A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on April 24, 2021, shows smoke billowing from a tanker off the coast of the western Syrian city of Baniyas. AFP
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on April 24, 2021, shows smoke billowing from a tanker off the coast of the western Syrian city of Baniyas. AFP
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on April 24, 2021, shows smoke billowing from a tanker off the coast of the western Syrian city of Baniyas. AFP
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on April 24, 2021, shows smoke billowing from a tanker off the coast of the western Syrian city of Baniyas. AFP

Oil tanker hit by mystery explosion off Syrian coast after Homs oil refinery fire


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An explosion has been reported on board an oil tanker near Syria's Baniyas port on Sunday.

The incident occurred hours after a major fire at a state-run oil refinery in central province of Homs.

Videos uploaded to social media, and later broadcast on the government's Syrian Arab News Agency, showed a column of black smoke rising from the vessel.

Baniyas is Syria's most important port on the Mediterranean coast, where moorings take oil and fuel cargoes inland to the country's main refinery, also located in the coastal city.

Online maritime tracking service Tanker Trackers, which uses satellite imagery and ship transponder information to monitor oil cargoes, said last week that 1.5 million barrels of Iranian crude oil were in transit to Syria.

The explosion on the oil tanker follows a series of mysterious attacks on vessels and oil facilities in Syria over the past months.

The war-torn country has been suffering from fuel shortage in recent months.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze in a distillation unit at the Homs refinery, Syrian state TV reported.

No one was hurt, but the fire caused some damage to the facility, a refinery official said. The TV report said the cause of the fire was crude oil leakage from one of the pumping stations at the refinery.

The head of Homs Oil Refinery, Suleiman Mohammed told state TV that the distillation unit that caught fire is one of four at the refinery.

While the Syrian government operates the refineries in Homs and Baniyas, most of Syria's oil resources are in areas outside of its control.

The government controls some small oil and gas fields in the country’s centre but most of the large fields in the east are controlled by US-backed Kurdish-led fighters. This has made Damascus reliant on Iran for fuel.

Sanctions imposed by the US Treasury target a network  spanning Syria, Iran and Russia that is responsible for shipping oil to the Syrian government.

In late April, Syria’s oil ministry said a fire erupted on an oil tanker off its coast after what it said was a suspected drone attack.

In January, an explosion in an oil tanker outside a state fuel distribution company in Homs caused massive fire. The minister of oil told Syrian state TV at the time that seven tankers caught fire but there were no civilian casualties.

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Three ways to limit your social media use

Clinical psychologist, Dr Saliha Afridi at The Lighthouse Arabia suggests three easy things you can do every day to cut back on the time you spend online.

1. Put the social media app in a folder on the second or third screen of your phone so it has to remain a conscious decision to open, rather than something your fingers gravitate towards without consideration.

2. Schedule a time to use social media instead of consistently throughout the day. I recommend setting aside certain times of the day or week when you upload pictures or share information. 

3. Take a mental snapshot rather than a photo on your phone. Instead of sharing it with your social world, try to absorb the moment, connect with your feeling, experience the moment with all five of your senses. You will have a memory of that moment more vividly and for far longer than if you take a picture of it.

FIXTURES

Saturday
5.30pm: Shabab Al Ahli v Al Wahda
5.30pm: Khorfakkan v Baniyas
8.15pm: Hatta v Ajman
8.15pm: Sharjah v Al Ain
Sunday
5.30pm: Kalba v Al Jazira
5.30pm: Fujairah v Al Dhafra
8.15pm: Al Nasr v Al Wasl

Tearful appearance

Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday. 

Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow. 

She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.

A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.

ELIO

Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett

Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina

Rating: 4/5

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