.

    The tourists were restricted to 22 runs in the first 15 overs of the second morning by some accurate bowling by the Sri Lankans on a clear, sunny day.

    Kohli survived a torrid opening over from Prasad in which he was lucky to escape a loud shout for leg-before off the second ball and was beaten by the final ball of the over.

    Kohli added four runs to his overnight score of 14 when Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews, who replaced Prasad at the bowling crease, had his counterpart caught behind by Kusal Perera.

    Off-spinner Tharindu Kaushal, who came on to bowl in the 40th over, was hit for three boundaries by Pujara off his first three deliveries.

    Sharma looked in good touch as he lofted spinner Rangana Herath for a six, but failed to see out the session.

    The series is locked at 1-1 after Sri Lanka won the opening Test in Galle by 63 runs and India drew level with a 278-run win in the second match at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo on Monday.