Milan close gap on Inter with win over Verona
New triggers: Brent crude futures climbed above $70 a barrel on Monday for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began, while US crude touched its highest in more than two years, following reports of attacks on Saudi Aramco’s giant facilities
MILAN: Rade Krunic and Diogo Dalot scored in either half as AC Milan beat Hellas Verona 2-0 to close the gap on Serie A leaders Inter before next week’s Europa League trip to Manchester United.
Krunic curled in a free-kick after 27 minutes with Manchester United loanee Dalot doubling the visitors’ account five minutes after the break to pull Milan three points behind Inter, who host inform Atalanta on Monday.
Champions Juventus are four points behind Milan in third, with a game in hand, after claiming their seventh straight win at home, 3-1 against Lazio on Saturday.
Despite the absence of key players including star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, winger Ante Rebic and defender Theo Hernandez, Milan kept the pressure on their city rivals two weeks after their 3-0 derby defeat.
Ibrahimovic, who has scored 14 goals in as many league games for the club, joined the team at Verona despite a leg muscle problem. “Today we’ve shown that we are there, that we are a team and still believe,” said coach Stefano Pioli.
“We are stronger when we’re all together, but we’re also strong with absences.
“Ibrahimovic arrived before the game, followed the technical meeting, and helped to stimulate us as great champions do. He is a pack leader.”
Rafael Leao started up front in Ibrahimovic’s absence, and the Portuguese forward threatened after quarter of an hour with a header which went over the bar.
The breakthrough came when Krunic was brought down just outside the box. The Bosnian midfielder dusted himself down and whipped a free-kick past a stunned Marco Silvestri from a tricky angle for his first league goal in Milan colours.
Defender Dalot also got off the mark in Serie A four minutes after the break, blasting in an Alexis Saelemaekers cross.
Milan took a valuable three points before they travel to Manchester for the first leg of their Europa League last 16 tie with United before hosting
Napoli in weekend.
Verona, in eighth, fell to their first home defeat since losing to Inter before Christmas. INSIGNE DOUBLE
LIFTS NAPOLI Roma moved up to fourth, one point ahead of fifth-placed Atalanta thanks to a Gianluca Mancini goal, ahead of their Europa League tie against Shakhtar Donetsk in Rome. the league next
Champions Juventus are four points behind Milan in third, with a game in hand, after claiming their seventh straight win at home 3-1 against Lazio on Saturday
Mancini jumped highest to turn in a Lorenzo Pellegrini corner after 24 minutes at the Stadio Olimpico, beating second choice goalkeeper Federico Marchetti who replaced Mattia Perrin. Roma sit nine points behind Inter after the win.
“One more step is missing to beat the big teams, we need to improve because something more is needed to reach the Champions League,” said Mancini.
In Naples, Lorenzo Insigne scored twice with Victor Osimhen adding a third as Napoli consolidated sixth place, three points off the Champions League berths, with a 3-1 win over Bologna.
Oman’s benchmark crude oil futures contract soared to $68.35 per barrel on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) on Monday in trend with spikes reported by other global benchmarks propelled by reports of drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities.
The Omani benchmark gained $1.94 per barrel to settle at $68.35, a figure last seen in January 2020.
It came on the back of an earlier spike on Thursday when the Opec+ alliance of global producers, which includes the Sultanate, agreed to roll over production curbs into April 2021.
Brent crude futures climbed above $70 a barrel on Monday for the first time since the pandemic began, while US crude touched its highest in more than two years, following reports of attacks on Saudi Aramco’s giant facilities.
Brent crude futures for May hit $71.38 a barrel in early Asian trade, the highest since January 8, 2020, and were at $70.56 a barrel by 0730 GMT, up $1.20, or 1.7 per cent. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for April rose $1.08, or 1.6 per cent, to $67.17.
The front-month WTI price touched $67.98 a barrel earlier, the highest since October 2018. Asian stocks also rose after the US Senate approved a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill while positive economic data from the United States and China bode well for a global economic rebound.
Yemen’s Houthi forces fired drones and missiles at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry on Sunday, including a Saudi Aramco facility at Ras Tanura vital to petroleum exports, in what Riyadh called a failed assault on global energy security.
“We could see further upside in the market in the near-term, particularly as the market probably now needs to be pricing in some sort of risk premium, with these attacks picking up in frequency,” ING analysts said.
The entire globe is currently undergoing one of the largest and most complex vaccination campaigns in history, and, not surprisingly, scammers and sellers on the dark market have been eager to make a profit off the process.
Researchers from cybersecurity services firm Kaspersky examined 15 different marketplaces on the Darknet and found advertisements for three major Covid vaccines: Pfizer/biontech, Astrazeneca, and Moderna. There were also sellers advertising unverified “Covid-19” vaccines.
The majority of sellers came from France, Germany, the UK, and the USA, and the prices per dose ranged from $250 to $1,200, with an average cost of about $500. Communications are made via encrypted messaging apps like Wickr and Telegram, while payments are requested in the form of cryptocurrency, primarily bitcoin.
The majority of these underground sellers have made between 100-500 transactions, indicating that they’ve been completing sales but what exactly Darknet users are purchasing remains unclear. With the information available Kaspersky experts, it’s to impossible to tell how many of the vaccines doses being advertised online are actual doses (many medical facilities have found themselves with leftover doses) and how many advertisements are a scam.
Even if you did receive something in the mail, most likely what you would receive would not be an effective, valid dose. More importantly, obtaining such doses is illegal, it warned.
“You can find just about anything on the Darknet, so it’s not surprising sellers there would attempt to capitalise on the vaccination campaign.
Over the past year, there have been a whole host of scams exploiting the Covid topic, and many of them have been successful.
Right now, not only are people selling vaccine doses, but they’re also selling vaccination records — pieces of paper that can help you travel freely. It’s important for users to be cautious of any “deal” related to the pandemic, and, of course, it’s never a good idea to buy a vaccine off the Darknet,” comments Dmitry Galov, security expert at Kaspersky.
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