WASHINGTON: The United States could push past Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest single producer of oil and of natural gas this year, a US government agency said Friday.

While the US was roughly even with Russia as the top producer in 2012 of the petroleum and gas fuels combined, it still lagged the longtime leader Saudi Arabia as an oil producer.

But helped by the boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, production from shale deposits, the US will surpass the Saudis in petroleum output in 2013, making it the world leader in each fuel, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

The EIA includes in its petroleum product calculations crude oil, natural gas liquids condensates and biofuels.

The EIA said that US oil production had increased dramatically over the past five years due to production in Texas and North Dakota, where the exploitation of shale-based reserves by controversial fracking techniques has rocketed.

Meanwhile, natural gas production has shot up thanks to fracking-based production in the eastern part of the country, particularly in Pennsylvania.

Clash on campus: IBA event cut short by KU students

KARACHI:A trade fair at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) was cut short when a group of 30 students of the neighbouring University of Karachi (KU) harassed the organisers for playing loud music.

On Thursday evening, the IBA Main Campus student body had organised a trade fair to launch its Marketing Club on one of its lawns. With scrumptious food, refreshing drinks, fun-filled games, water activities and music, the event seemed promising until the KU students barged in and out to put an end to the function.

Over 500 people were present at the event when the group of, what the students called, intruders came in, threw down the sound system and overturned some of the corner tables. The “unexpected intervention” caused chaos as participants, not sure what happened, ran around the premises to take cover.

“People are dying in earthquakes or starving to death and here you are, wasting thousands of rupees on singing and dancing,” shouted one of the intruders, a witness quoted.

Some IBA students claimed the young men were activists of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) but the student organisation, which works to promote religion on campus, denied these accusations. “My organisation was not responsible for this incident,” insisted IJT spokesperson Sohaib Ahmed.

Even the IBA administration was reluctant to share the identity of the culprits. “I am not sure actually who they were except for the fact that they were students of the University of Karachi,” said IBA registrar Captain (retd) Ahmed Zaheer.

“Whatever happened in the end was unexpected and everyone was taken by surprise,” said one of the participating students, who requested anonymity. “Despite a little mishap, in the end, it was an exciting event.”

Most of the students were afraid to share information about the incident when The Express Tribune tried to contact them, claiming the IBA management was very ‘strict’. “If any mishap occurs at the events organised by the student body, the administration takes no time to suspend the organisers,” a student remarked bitterly. “They appear too obtuse to punish those who are actually responsible, such as the security staff,” he added, claiming that the incident occurred due to a major security lapse. “They [guards] failed to stop the outsiders from breaking in.”

Normally, it is not too easy for students of KU to enter IBA even though the latter is built inside the massive KU campus. Private security guards, hired by the IBA, stand at the entrances to make sure only IBA students are allowed to enter.

Meanwhile, the IBA registrar told The Express Tribune that some people tried to break into their premises but the institution’s security personnel managed to control the situation. “They demanded the event organisers switch off the sound system that was playing loud music,” he explained. These people were told that the students had organised a fun fair at the launch of their marketing club that was about to end by that time.

“They did not cause any physical damages nor did they harm any of our students,” said Captain (retd) Zaheer. “Two of them, who were creating a lot of fuss over the issue, were handed over to the Rangers personnel by the IBA security guards.”

Meanwhile, the IBA administration had also approached the police station but did not lodge a formal complaint, said Jamal Laghari, the SHO at Mubina Town police station.

MHSC is Box office hit.. A must watch Movie.

KARACHI: After a 45-day run in cinemas, Humayun Saeed’s Main Hoon Shahid Afridihas done reasonably well in terms of business at the box office.

After an initial release on 31 screens, MHSA has earned Rs51.8 million at the box office and is expected to close on Eid at Rs55 million. Based on these stats, the film is a hit.

MHSA is the story of the Akbar Deen (Humayun Saaed), the fictitious captain of the Pakistan cricket team. Deen becomes a national disgrace when police in Dubai discover him intoxicated and in the possession of drugs in his hotel room. He is banned from the cricket arena and disowned by his lower middle-class elderly parents, wife (Mahnoor Baloch) and young son for bringing shame to the family.

Fast forward 15 years later. A small cricket club in Sialkot is in desperate need of a coach to prepare it for a local cricket competition. Enter Deen. From here on, the journey for Deen and Shahid Bhatti — the talented but raw cricket-loving youth who hopes to become the next Shahid Afridi — begins.

Hit, super hit or blockbuster?

In 2011, Shoaib Mansoor’s Bol did business of a whopping Rs120 million on a mere 26 screens along with reruns. These stats earned it the blockbuster status.

Eidul Azha release Waar will be playing on 53 screens and is expetced to do business of about Rs45million in its first week. According to our prediction, it may be a super hit in Pakistan but not a blockbuster like Bol.

Manu Fans should afraid if Rooney Leaves..?

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has urged Wayne Rooney to quit Manchester United and join him at Paris Saint-Germain.

The striker handed in a second transfer request inside three years at the end of last season, with Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho public in his pursuit of the England international.

However, the transfer deadline passed with Rooney still at United, and Ibrahimovic has now called on the 27-year-old to join the Ligue 1 champions if he still seeks an exit.

'When there was talk of Rooney joining us in Paris it was a prospect that excited me,' Ibrahimovic is quoted as saying by The Sun.

'I think he made it clear in the summer that he wanted a fresh challenge - and things have not been going so well for Manchester United this season.

'If he still wants to move next summer, or in January, I would urge him to come and play with me in Paris. The only direction this club is going is up.'

Ibrahimovic jokingly warned that Rooney would not be the star attraction at Parc des Princes if he was to make the switch to France, but was quick to praise the forward's talents.

'If he did join he would have to get used to the fact that Zlatan scores even better goals than him,' added Ibrahimovic.

'But I don't just want to play with great players, I want to play with technically great players - and that is what he is.

'You can work on the technical side but it is not something you can be taught. You have it or you don't and Rooney does.'

Death from the Skies: How Our Solar System will die..

Just as the life on Earth is dependent upon the energy from the sun for sustenance, so too does the fate of our solar system hinge on the sun’s survival. Our sun, which is classified as a yellow dwarf (a misnomer since the sun is neither small, nor yellow), is a middle age star that’s approximately 5 billion years old. As a main-sequence star with a finite lifespan, it will eventually die. This end will occur following the depletion of the last of the hydrogen forged in its core. As this happens, the core of the sun will shrink under its own gravity and become so dense that the helium atoms will begin to collide to form carbon and oxygen atoms. The collisions of said elements will churn out more energy than the current amount that is produced by the sun’s fusion of hydrogen into helium (which in turn, provides nourishment to Earth and all of the neighboring planets in our solar system) .

The extra energy will prove to be the beginning of the end for home (no, I don’t mean your house; I mean the Earth). For one, the core will increase in temperature, causing the sun to swell to hundreds of times its present size, changing its status from a yellow dwarf to a red giant, which will certainly be the end of the two innermost planets of our solar system, Mercury and Venus (both will be incinerated in the initial expansion).

The fate of our home planet is still largely a guessing game. Many scientists speculate that our “blue marble” will become a black husk, and that it will be consumed by our sun. Some others claim that the Earth will be pushed out of orbit, away from the sun; however, regardless of whether Earth survives total incineration during the initial increase in the sun’s surface area, it will no longer be habitable to humans (or most other Earthlings, for that matter). The oceans will boil and evaporate, the atmosphere will be blown away – lost to space forever – while all of the lush vegetation – along with any surviving ecosystems – will be destroyed. All that will be left is a barren wasteland not fit for humans…or any H2O dependent Earth-based life.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

The outer planets, those that are located beyond the orbit of Mars, might have another fate altogether, especially some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Particularly, Europaand Enceladus. Both are known to host frozen bodies of liquid water under their icy surfaces. Europa is believed to contain more water on it than there is water in all of the oceans, lakes, and streams on Earth. Thanks to the huge expansion of the sun, places in the outermost regions of our solar system will have a few million years to thaw out a bit. Think of it as a short springtime after a 10 billion year winter–one last golden era before the sun sets for the final time and perpetual darkness takes over.

But, this could play out another way entirely. As stars lose mass, it’s typical for orbits within a planetary system to change. Any bodies orbiting closer in (the inner planets of the solar system) will experience drag due to the increased density of released gas from the dying sun. Those farther out will sometimes be spared, but will have orbits that slowly expand as the mass interior to their orbit is shed. Planets at different radii will feel the combination of these effects in different ways — causing their orbits to change in ways unrelated to one another. So some stars will migrate and interact with other planets in the system in a way similar to past behaviors (generally, when the solar system was much younger). Any close interactions could potentially cause the planets and moons to collide, either sending them into looping elliptical orbits, or flinging them out of the system entirely (like a rogue planet).

An approximation of Earth and a white-dwarf. (Credit: ESA and NASA)

Meanwhile, on the sun, the helium-burning reaction will produce strong solar winds like sun has never done before. As the material drifts from the sun’s surface and into the surrounding region, it will carry off some of its remaining hydrogen in its outermost layers, forming a brilliant planetary nebula. The resulting nebula will be visible for thousands of years to any civilizations existing within a few hundred light-years of our former stellar neighborhood. Eventually, that too will end when there isn’t enough pressure at the core to keep the process of helium fusion going. What’s left of our precious sun will inevitably contract under its own gravity and become a much more compact, dense star that radiates leftover heat (from the earlier nuclear fusion). At this point, our once life-giving sun will be a white dwarf…and the king of a dead solar system. A white dwarf will eventually cool over a few hundred million years, with the remaining mass being jammed into a sphere approximately the same size as Earth, but much more dense. Eventually, this energy too will dissipate, leaving behind a stellar corpse called a black dwarf; effectively ending the journey of life in our star system (unless something comes along to jump-start it, of course).

At Last wait is over.. Waar is finally releasing on Eid

One of the most highly-anticipated movies of this season, Bilal Lashari’s venture Waaris scheduled to release in all major cinemas across Pakistan this Eidul Azha.

Waar is an action/thriller with a plot centering on counter-terrorism. The cast  includes a mix of industry veterans and some newcomers: Superstar Shaan plays the lead role in the movie, while Shamoon Abbasi, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Aisha Khan, Ali Azmat, Misha Shafi Kamaran Lashari and Nadeem Abbas Rana are also in the film.

Director Bilal Lashari said, “I know that the audience has been waiting to watch Waar for quite some time now. I am a perfectionist by nature and have been fine-tuning several aspects of the movie to make it a truly worth watching experience for the audience. My team and I have put our tears, blood and sweat in this movie to create a masterpiece and an entertaining piece of art. We have raised the bar of everything in this movie from cinematography to shooting to aesthetics and we hope that the audience will enjoy watching this movie just as much as we enjoyed making it.”

This English-language film has been shot at various locations in and outside of Pakistan, from Lahore, to the beautiful hills of Islamabad and the breathtaking Swat Valley, where a major military operation was launched two years ago. Some parts of the film have also been shot in Istanbul, Turkey.

British highway to become internet-connected 'network of sensors' over 50-mile stretch

In a team-up between the UK's Department of Transport, BT and Cambridge start-up Neul, the A14 (which connects Felixstowe to Birmingham) will be transformed into the country's first internet-connected road, with the aim of preparing the country for future tech from wireless toll chargers to automated cars. The smart road will include a network of sensors across a 50-mile segment, with data transmission delivered over white space. Ofcom approved the project yesterday, alongside its plans for the rest of the spectrum space. According to the regulator, "sensors in cars and on the roads monitor the build-up of congestions and wirelessly send this information to a central traffic control system, which automatically imposes variable speed limits that smooth the flow of traffic," Ofcom said. "This system could also communicate directly with cars, directing them along diverted routes to avoid the congestion and even managing their speed."

Initial plans for the A14 aren't focused on these borderline zealous goals just yet. Instead, the project aims to gather information on the cars that use the A14, before focusing on heavy goods vehicles, feeding back to a database that the government's Department for Transport will be able to access. As The Guardian notes, the project would offer a cheaper method for data connectivity and gathering traffic information compared to the mobile network techniques used by companies like TomTom. Instead of connecting to pricey mobile masts, the project will tap into small base stations attached to street lamps or BT exchanges, many of which already exist along the hectic A-road.