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Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) announced Thursday that one of the operational units at Mina Al Ahmadi Refinery, was targeted this morning by drone.The company said in a statement that the attack led to a limited fire within the unit but caused no injuries. It added that emergency and rapid response teams were immediately deployed to the site, where the fire was contained in accordance with the highest approved safety standards.The company said that the relevant authorities were closely monitoring the situation and that any updates would be communicated through official channels. Source link
Formula One’s smallest team Haas are ready to go on the rampage with Godzilla as they take the fight to bigger rivals this season. The US-owned team, who have Toyota’s motorsport division as title sponsors and are led by Japanese principal Ayao Komatsu, announced Wednesday a season-long collaboration with Japan’s Toho Co. The studio’s reptilian anti-hero, the ‘King of the Monsters’ who has been causing havoc across cinema screens since 1954, is the star of a new ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ movie scheduled for North American release in November. Haas said the collaboration will debut at the March 27-29 Japanese Grand Prix, with a special livery to be unveiled in Tokyo on March 24, and feature prominently at the team’s home US Grand Prix in Austin in October. “Through this collaboration, get ready for Godzilla to rampage on the world’s fastest stage,” said Keiji Ota, Toho’s ‘Chief Godzilla Officer’. The team are currently punching above their weight in fourth place in the constructors’ standings after two Grands Prix and a sprint race, with Britain’s Oliver Bearman fifth in the drivers’ championship after scoring in all three. Eighth last season, Ferrari-powered Haas are now ahead of former champions Red Bull and only one point behind current champions McLaren. Bearman is two points clear of McLaren’s world champion Lando Norris. Both McLaren drivers failed to start the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend while Bearman lined up 10th and finished fifth. Red Bull had four-times world champion Max Verstappen retire from the race on Sunday while teammate Isack Hadjar was eighth. “We beat Red Bull on merit today, so we were the fourth fastest team… which is incredible,” said Komatsu after the race in Shanghai ended in a Mercedes one-two with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc third and fourth. “The unfortunate thing for McLaren was that they couldn’t take the race. “We were there to take the benefit, so we just maximised everything. “Coming out of the Bahrain test, I didn’t think we could fight Red Bull at all, and also Alpine looked really quick,” added the Japanese. “(Pierre) Gasly proved that they are quick, but we’ve beaten them on merit.” Alpine’s Gasly finished sixth, more than two seconds behind Bearman. Formula One has 11 teams now but General Motors-backed newcomers Cadillac already boast a bigger headcount than Haas. Source link
Jos Buttler is refusing to accept his England career is over despite admitting he had a “poor tournament” at the recent T20 World Cup. Widely regarded as one of the outstanding white-ball batsmen of his generation, Buttler managed just 87 runs in eight innings at the tournament as England reached the semi-finals before losing to co-hosts and eventual champions India. “Obviously I had a poor tournament, which is disappointing,” Buttler, who remains on an England and Wales central contract, said on his For the Love of Cricket podcast with former England fast bowler Stuart Broad. “But I have been playing some of the best cricket of my (career) in recent years, so hopefully I can get back to playing my best. “I certainly have ambitions (to play for England again), but no longer being a captain, I am not a selector and whatever, so what will be, will be.” Buttler, 35, is set to play for Gujarat Titans in the upcoming Indian Premier League and hopes time away after the World Cup “up the mountains” in France with his family will leave him feeling reinvigorated. “I couldn’t have been further away from cricket, which for me at the time was just perfect,” said Buttler. “It is exactly what I needed.” “Obviously the tournament didn’t go personally how I would have liked it to go, and I just felt like I needed some space from cricket and not to think about the game, and I could not have been further away from cricket where I was in that week.” Buttler, a member of England’s 2019 one-day international World Cup-winning team and also the skipper for their T20 triumph in Australia three years later, added: “It was really refreshing – I really enjoyed it, a complete sort of release, and slowly but surely, I would say at the start of this week, (I am) just starting to reflect a bit and have a few thoughts about what is important to me and my cricket, and why it probably didn’t go quite as I would’ve liked. “There’s elements that I actually don’t really know exactly,” he said. “For all your best intentions and hard work and efforts to perform, it just didn’t work, and sometimes that is OK as well.“That is something I have had to realise. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, it just didn’t quite happen.” Related Story Source link
Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff General Olufemi Oluyede (left) inspects the guard of honour at the Headquarters Theatre Command Joint Task Force in Maiduguri, Wednesday during…
US Senator Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Homeland Security secretary, testifies before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on…
Hundreds of Nigerian drivers who are signed up with ride-hailing services Uber, Bolt and inDrive protested Wednesday in Lagos over low fares and high commissions while calling on the Lagos State Assembly to intervene and mandate higher pricing.Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest markets for app-based drivers, with roughly half operating in the commercial capital Lagos, a city of more than 20mn people, according to drivers’ unions and transport regulators. People hold signs as Nigerian ride-hailing drivers working with Uber, Bolt and inDrive protest in Lagos over low fares, urging the Lagos State Assembly to…
US President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base Wednesday in Dover, Delaware. (AFP) US President Donald Trump’s administration scrambled Wednesday to rein in surging energy costs from war in the Middle East, temporarily waiving a century-old shipping law and easing Venezuela sanctions.The moves came after oil prices rocketed following US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. Tehran’s retaliation brought commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to a virtual halt, snarling energy supply chains.Around a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas pass through the critical waterway during peacetime.The disruptions have caused average US gasoline prices to jump by more than 27% since the start of the war, according to data from the AAA motor club.This strains American household budgets further — with consumers already grappling with high costs of living — piling pressure on the Trump administration as key midterm elections approach.For now, Trump’s announcement of a 60-day Jones Act waiver would lift a ban on foreign-flagged vessels transporting cargo between US ports over this period.The 1920 law was aimed at promoting American shipbuilding, but critics argue that it hampers free trade and has raised costs for consumers.The move is “just another step to mitigate the short-term disruptions to the oil market as the US military continues meeting the objectives of Operation Epic Fury,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement, referring to the US campaign against Iran.”This action will allow vital resources like oil, natural gas, fertiliser and coal to flow freely to US ports for 60 days,” she added.She vowed that the Trump administration “remains committed to continuing to strengthen our critical supply chains.”The US Treasury Department separately issued a license Wednesday to authorise certain transactions between established US entities and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA.”This license will benefit both the US and Venezuela, while supporting the global energy market by increasing the supply of available oil,” said a Treasury spokesperson.Easing bottlenecksThe Jones Act requires that cargo transported by water within the US be moved on vessels that are US-built, US-owned and registered under the US flag.Just a fraction of the world’s tankers comply with the Jones Act, said Colin Grabow, an associate director at the libertarian Cato Institute.”So this is a dramatic expansion in the number of ships that are able to be used” in transporting goods within the world’s biggest economy, he told AFP, referring to Trump’s temporary waiver.He said it is nearly five times as expensive to build a medium-range tanker in the US than in Asia, which could explain why there are not many such vessels globally.Grabow believes the measure will bolster US supply chains, but warned that effects on prices could be limited if the war rages on.”It can help mitigate some of the disruptions,” he said. But moving forward, it could be less about reducing costs than “slowing the rate of increase” from disruptions.Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council told AFP that the shipping law waiver “is unlikely to have a significant impact on global energy markets and gas prices.””It’s too small a move to sway the larger forces at play in the Gulf,” he cautioned, even though it could help cool costs in the northeast or southwest.”The 60-day decision as opposed to the 30 we expected may signal a longer conflict however,” Lipsky added.S&P Global analysts estimate that Jones Act deliveries can cost billions of dollars more than employing a foreign vessel. Related Story Source link
Residents receive aid from World Food Program (WFP) at Al-Omada neighborhood of Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum on March 11, 2026. (AFP) At a school-turned-shelter in Port Sudan, rehearsal is a modest affair, but three years of war and the humble surroundings do little to dampen the sweet tunes rising from the two musicians.With piles of bedding pushed to the side, the lone singer croons along to the melodies of a keyboardist — part of a group of some 120 Sudanese artists who fled the brutal fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces.In the courtyard downstairs, actors, screenwriters, painters and directors work in the sunshine, before retreating to their dormitories at night.”It’s like our own little cultural centre,” says visual artist Mohira Fathi, who fled the central state of Al-Jazira with her husband and son.But the El-Rabat centre is a far cry from the countless other shelters in the army’s wartime capital of Port Sudan, where disease outbreaks and unrelenting hunger stalk tens of thousands.Across the country, over 9mn people are internally displaced and a record 33.7mn are in need of aid.Like everyone else, these artists came to the army’s wartime capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea exhausted, traumatised and destitute.”When I arrived, there weren’t even any fans to help with the sweltering heat. People were sleeping on mats on the floor, with no access to water,” musical troupe director Hossam al-Din al-Taher told AFP.Slowly, as the war dragged on, word spread of a makeshift artists’ commune forming, and people started flocking to the school in the hopes that being around fellow artists would help keep their careers alive.”We didn’t have instruments or costumes,” Taher remembers, and artists had to take on odd jobs to earn a living, pooling their money together to buy a guitar here, a set of paints there.Now, Taher conducts a small orchestra between piles of luggage.For filmmaker Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, “it’s a blessing that all of these artists found each other in the same place.”They share everything: food, money, mid-rehearsal coffees, living quarters separated only by fabric sheets, and every gig that comes their way.Three years of war have destroyed Sudan’s cultural scene. Theatres, studios and museums have been shut down or looted, while many of Sudan’s top artists have fled across borders.But El-Rabat’s artists make do. They’ve put on shows for the neighbourhood, held local photography exhibitions and, this Ramadan, had some of their actors return to the airwaves in a modest radio drama.”We’ve learned there is no giving up,” musician Assem Abdel Aziz told AFP after rehearsal.”We have dreams here, that yard outside is full of dreams, full of energy,” he says, flanked by a drum kit to his left and a mosquito net-covered cot to his right. Related Story…
This number includes women and children and comes after more than a decade of prolonged conflict between internationally recognised government forces and Houthi separatist fighters who…
The logo of Samsung Electronics is seen at the company’s store in Seoul, South Korea. Reuters Tens of thousands of Samsung Electronics workers said Wednesday they will strike in May over a wage dispute, raising concerns over chip production.The firm is one of two South Korean chipmakers, along with SK hynix, now crucial suppliers of advanced memory chips for booming AI infrastructure demand.The announcement is a blow to South Korea’s bid to join the United States and China as one of the world’s top three AI powers.Samsung announced last month that it had begun mass production of next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, HBM4s, seen as a key component for scaling up the vast data centres driving the rise of artificial intelligence.More than 66,000 of nearly 90,000 unionised workers took part in a vote on whether to strike, the association of three unions said in a press release.”Of those who voted, 93.1 percent voted in favour,” it said.”This result makes clear that the vast majority of Samsung Electronics workers reject the company’s current proposal as failing to uphold the management principle of ‘People First’,” it said.The unions’ demands include a seven-percent wage hike, the removal of a cap on bonuses and a more transparent performance-based bonus system.The will of the workers was a “strong warning to the leadership”, it added.Samsung told AFP it remained “committed to reaching a smooth agreement” with the unions.Long staunchly anti-union, founder Lee Byung-chul once vowed never to allow unions “until I have dirt over my eyes”. He died in 1987.Samsung Electronics’ first labour union was formed in the late 2010s. Related Story Source link