A mobile offshore drilling unit stands in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, UK. Oil recorded a weekly decline – only the second since April – as a surge in US coronavirus cases clouded the demand outlook. Bloomberg
A mobile offshore drilling unit stands in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, UK. Oil recorded a weekly decline – only the second since April – as a surge in US coronavirus cases clouded the demand outlook. Bloomberg
A mobile offshore drilling unit stands in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, UK. Oil recorded a weekly decline – only the second since April – as a surge in US coronavirus cases clouded the demand outlook. Bloomberg
A mobile offshore drilling unit stands in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, UK. Oil recorded a weekly decline – only the second since April – as a surge in US coronavirus cases clouded the deman

Energy

Oil posts second weekly loss in June on surge in US Covid-19 cases

Futures in New York slipped 3.2 per cent this week, following a run of weekly gains

Bloomberg

June 27, 2020

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Oil posted its second weekly loss for the month, as a surge in US coronavirus cases clouds the demand outlook and casts doubts on the market’s recovery.

Futures in New York slipped 3.2 per cent this week. The price slump comes just days after oil closed above $40 for the first time since early March, and following a run of weekly gains that lifted oil from its historic plunge below zero in April. Texas – the centre of the American oil industry – halted its reopening as virus infections jumped, and Houston’s intensive-care wards reached capacity. Bars in Texas and Florida were ordered to shut, and Arizona reported a surge in infections.

“This week the market pushed through a three-and-a-half month high, and then all the sudden reporting about new cases seemed to break the back of the rally,” said Gene McGillian, vice president of research at Tradition Energy. “We have record amounts of oil and fuel in storage and still uncertainty about demand going forward.”

While massive Opec+ output cuts and a pickup in demand have helped crude climb from its April low, price gains have slowed this month. Infections continue to soar in many parts of the world, consumption is still a long way off pre-virus levels and many refiners are struggling with low margins.

Crude stockpiles in the US are at record highs, and there’s a risk that US shale producers could start bringing back output. The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 1 to 188, the lowest since June of 2009.

“As the market pushes past $40, US producers are going to ramp production,” Mr McGillian said.

Huge cuts to Russia’s seaborne crude exports lifted oil earlier in the session. Shipments of the flagship Urals grade from its three main western ports are set to plunge by 40 per cent next month, according to loading programmes seen by Bloomberg. The steep reductions underscore the Opec+ alliance’s commitment to eliminate the oil glut that built up earlier this year.

THE BIO

Age: 33

Favourite quote: “If you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill

Favourite breed of dog: All of them. I can’t possibly pick a favourite.

Favourite place in the UAE: The Stray Dogs Centre in Umm Al Quwain. It sounds predictable, but it honestly is my favourite place to spend time. Surrounded by hundreds of dogs that love you - what could possibly be better than that?

Favourite colour: All the colours that dogs come in

Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts

Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:

November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.

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From Europe to the Middle East, economic success brings wealth - and lifestyle diseases

A rise in obesity figures and the need for more public spending is a familiar trend in the developing world as western lifestyles are adopted.

One in five deaths around the world is now caused by bad diet, with obesity the fastest growing global risk. A high body mass index is also the top cause of metabolic diseases relating to death and disability in Kuwait,  Qatar and Oman – and second on the list in Bahrain.

In Britain, heart disease, lung cancer and Alzheimer’s remain among the leading causes of death, and people there are spending more time suffering from health problems.

The UK is expected to spend $421.4 billion on healthcare by 2040, up from $239.3 billion in 2014.

And development assistance for health is talking about the financial aid given to governments to support social, environmental development of developing countries.

 

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