Saudi health authorities have warned the public against eating Shawarma during summer, saying it could cause food poisoning.

The health ministry said high summer temperatures give rise to bacteria in food prepared outdoors, including Shawarma and buffet meals.

“Utmost care should be taken when eating such types of food as they could cause poisoning due to the hot weather which causes bacterial growth in the food,” the ministry said on its website, according to Ajel newspaper.

It said Shawarma and other food sold outdoors are also vulnerable to dust and pollutants during summer more than in other seasons.

LATEST UPDATE: The drawn-out search for missing Malaysian Flight MH370 will revert to an area hundreds of kilometres south of the previously suspected crash site following new analysis of the plane's flight path, a report said Friday.

Investigators grappling to solve the mystery of the jet's disappearance are set to scour a zone 1,800 kilometres (1,116 miles) west of Perth - previously subject to an aerial search - when an underwater probe resumes in August, the West Australian said.

Citing unnamed US sources, the newspaper said Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) would soon announce the hunt will move 800 kilometres southwest from where it was previously focused.

It said these sources had revealed that survey ship Fugro Equator was already operating in this area and would soon be joined by Chinese vessel Zhu Kezhen.

A massive aerial and underwater search for MH370, which had 239 people onboard when it diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path on March 8, has failed to find any sign of the plane.

Scientists from British company Inmarsat told the BBC earlier this week that the search had yet to target the most likely crash site, or "hotspot", after becoming diverted by pings thought at the time to have originated from the plane's black boxes.

It was not clear from the West Australian report whether the new search area overlaps with the "hotspot".

JACC said Friday that the revised search zone, based on an intensive study of satellite communications from the jet and other data, would be announced by the end of the month.

Australian officials have said repeatedly that the revised search zone will be in the area of the seventh arc, or the final satellite "handshake" from the plane. It is believed to be when the aircraft ran out of fuel and was in descent.

JACC said the Fugro Equator was now working in this zone.

"Located along the seventh arc, that area is consistent with provisional analysis of satellite and other data that is being used to determine the future search area," it said.

Australian officials announced earlier this week that a survey of the sea bed, as yet mostly unmapped and crucial to the success of the underwater search, had resumed.

Two ships - Fugro Equator and Zhu Kezhen - will survey an area up to 6,000 metres deep and covering up to 60,000 square kilometres before an a contractor begins an intensive undersea probe looking for debris.

Previously an intensive undersea search for the plane, in the area in which the acoustic noises were detected, failed to find any sign of the jet.

The source of the noises is unknown.

Revised search zone for Malaysian flight by month's end; Seabed mapping resumes

Australian officials said Wednesday they will announce the new search zone for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 by month's end, as mapping of  the Indian Ocean seabed resumed.

The jet went missing on March 8 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and despite a massive aerial and sea search no sign of the aircraft which was carrying 239 people has been found.

An underwater probe of the Indian Ocean seabed where acoustic signals, thought at the time to have come from the jet's black box recorders, were heard also proved fruitless.

Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said analysis of satellite and other data to determine the search area for the next underwater phase would be concluded soon.

"The search area will be confirmed before the end of June, after completion of extensive collaborative analysis by a range of specialists," it said in a statement.

"It is already clear from the provisional results of that analysis that the search zone will move, but still be on the seventh arc (where the aircraft last communicated with satellite)."

The search has been frustrated by a lack of information, with experts modelling the plane's most likely flight path based on signals between it and an Inmarsat satellite.

The seventh arc, or "handshake", is the final signal from the plane and thought to be when the jet ran out of fuel.

Scientists from the British firm have suggested that searchers are yet to target the most likely Indian Ocean crash site because they became distracted by the acoustic signals detected in April.

"It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the northeast than our area of highest probability," Chris Ashton at Inmarsat told the BBC's Horizon programme on Tuesday.

But JACC said the area in which the Australian vessel Ocean Shield used a mini-sub to scour the ocean floor was "based on the best information and analysis available at that time", including from Inmarsat.

"The location was identified by the satellite communications sub-group, which included accident investigation agencies from the USA and the UK along with their technical advisors, including from the aircraft manufacturer, the satellite manufacturer and Inmarsat as operator of the satellite," JACC said Wednesday.

"Based on analysis at the time, it represented the most likely location of the aircraft."

Australia, which is leading the hunt given the plane is likely to have crashed in its search and rescue zone, said the vessel Fugro Equator, which it contracted, had begun its work in mapping the ocean floor.

It will be joined by Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen in conducting the bathymetric survey crucial to carrying out the deep water search for the plane which is set to begin in August.

"So far, the Zhu Kezhen has surveyed 4,088 square kilometres of the ocean floor," before it was forced back to port for repairs, JACC said.

The survey of a 60,000 square kilometre search zone was expected to take three months.

Dead, alive or lost? How to live for 100 days... A wife's story

Zhang Qian's world has collapsed in the more than 100 days since her husband disappeared along with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. She quit her job, sleeps rarely and prefers not to go out, except to Buddhist temples, where she has found some solace.

In the more than 100 days since her husband disappeared along with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Zhang Qian's world has collapsed. She quit her job, sleeps rarely and prefers not to go out, except to the Buddhist temples where she has found some solace.

"At the temple, I can speak from my heart to my husband," Zhang, 28, said on a recent visit to the Temple of Spiritual Light in the western hills of Beijing. She broke down in sobs before continuing.

"I think he can hear me ... I have so much to tell him, there is so much I have not said. I hope the Buddha will carry those words to him and bring him back."

Much of the world has moved on from the frenzied interest in the mysterious March 8 disappearance of the plane, but relatives of the 239 people missing cannot. Satellite data shows that the plane went down in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean far from any land, but with no trace of the aircraft recovered, many cling to a flicker of hope — however faint — that their loved ones might still be alive.

"It may be my fantasy, but what if one day he sends some distress signals and he gets saved, and that will be the end of this?" Zhang said.

Her husband was among 153 Chinese on the plane. Chinese culture places an especially heavy emphasis on finding and seeing the remains of people believed dead before true grieving and the process of moving on can begin.

The absence of proof of death has made closure elusive for all relatives, said Lawrence Palinkas, professor of social work at the University of Southern California.

"When there is no physical proof of death, it is easier to remain in (denial) for a much longer period of time," he said. "At this point, those who have not accepted the possibility that the plane crashed and all aboard were lost are relying on extended family and friends to maintain the belief that family members are still alive, or that hope is still viable until the remains are found."

Hotspot hope?

The search for the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 is yet to target the most likely crash site, having been distracted by what is now believed to have been a bogus signal, British company Inmarsat claimed Tuesday.

Inmarsat's scientists told the BBC's Horizon programme that they had calculated the plane's most likely flight path and a "hotspot" in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down.

The flight lost contact on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with total of 239 passengers and crew on board.
Hourly pings sent by the plane were received by Inmarsat's spacecraft, leading scientists to calculate its likely path.

Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield was dispatched to investigate, but before reaching the likely site, began to detect a signal that it believed was coming from the plane's black box, Inmarsat told the BBC programme.

Two months were spent searching 850 sq km of sea bed north west of Perth, but the source of the "pings" was not found and a submersible robot found no evidence of the airliner.

"It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability," Chris Ashton at Inmarsat told Horizon.
Experts from the satellite firm modelled the most likely flight path using the hourly pings and assuming a speed and heading consistent with the plane being flown by autopilot.

"We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is," explained Ashton.

After coming under criticism from relatives over the futile search, Malaysia's civil aviation authority and Inmarsat last month decided to release the raw data.

However, its complexity has led to few independent conclusions being drawn about the likely crash site.
Malaysian Selamat Umar, whose son Mohamad Khairul Amri was on the ill-fated jetliner, questioned the motives behind the data release.

"I am not convinced at all by the data," he said. Why are they releasing it now? Before when we asked for it, they did not want to release it. What can we do with it now?
"I think they could have made some changes to the data," Selamat, 60, added.

Book claims truth

Just as the mystery that surrounds the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 was fading into distant memory, a new book is set to enflame passions and arguments that support a conspiracy theory.
The book, authored by a pilot and journalist from New Zealand, claims to show readers that the tragedy was no accident.

According to a report on stuff.co.nz Ewan Wilson, a commercial pilot and journalist Geoff Taylor, said: "For the first time we present a detailed analysis of the flight, the incredible route it took, and who we believe was in charge of the aircraft as it plunged into the Indian Ocean." 

The book, called ‘Good Night Malaysian 370: The Truth behind the loss of Flight 370’ will shock readers, the report said. 

The authors use a process of investigative elimination that removes all possible scenarios, except one.

'Will not rest'

Malaysia's government pledged on Monday that it "will not rest" until missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is found, as it marked the 100th day since the plane vanished on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew.

"100 days after MH370 went missing, its loss remains a painful void in the hearts of all Malaysians and those around the world. We cannot and will not rest until MH370 is found," Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said.

In a statement, Hishammuddin also promised that Malaysia "cannot and will not abandon" the families of the missing passengers, some of whom have sharply criticised the Malaysian government's handling of the mystery.

The Boeing 777 inexplicably disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. No trace of it has been found despite an extensive Australian-led search effort deep in the Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have gone down.
Hishammuddin also offered Malaysia's thanks to Australia, China, the United States and fellow Southeast Asian countries for their assistance in the search.

Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya issued a separate statement pledging similar resolve in finding the plane, calling the period since March 8 "the longest and most painful 100 days in Malaysia Airlines' history."

Anguished relatives of MH370 passengers have accused Malaysia's government of a bumbling and chaotic response to the crisis and covering up what happened to the plane.

Malaysia denies it is withholding information but has remained tight-lipped over investigations that it has launched into the mystery and given no timetable for when the findings of those probes will be released.

$50,000 in initial compensation

Malaysia Airlines' insurer has begun paying the families of passengers onboard Flight MH370 $50,000 each in initial compensation three months after the jet disappeared, a government official said Thursday.

So far six Malaysian and one Chinese family have received the advance payment, to which all the families of the 239 passengers and crew onboard are entitled, said Malaysian deputy foreign minister Hamzah Zainudin.

Talks with 40 more Chinese families are underway to ascertain they are the rightful claimants, said Hamzah, who heads a committee to support the missing passengers' next-of-kin.

The Boeing 777 inexplicably disappeared on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with no sign of wreckage found despite an extensive search off western Australia.

Full payment to the families - who can claim up to more than three times the amount of the initial payout - would be made later, Hamzah said.

The government was not yet prepared to declare the plane lost, he added.

"When we talk about the full payment, we have to wait until we announce the issue on the tragedy MH370 is over... whether the plane is found, whether we announce the plane is lost," he said.

Passengers' families can claim up to about $175,000 under International Civil Aviation Organisation rules, regardless of fault, in a plane crash.
Malaysia Airlines' insurer, a consortium led by Germany's Allianz, is making the payments.

Malaysia and Australia have promised they will not give up looking for the plane in a vast deep-sea area in the southern Indian Ocean where the jet is believed to have crashed, based on satellite data.

But angry relatives of some of those on board have accused Malaysia and its national carrier of reacting too slowly and covering up information. Two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese.

A handful of families on Sunday launched an online campaign to raise $5 million to reward a "whistleblower" who comes forward with information to help find the plane.

So far, they have raised more than $25,000.

"The government has been very transparent from day one," said Hamzah on Thursday.

The next phase of the hunt will see authorities comb a 60,000 square-kilometre (24,000 square-mile) search zone based on the plane's last satellite communication.

Chinese relatives meet wall of silence from airline

Frustrated Chinese relatives of passengers onboard missing Flight MH370 Wednesday visited the offices of Malaysia Airlines in Beijing to confront officials after regular briefings by the airline were halted.

The relatives had previously been given regular updates on the search for the plane by airline officials at a hotel in Beijing. But the briefings were cancelled last month, to the fury of many who say they no longer have any way of making their voices heard.

Relatives organised a visit to the Beijing office of the airline to "demand answers", a message posted on their official online account said, but were turned away and refused access to airline staff.

A heavy security presence blocked journalists from entering the building and reporters interviewing relatives outside were closely watched by police, as five marked police vans were parked nearby.

"I came here today to get answers but I am not allowed to see anyone," said Dai Shuqin, who added her younger sister was on the plane.

As relatives around her collapsed onto the floor, crying in each others arms, Dai then began shouting: "I only want to find foreign journalists. I have a lot things to say to them. I want the whole world to find out what we're encountering."

The visit to the airline's Beijing office was planned as Chinese families prepare to mark 100 days since the plane disappeared on June 16. In China, the mourning period for deceased loved ones commonly lasts for 100 days.

"Almost 100 days have gone and we continue to feel tortured, helpless, and angry, said Jiang Hui, a 41-year-old IT worker.

"I am over 40 years old and I never knew the true meaning of suffering before. But over these past three months, I now know its meaning," added Jiang, whose 70-year-old mother was on the plane.

A woman answering the phone at the airline's Beijing office refused to comment when contacted by AFP.

Meanwhile, French businessman Ghyslain Wattrelos, whose wife and teenage son and daughter were on the plane, said in an interview with French Europe Radio 1 that he is convinced foul play was involved in the plane's disappearance.

"For us there's no doubt," he told the radio station. "The aircraft was hijacked."

"We get the impression that they (the authorities) are hiding something," he added.

Wattrelos called on Paris to take a more active role in the search for the plane, including handing over satellite data.

France, he said, "says Malaysia is officially in charge of the investigation and that they cannot intervene. But nothing prevents France from sending its satellites to see what happened on 8th March".

Countries at sea on cost-sharing

Countries searching for the missing Malaysian plane have yet to agree on how to share costs, an Australian search leader said Tuesday.

Malaysian officials were in the Australian capital Canberra to discuss the next phase of the seabed search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that is thought to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew on board.

Malaysia is in charge of the search because the Boeing 777 is registered in that country. But Australia is coordinating the search because it is the closest country to where the plane is thought to have crashed. Most of the passengers were Chinese and their government is playing an active role in the search.

"We're still to negotiate the burden-sharing with, for example, Malaysia," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Center head Angus Houston told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.

A seabed search of the most likely crash site, using an unmanned remote controlled submarine, ended last month without finding any trace of the plane.

Australia is contracting private operators to embark on a much larger search using powerful sonar equipment. The new search is expected to take more than eight months.

Malaysia says spent $8.6 million on search

Malaysia has spent a total of 27.6 million ringgit ($8.6 million) so far on the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, authorities said on Monday, giving a specific cost figure for the first time.

"The figure of 27.6 million ringgit was only the sum spent by Malaysian agencies, we do not know how much other countries spent," Department of Civil Aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told a news conference, saying he was unsure of the cost breakdown.

The search for MH370, which disappeared carrying 239 passengers and crew on March 8, is already set to be the most costly in aviation history and spending will rise significantly as the search expands to a wider swathe of the Indian Ocean off Australia. Experts have suggested the cost of searching for the missing jetliner could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

The search has been dealt setbacks, most recently when Australian officials said last last month that wreckage from the aircraft was not on the seabed in the area they had identified, based on acoustic pings thought to be from the plane's black box recorders.

Azharuddin said Malaysian officials would travel to Australia on Tuesday and China later this week to discuss the latest analysis of satellite and other data being used to refine the new search area. About two-thirds of the passengers were Chinese nationals.

Asked where the new search area would be, Azharuddin said he did not know but that it "will not be very far away from where the search is now".

"The Australian and Malaysian investigators have done their analysis and are in the process of exchanging notes with Inmarsat," he said, referring to the British satellite firm whose analysis of signals from the plane is the basis for the current search area.

A Wall Street Journal report on Sunday cited sources as saying investigators were revising some of their basic assumptions about the plane's last position and could make an announcement on the new search area by mid-June.

The search area has already been extended to a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) zone that is being surveyed by a Chinese vessel. It will then be searched by a commercial operator in a mission expected to start in August and take up to a year, at a cost of A$60 million ($55 million) or more.

Officials are opening the search operations to bids by private firms. Malaysia's deputy defence minister, Abdul Rahim Bakri, said those costs would be shared equally by Malaysia and Australia.

Families for $5m reward to whistleblower

Several families of those aboard Flight MH370 on Sunday launched a drive to raise $5 million to reward any insider who comes forward and resolves the mystery of the plane's disappearance exactly three months ago.

The "Reward MH370" campaign launches on fundraising website Indiegogo and aims to raise at least $5 million "to encourage a whistleblower to come forward with information", the families said in a press release.

"We are convinced that somewhere, someone knows something, and we hope this reward will entice him or her to come forward," said Ethan Hunt, a technology company chief who is heading the "Reward MH370" project.

Sarah Bajc, partner of American passenger Philip Wood, said a handful of families were behind the campaign to look at the unprecedented aviation mystery with "a fresh set of eyes".

"Governments and agencies have given it their best shot but have failed to turn up a single shred of evidence, either because of a faulty approach or due to intentional misdirection by one or more individuals," she said in the release.

Malaysia and Australia, which is leading the search far off its western coast, have promised that the hunt for the plane will continue.

An international team is now determining an expanded search zone of up to 60,000 square kilometres (24,000 square miles) based on where the aircraft last communicated with an Inmarsat satellite.

Australia has also released a request for tenders for a company to be engaged as a prime contractor and provide the expertise, equipment and vessels needed to carry out the deep-sea search from August.

Malaysia -- ruled by the same coalition since 1957 with a history of sweeping scandals aside -- has taken the brunt of criticism from upset relatives.

The Southeast Asian country has insisted it is doing all it can and working closely with Australia, China and other countries to find the jet.

Conspiracy Theories:

No firm evidence have been provided as to what really happened to missing flight MH370.

World's conspiracy theorists have weighed in with explanations of their own for the Malaysian Airlines plane's disappearance.

The plane was shot down

A new book, Flight MH370 – The Mystery, suggests that the missing Malaysian Airways plane may have been shot down accidentally by US-Thai joint strike fighters in a military exercise in the South China Sea. The book also claims that search and rescue efforts were deliberately sent in the wrong direction as part of a cover-up, the Daily Mail reports.

Alien abduction

Five per cent of Americans surveyed by Reason.com believe that the plane was abducted by aliens. Some bloggers have pointed to a number of recent UFO sightings in Malaysia as evidence for extraterrestrial intervention.

The Bermuda Triangle

The plane didn't actually fly anywhere near Bermuda, but some people – including one Malaysian minister – pointed out that the area where MH370 vanished is on the exact opposite side of the globe to the Bermuda Triangle. Unfortunately those people are wrong; the exact opposite side of the globe is closer to the Caribbean than Bermuda, The Sunday Times notes.

High-tech hijacking

The disappearance of flight MH370 may be down to the world’s first cyber hijack, according to the Sunday Express. It says that hackers could have accessed the aircraft’s flight computer and reprogrammed the speed, altitude and direction.

MH370 itself could be used as a weapon

Some people have expressed concern that the aeroplane may have been hijacked by terrorists and landed somewhere, to be used as a weapon at a later date.

Search to focus on '7th arc' in Indian Ocean 

Based on new data and analysis, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) told the media that the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will mainly focus on the "7th arc" in the Indian Ocean.

The total extent of the arc is from latitude 20 degrees south to 39 degrees south, reports ABC.

The ATSB added that the underwater search area will mostly likely be brought down to 60,000 square kilometres.

Australia probes British witness account

Australia was Wednesday investigating an account from a sailor who said she may have seen Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 on fire, as officials said the underwater hunt for the plane could dive much deeper.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which is leading the search at the request of the Malaysian government, is looking at the claim from a British yachtswoman made this week.

"The ATSB received... a message from a member of the public, reporting that they had seen what they believed to be a burning aircraft in the sky above the Indian Ocean on the night of the disappearance of MH370," a spokesman told AFP in an email.

"That information has been forwarded to the ATSB's MH370 Search Strategy Working Group for review."

Flight MH370, which was en route from Kuala Lumpur to the Chinese capital Beijing when it inexplicably diverted, is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

An extensive search for the plane, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board, has so far found nothing, including an intensive underwater hunt with a mini-sub that could dive to 4,500 metres.

The ATSB on Wednesday released a request for tenders for a company to dive even deeper, to depths of up to 6,000 metres (19,800 feet).

It said the successful bidder would be engaged as a prime contractor and provide the expertise, equipment and vessels needed to carry out the search for the Boeing 777 from August.

"The successful tenderer will use the data from a bathymetric survey (already under way) to navigate the search zone, which has water depth between 1,000 and 6,000 metres," it said.

Bathymetry refers to the study of underwater depths of oceans or lakes.

An international team is now determining a search zone of up to 60,000 square kilometres (24,000 square miles) based on where the aircraft last communicated with an Inmarsat satellite.

'A glowing plane'

British yachtswoman Katherine Tee added to speculation about the location of a possible crash site by revealing she saw a glowing plane over the Indian Ocean in March.

The 41-year-old said she told Australian authorities of her sighting of a plane with "what appeared to be a tail of black smoke coming from behind it" while she travelled from Kochi in India to Phuket in Thailand.

"There were two other planes passing higher than it -- moving the other way -- at that time," she wrote on sailing site Cruisers Forum, a firm for which she also works.

"I recall thinking that if it was a plane on fire that I was seeing, the other aircraft would report it."

She said she told no one at the time because she and her husband, who was onboard but asleep, had been having difficulties and had not spoken for about a week.

"And most of all, I wasn't sure of what I saw," she said. "I couldn't believe it myself."

But after confirming her yacht's position using GPS data in recent days, she said she knew she was in the "right place at the right time" and told authorities.

MH370's last known position as tracked by military radar was roughly west of Phuket, although the search area has focused on a zone hundreds of kilometres (miles) further south.

In what could be another clue, researchers at Western Australia's Curtin University revealed Wednesday they had detected a low-frequency underwater sound which could have come from the plane.

A listening station off Rottnest Island, close to the Western Australia coast, picked up the signal at 0130 GMT on March 8.

Alec Duncan, from Curtin's Centre for Marine Science and Technology, said the noise could have come from the plane crashing.

"I wouldn't totally rule it out ... it's not impossible," he told AFP, but said it was more likely to have originated from a natural source, such as an earth tremor.

Iata to enhance aircraft tracking options

Following the disappearance of MH370, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) has announced plans to establish an industry task force to develop recommendations to improve global flight tracking.

Iata confirmed that the Aircraft Tracking Task Force (ATTF) expects to be in a position to deliver draft options for enhanced global aircraft tracking to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao) in September, leading to presentation to the industry before year-end.

“Aviation stakeholders are united in their desire to ensure that we never face another situation where an aircraft simply disappears,” said Kevin Hiatt, Iata Senior Vice-President, Safety and Flight Operations.

“While states work through Icao to develop and implement performance-based global standards, the industry is committed to moving forward with recommendations that airlines can implement now,” he added.

The commitment made at the time of the task force announcement was to have them available by the end of 2014. Iata invited Icao and key stakeholders throughout the aviation industry to participate in the ATTF. The first meeting of the group was held on May 13, 2014.

Separately, but in conjunction with Iata, Icao held a Special Multi-disciplinary Meeting on Global Flight Tracking on May12-13. An outcome of the Icao meeting was a consensus among member states and the international air transport industry sector on the near-term priority to track airline flights. Icao will also begin considering performance-based international standards, on a priority basis, to ensure broader adoption of airline flight tracking across the aviation system.

Icao and Iata are working together to conduct a survey of vendors to identify options. Over the next few months, the ATTF will develop a set of performance-based recommendations to better ensure global aircraft tracking – meaning that there will likely be a number of options that airlines can consider.

These recommendations will be developed through an assessment of available products and services used for tracking commercial aircraft against specific criteria, including factors such as performance parameters, coverage, security, and cost. Additionally, the ATTF will define a minimum set of performance requirements that any system should achieve.

The ATTF includes representatives from Iata, Icao, Airlines for America, Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation, Flight Safety Foundation, International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industries Associations, International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Airbus SAS, Bombardier Aerospace, and Embraer Commercial Aviation. [Staff]

EARLIER STORIES

Undersea sound detected

A team of Australian researchers looking into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 released data on Wednesday about an unusual underwater sound recorded around the time the plane vanished, though the lead scientist acknowledged the chances it is linked to the jet are slim.

The low-frequency sound was picked up by underwater listening devices in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia on March 8, the same day the Boeing 777 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board. Researchers at Curtin University in Western Australia have been analyzing the signal to see if it may be the sound of the plane crashing into the ocean.

But Alec Duncan, who's heading up the research, said the sound appears to have originated well outside the jet's projected flight path that officials determined based on satellite and radar data, and is therefore unlikely to have come from the plane.

"It's one of these situations where you find yourself willing it all to fit together but it really doesn't," said Duncan, senior research fellow with Curtin's Center for Marine Science and Technology. "I'd love to be able to sit here and say, 'Yeah, we've found this thing and it's from the plane' — but the reality is, there's a lot of things that make noise in the ocean."

The noise could have come from a natural event, such as a small earthquake, Duncan said. He put the chances of it being linked to Flight 370 at less than 20 per cent.

Soon after the search for the plane moved to the southern Indian Ocean, scientists from Curtin decided to check the data from their underwater acoustic recorders off Rottnest Island, near Perth, to see if they'd picked up anything of interest. The scientists normally use the recorders for environmental research, such as studying whale sounds. This time, however, the data showed a signal that they initially thought might be the aircraft crashing into the ocean — an event that would have produced a low-frequency sound that can travel thousands of kilometers (miles) under the right conditions, Duncan said.

Sailor reports seeing flight on fire

Meanwhile, a British sailor - who was at sea sailing from Cochin, India, to Phuket, Thailand with her husband on the night when the Malaysian plane disappeared – believes she saw a burning aircraft over the Indian Ocean.

She was alone on the deck when she sighted the plane and has filed an official report with authorities, reports DailyMail.

Chinese search ship in latest glitch

A Chinese ship mapping the ocean floor ahead of an intensive underwater search for missing Flight MH370 was returning to port Saturday due to a technical problem, officials said.

The massive Indian Ocean search for the Malaysia Airlines plane, which disappeared on March 8 carrying 239 people, has so far failed to find any sign of the Boeing 777.

The Chinese survey ship, Zhu Kezhen, was conducting a bathymetric survey -- or mapping of the ocean floor -- to help experts determine how to carry out the next stage of the search on the previously unmapped ocean seabed.

"Zhu Kezhen suffered a defect to its multibeam echosounder and is coming into port to conduct the necessary repairs," Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said in a statement.

"The journey is expected to take a couple of days."
 

Search on right track: Australia transport chief

The head of Australia's transport safety bureau has defended the fruitless hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, saying he is confident that search teams are targeting the right area.

Satellite analysis in the days after the Boeing 777 went missing on March 8 with 239 people onboard placed the jet somewhere in a huge tract of the Indian Ocean stretching from near Indonesia south towards Antarctica.

But in a setback, the area believed to be the jet's most likely resting place based on the detection of acoustic "pings" was Thursday ruled out after an extensive underwater search.

Australia's Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan told AFP the source of the acoustic transmissions, thought to be man-made, was still a mystery.

"To be frank, we don't know. We like to be the experts but sometimes we just don't know the answer," he said, refusing to speculate on whether they came from the Australian vessel hunting for signals from the aircraft's black boxes.

Dolan, whose organisation is playing a key role in the search effort, said the four signals detected in April were then the best lead in the hunt for the plane, which mysteriously diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing route.

"This was the best area to look at the time. We still don't have anything that confirms that it's the wrong place. But we will do our analysis and we will determine the best search area for the next phase."
Dolan said while experts were reassessing the satellite data that led the search to the southern Indian Ocean, the linear arc produced by analysis of this information still likely represented the plane's flight path.

"That arc is definite. We know that somewhere close to that very long arc is where the aircraft will be found," he said in an interview late Thursday.

The arc was produced by analysing satellite signalling messages, also referred to as "handshakes", between the ground station, the satellite and the aircraft's satellite communication system.

Dolan said experts believed the aircraft would be found near the area representing the last of these signals, thought to be have been sent when the plane ran out of fuel.

"The thing that we're absolutely confident of is somewhere on that long arc we will find the aircraft," he said.

"But because it's so long we have to be able to find a much smaller segment of the arc to concentrate our search and that's what our analysis is looking at defining.

"So we are reanalysing all the satellite data and aircraft performance information and everything else to define an area of up to 60,000 square kilometres, which is the most likely one for the location of the aircraft."

The next phase will focus on using the satellite data to confirm a search area, completing mapping of the sea floor and getting towable sonar and other equipment to carry out an intensive deep water search, which could take up to a year.

Dolan voiced confidence that investigators had been given all the information available, but said he could understand the anger of relatives still looking for answers almost three months after the plane went missing.

"We're conscious that people don't have a particular confidence in the analysis," he said. "We have a much higher confidence. But we are nevertheless doing a cross check to verify it."

Dolan said the search was considered unique because there was so little information to go on, likening it to a worst-case scenario for aviation safety authorities.

"In an organisation like mine you work out what's the worst thing that will ever happen and hope that it never does," he said.

"And Australia has been very good at managing the safety of aviation, but our worst case scenario is a widebody passenger aircraft in mid-ocean.

"We've actually got plans to deal with this sort of thing, we just hoped we would never have to use those plans for real."

Malaysia releases satellite data

Malaysia's aviation authority released on Tuesday satellite data used to determine that flight MH370 went down in the southern Indian Ocean following demands from sceptical relatives of those on board.

The Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) said in a statement it had worked with Inmarsat to provide 47 pages of data communication logs recorded by the British satellite operator as well as explanatory notes for public consumption.

Family members of the 239 people on board the Malaysia Airlines plane, which vanished on March 8, had demanded that raw satellite data be made public for independent analysis after an initial undersea search found no wreckage.

AFP was not immediately able to interpret the highly technical numerical data, which used the Doppler effect - the change in frequency of waves from a moving object - to decipher the Boeing 777's final flight path.

The DCA has previously stressed that satellite data was just one of several elements being examined by investigators.

Malaysian authorities have been tight-lipped on details, saying they can only divulge information once it has been verified and when its release will not affect ongoing investigations into the plane's disappearance.

But no sign of the plane has been found despite a massive and costly search for the flight that mysteriously diverted from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route 11 weeks ago.

Australia, which is leading the hunt in the Indian Ocean, has committed up to US$84 million towards the search operation over two years.

Promo of 'missing plane' film at Cannes... Click here

The director of a movie based on the Malaysian Airlines plane disappearance says he rushed the trailer of the project so he could bring it to the Cannes Film Festival.

"I was seeing the festival calendars and I could not miss Cannes. And so I told my team to make a trailer immediately," said Rupesh Paul of his planned film, "The Vanishing Act."

It wasn't until he arrived at the festival that he faced questions over the timing of the film's promotion and whether he was being sensitive to the families of the missing passengers.

"These things came in to my thoughts only after I came here," said Paul, also a producer, in an interview on Saturday. "From the very first interview I was only asked about this fact that we did not even think of much when we were pitching this in India. Nobody asked this question in India actually. When we came to Europe this was the only question I faced."

The 35-year-old director says he never thought his actions might upset anyone but insists "that nobody will be hurt (by) this movie."

"Why should I gain out of somebody's pain?" said Paul.

The trailer for "The Vanishing Act" shows two crew members kissing as a third looks at them angrily. It's something the director says will not be included in the main feature.

"This trailer was not even meant to get released on the Internet online," said Paul. "It was meant to show some investors and producers that the movie will be dramatic and thrilling. Somehow it got released, we had to give it to many people, it got out of my hands. And there is no love triangle in this movie at all and there is no romance in this movie."

A handgun is also featured in the movie, but Paul said it isn't what it seems.

"Everyone that has flown once on even a small flight will definitely understand that it is impossible to carry a gun inside, whatever you do," he said. "So it's impossible, but there is a weapon in the story."

The director is keeping tight-lipped about his theory on how the plane disappeared and what will be shown in the film. He said that although he "cannot reveal the climax, it will not be a tragic climax."

The trailer, which also shows commotion and horror on the plane, has garnered more than 300,000 views on YouTube.

Paul is aiming for a September release.

A 21-year-old woman was raped and hanged from a tree in Pakistan, police said, in a case bearing a chilling resemblance to a spate of similar attacks that sparked outrage in neighbouring India.

The woman's boyfriend of six months, named by police as Muhammad Saqib, confessed to the rape and murder and has been taken into custody, police said.

Saqib admitted he tried to force the woman -- the daughter of blind parents -- to have sex with two of his friends, according to police. When she refused, investigators said the pair argued.

The woman, whom he allegedly had promised to marry, was found hanging from a tree the next morning.
Police are still looking for the two alleged accomplices.

"The incident occurred in Layyah district (in Punjab province) on Thursday night and was reported to the police on Friday when the local people saw a woman hung from a tree," senior police official Ghazi Salahudin told AFP.

He said the woman was raped and strangled to death, and then her body was hanged to make it look like a suicide.
"But the branch was so low and the dead body was touching the ground in sitting position," he said.

The woman was the eldest of eight siblings and made a living by farming a small piece of land.

The incident has disturbing similarities to an attack in India last month, in which two teenage girls were found gang-raped and hanged from a mango tree in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

That attack sparked protests over police apathy, and was the latest to highlight India's dismal record on preventing sexual violence. Similar headline-making cases have piled pressure on the authorities there.

Pakistani police said Saqib had met the woman after he visited her house in his role as an assistant at a vegetable wholesale shop. They allegedly had been in a relationship for about six months.

A day before the murder, police said, Saqib had brought the woman for a date in the shop where he worked. He took her to the roof, where two of his friends were waiting.

When Saqib tried to persuade the woman to have sex with all three of them, she resisted, according to police.

She was then allegedly raped and killed. Police said Saqib had confessed to the attack, adding that they were still investigating if the woman had been raped by the other men as well.

Though the issues of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence are not as high-profile in Pakistan as they have been in India in recent years, they are widespread in the deeply conservative country.

In March, a 17-year-old Pakistani victim of a gang-rape died after self-immolating in protest at a police decision to turn a key suspect free.

 “My three-year-old niece cracks better jokes than this,” an English woman tells her friend barely few minutes into the movie, and that pretty much sums up Sajid Khan’s attempt at comedy.

He packs in a bunch of old school PJs (poor jokes), hires three good-looking women and three men, who triple up into various shapes, sizes and hair-dos, to tickle us over two-hour-and-a-half-hours of screen time.

Does it all add up to loads of fun and laughter? Well, not really.

However, if I could’ve hopped on to a time machine and gone back to being a five-year-old or mastered the power to detach my brain from my body and leave it at home, then probably the outcome would’ve been a little different.

Left without those choices, and with my age and grey cells in place, Sajid’s ‘Humshakals’ is a boring, silly and infuriatingly long film.

And, it’s not like he’s unaware of the mess he’s created. In fact, he even explains his weakness for making “bad” movies as his “passion”, albeit indirectly.

While it’s evident that Sajid possesses fondness for humour of a strange kind, we can’t help but wonder if ‘Humshakals’ also unintentionally exposes his aptitude for mathematics or things scientific.

No, this isn’t a joke!

He excels in division and multiplication, creating triple roles for his three leading men and using numerous permutation-combinations to try to generate laughs. He even adds in his share of bizarre scientific theories, if you can call them that. There’s MAD – Mind Altering Drug, that turns sane men into dogs, Stage-3 OCD, where a sneeze could lead to life-threatening situations, and pheromones that helps obnoxious "women" attract men. Each situation can be easily cured through unscientific Bollywood methods like a lollipop or even a kiss.

There’s even an aged man stuck in coma, for six years no less, because he was not plugged properly.

That's not all, Sajid even slips while representing celebrated names in history.

While it’s a norm in Bollywood to show heroes address native English speakers in Hindi, this would probably be the first movie in which a strange-Prince Charles-lookalike speaks fluent Hindi.

The hero and his best pal, who spend their waking hoursmimicking Bollywood greats or being shuttled from one mental asylum to another, find themselves in a sticky situation when a greedy uncle tries to throw him out of his dynasty.

The plot gets complicated when their nutty lookalikes enter the scene. And, go over the top, when yet another set of lookalikes enter the picture.

Between all this, there are a few song-and-dances, three pretty girls with prettier short dresses and a villain who also ends up being cloned.

Even Sajid’s infamous ‘Aakri Pasta’ from ‘Houseful’ makes a cameo, and you wish he’d have stayed longer.

Of the three Saif Ali Khans, we like the effeminate one because that’s where he appears the most natural. For the other two, we can’t help but get distracted by his Botox-frozen face, and an unflattering hairdo. Even his expressions are locked down by the Botox-jabs, but the few he manages to twist out end up as looking like a strange pout and an unnerving squint. It’s the one where he dresses like a girl that throws up an uncanny resemblance to his first wife Amrita Singh, unintentionally, of course.

Of the three Ritesh Deshmukhs, we like the sane Kumar, who occasionally dresses as a girl. His expressions and body language are spot-on, and was probably our only comic relief. His other two performances are equally faultless, displaying his superior comic talent. Unfortunately, Sajid doesn’t provide him the stage to showcase his true potential.

Of the three Ram Kapoors, we like the Punjabi club owner, only because he’s fairly inoffensive and doesn’t spit out his lines. His take on the conniving uncle is decent, and so is his take on stage-3 OCD.

The women are the perfect eye-candy. Bipasha Basu works hard to flaunt her toned long legs, while Tamanah flashes her body-tight dresses when not hosting telly show ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’. And Esha flutters her eyelashes when not holding a bone. Of the three, it's Esha we pick for earnestness.

At one point, the wealthy Ashok asks his loyal friend Kumar, “Will you take me for a ride?” He responds in the negative. Soon enough Ashok escorts him to his private helicopter and chuckles, “So let me take you for a ride!”

With such “funny” lines, Sajid’s writer pal Adhir Bhatt creates numerous “gems”.

So, if you thought Sajid’s ‘Himmatwala’ was the worst movie ever in Bollywood, then you are wrong. The title has now been handed over to his latest attempt at slapstick comedy.



 

Although Keeping Up With The Kardashian star - Kylie Jenner claims that she’s never had plastic surgery, we think otherwise.

It's no secret that Kylie Jenner's face has changed substantially over the last few years, and rumors of plastic surgery have been running amok.

Those lips can only belong to Angelina Jolie and fans think the 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' plumped up pout.

Left pic - Recent Instagram; Right picture - Kylie Jenner during a photocall for her new MADDEN GIRL collection on February 22, 2014. (Getty Images)

Although Jenner’s older sisters, Kim and Kourtney Kardashian have taken to getting Botox and breast implants, the youngest of Kris and Bruce Jenner‘s daughters hit back at claims that she is already visiting doctors for cosmetic procedures.

“These plastic surgery rumors hurt my feelings to be honest and are kind of insulting,” she wrote. “Just in case anyone forgot.. I’m 16.” 

Left pic - Kylie Jenner attends the Red Dress Collection Feb 7, 2013. Right picture - Kylie Jenner at Bookends Bookstore on June 3, 2014. (Getty Images)

But while it was previously just tabloids and Internet gawkers guessing that the youngest Jenner has had work done, now it's doctors who specialize in this sort of thing.

Some are more or less "confirming" that the rumors are true. 

Left pic - Kylie at the All Sports Film Festival closing ceremony on November 11, 2013. Right picture - Kylie at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 18, 2014. (Getty Images)

OK! Magazine says she's had lip fillers, a nose job, and Botox. One surgeon says Kylie looks like she's had her nose thinned. Another says it looks as if she's had her lips plumped with fillers and Botox in her forehead, which gives her brows that "raised" appearance.

Left pic- Kylie attends the 2013 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 24, 2013 (Getty Images).  Right pictures - Recent Instagram.

Of course, in Kylie's case, pretty much anyone with a set of eyes could make the call. Have you seen her now as opposed to just a few months ago?

Left pic - Kylie attends the premiere of Open Road Films' 'Justin Bieber's Believe' at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live on December 18, 2013 (Getty). Right pictures - Recent Instagram pic.

Kylie's before-and-after photos recently made the rounds online pretty much confirming that the 16-year-old has had work done.

It does seem that some kind of cosmetic work is de rigueur in the famous clan, so if Kylie has followed suit, it wouldn't shock.

Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is super rich - richer than Argentinian Lionel Messi.

He's so rich that his net worth is nearly one-quarter of the combined fortunes of the 10 wealthiest players in this year's FIFA World Cup.

Read Here: War of World Cup WAGS

Ronaldo  of Portugal leaves the field for a substitution during an international friendly match against the Republic of Ireland on June 10, 2014 at Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.  McClean was given a yellow card on the play.  (AFP)

According to a list of the richest players in this year's World Cup produced by research firm Wealth-X Ronaldo has a net worth of $230 million.

Argentina's forward Lionel Messi attends a training session at the Independencia Arena in Belo Horizonte on June 11, 2014 ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup football tournament in Brazil.  AFP

The forward for Spanish club Barcelona, Lionel Messi, drives a Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale and net worth is $180.

England's Wayne Rooney smiles during a squad training session for the 2014 soccer World Cup at the Urca military base in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 9, 2014.  (AP)

England striker Rooney ranks third with $95 million.

Ivory Coast's forward and captain Didier Drogba (R) takes part in a training session in Aguas de Lindoia, on June 11, 2014, ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup football tournament in Brazil.  AFP

With $90 million Didier Drogba takes the fourth post and the 36-year-old striker plays for Turkish club Galatasaray.

(Getty)

Samuel Eto'o, $75 million is among the top five and the 33-year old striker for English club Chelsea drives a Maybach 57 S Xanatec Coupe. His lavish car collection includes an Aston Martin.

Ivory Coast's National football team midfielder Yaya Toure takes part in a training session in Aguas de Lindoia, on June 9, 2014, a few days prior to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.    AFP

At number six is Yaya Toure, $70 million. The 31-year old is a midfielder for English club Manchester City.

England's midfielder Frank Lampard (L) attends a training session at the Urca military base in Rio de Janeiro on June 11, 2014, ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. AFP

England's midfielder Steven Gerrard attends a training session at the Urca military base in Rio de Janeiro on June 11, 2014, ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. AFP

English Midfielders Frank Lampard ($60 million) and Steven Gerrard ($55 million), England has more wealthy players on the list than any other country.

Spain's forward Fernando Torres is seen before their international friendly soccer match against Bolivia at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium in Seville, in this file picture taken May 30, 2014.  REUTERS

Spain has only one ultra-wealthy footballer on the list in Fernando Torres, who has an estimated net worth of $50 million.

Italy's goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon stops a ball during a training session at the Portobello Resort in Mangaratiba on June 11, 2014 ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup football tournament in Brazil. AFP

Italy's Gianluigi Buffon, who has an estimated net worth of $50 million, is the only goalkeeper in the list, which primarily consists of midfielders or strikers.

Wealth-X is the world's leading ultra-high net worth (UHNW) intelligence and prospecting firm with the largest collection of curated research on UHNW individuals, defined as those with net assets of $30 million and above

Saudi health authorities have warned the public about eating shawarma during summer, saying it could cause food poisoning.

The health ministry said high summer temperatures give rise to bacteria in food prepared outdoors, including shawarma and buffet meals.

“Utmost care should be taken when eating such types of food as they could cause poisoning due to the hot weather which causes bacterial growth in the food,” the ministry said on its website, according to Ajel newspaper.

It said shawarma and other food sold outdoors are also vulnerable to dust and pollutants during summer more than in other seasons.

Also read... Ramadan 2014: Top tips on healthy eating

The start of the Holy month of Ramadan will fall on Sunday, June 29, 2014, the Sharjah Planetarium has confirmed.

Sharjah Planetarium said that the New Moon of Shawwal 1435 AH will be on Sunday, July 27, 2014, at 2:42 (local time) for the UAE. Therefore, Monday, July 28, 2014, will be the start of Eid al-Fitr and the lunar month of Shawwal.

The daylight hours at the beginning of the month of Ramadan will be 13 hours and 45 minutes while the fasting period will be 15 hours and 15 minutes.

Towards the end of the Holy month of Ramadan, daylight hours will be 13 hours and 25 minutes, and the fasting period will be 14 hours and 55 minutes.

The crescent of the month of Ramadan 1435 AH born Friday, June 27th, 2014 at 12 o'clock and 8 minutes (local time) to the UAE and the sun sets on this day at 7 and 12 minutes and Wester Moon before sunset three minutes and at sunset the Age of Moon 7 hours and 4 minutes and its location under the western horizon and therefore impossible degree vision.

Ibrahim Jarwan, a researcher in astronomy and meteorology, general supervisor of the Sharjah Planetarium, said that summer will officially begin on June 21 at 10:51 UTC, with the beginning of the summer solstice is the day length and maximum daylight hours are longer in the northern hemisphere of the earth .

Ramadan Fast: 15 hours in UAE; 20 in Germany

Ramadan is just around three weeks ahead and again it will include the longest and hottest days in the year. If you are bracing for the Holy month, you should know that you are going to refrain from food and drink for as long as 15 hours.

Olalla Oliveros had it all – beauty, a fan following and a flourishing career as a model.

Oliveros boasts top advertisements, TV commercials and even movies on her CV.

Now, she has shocked the world and much of Spain by deciding to give it all up – and become a nun.

According to a report on ncregister.com Oliveros entered the semi-cloistered Order of Saint Michael last month closing the door on her modeling career.

In the report, Oliveros refers to an "earthquake" of an experience on a spiritual pilgrimage where she saw herself dressed as a nun.
Eventually, she says, she realised the image in her mind was a calling.

Now, as the second picture shows, she just wants to be an ordinary nun.
 

A 64-year-old Lebanese man raped his 15-year-old daughter after punching her and shaving her hair off at his home in the Arab country.

In a film published by the Lebanese TV station Al Jadeed, the girl said she was in her bed at night when her father came in.

“He shaved my hair off and when I protested, he started to punch me on the face. He then took my clothes off and told me that he was doing so for my own good,” she said.

“I begged him again and again. I told him that I am his daughter but he started to punch me again.

"He then forced me close to him and slept with me. In the morning, I told my mother. I could not even cry for what he did to me.

"We just don’t want him with us anymore,” she added as she began to sob.

The mother told the TV presenter that she informed the police who raided the man’s house in the capital Beirut and arrested him.

The father was not identified, but the YouTube film shows a bald, short man being led by policemen.

(Home page image courtesy Shutterstock) 

With the batteries on the black boxes of missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370 set to run down, news that a signal detected by a Chinese ship searching the Indian Ocean for flight is "consistent" with the type emitted from the aircraft black box, is being met with hope, bitter relief and skepticism.

Hope for the many nations, not least Malaysia, seeking an answer as to what happened to the ill-fated airline.

Bitter relief for the families of the passengers on board as they can finally know and accept the fate of what has happened to their loved ones.

And skepticism, by the conspiracy theorists – who find it all to convenient that a ‘ping’ is located one day before the black-box ‘deadline’.

While the Malaysian authorities and the Australians, in charge of the search, have vowed to remain committed to finding the answers, however long that may take, an interesting report has emerged on news website asiaone.com

It involved a small atoll in the Indian Ocean that is a military island, controlled and operated by the US and the UK.

According to the report, the conspiracy theory now gaining traction on the internet comes from freelance journalist Jim Stone and concerns the atoll of Diego Garcia.

According to Stone’s theory, an American passenger on board MH370, named as Philip Wood, sent out an image and voice activated text, along with GPS coordinates that trace to a location a few kilometres away from Diego Garcia.

The text claimed that Wood was being held hostage by unknown military personnel.

This report has now sparked speculation that MH370 had landed on this US military base. Even more interestingly, Diego Garcia is reported to also act as an emergency landing site for commercial aircraft that are cleared to fly the long, landless distance over the Indian Ocean.

Diego Garcia is a tiny atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The AsiaOne report quotes the official British government site, gov.uk, as stating that the British Indian Ocean Territory is administered from London and there is no British diplomatic or consular representation on Diego Garcia and that it is not a tourist destination.

Access is restricted and a permit is required in advance of travel.

According to a Wikipedia entry on the atoll, the United States Navy operates Naval Support Facility (NSF) Diego Garcia, a large naval ship and submarine support base, military air base, communications and space-tracking facility, and an anchorage for pre-positioned military supplies for regional operations aboard Military Sealift Command ships in the lagoon.

For complete coverage of Search for Missing Malaysia Airline MH370 click here

Office work hours during the Holy month of Ramadan are different, with an average two hours reduced from the daily job schedule, but there may be exceptions.

Here are some questions answered by experts at Taylor Wessing (Middle East), an international law firm, relevant for office goers in Dubai during Ramadan.

What are Ramadan Hours?

Under the Labour Law, the working hours of all employees shall be reduced by two hours per day during the Holy month of Ramadan. This means that employees should only work 6 hours per day (as the statutory maximum working hours are 8 hours per day).

Under the DIFC Employment Law, employees who observe the fast during the Holy month of Ramadan shall not be required to work in excess of 6 hours each day. Fasting employees who choose to work for more than 6 hours a day shall be entitled to their statutory rest breaks (i.e., of not more than one hour in aggregate – as if the employee worked a full day).

Does it apply to my company?

Yes, Ramadan hours apply to all companies in the UAE proper, whether they are based onshore or in a free zone.

Ramadan hours apply to all companies in the DIFC.

Is it applicable for non-Muslims?

UA Labour Law provides that working hours should be reduced by two hours per day and does not differentiate between fasting and non-fasting employees. Therefore, it is applicable to all employees irrespective of their religion or whether they are fasting or not.

Within the DIFC, only fasting employees’ working hours are reduced by two hours. Non-fasting employees can be required to work normal hours.

Can my company get into trouble if we work normal hours?

The authorities do conduct checks from time to time to ensure that companies are compliant with the Labour Law and employees are working Ramadan hours. If a company is found in breach of the Labour Law, the authorities have the discretion to penalise such company. The penalty is in the discretion of the authorities and may be imposed on a case by case basis.

The same holds for DIFC. Authorities may conduct checks from time to time to ensure companies comply with the DIFC Employment Law and if a company is found in breach, such company may be penalised.

Can I only pay my employees for 6 hours during this period as they are not working full time?

No, there should be no reduction in compensation as a result of a reduction in working hours. Employees should be paid at their normal rates as if they are working normal working hours.

As in Dubai proper, there shall be no reduction in compensation as a result of a reduction in working hours for fasting DIFC employees.

NOTE: There are different laws that govern employment issues for employees in the UAE/Dubai proper (including free zones as they are subject to UAE Federal Law) and for employees in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC, which have own labour law separate from the rest of the UAE). In the UAE, the UAE Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 as amended (the Labour Law) applies to all employees working in the UAE with a couple of exceptions (such as government employees, household servants etc.). Similarly, the DIFC Employment Law No. 4 of 2005 as amended (DIFC Employment Law) applies to employees working within the DIFC.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Scott Disick skipped his pregnant girlfriend Kourtney Kardashian's niece North West's star-studded first birthday bash at their home in Los Angeles, in favour of enjoying his own belated birthday celebration in Southampton, New York.

Scott Disick skipped North West's star-studded birthday bash in favour of a wild night out.

Pic: Bang

The 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star opted to stay in Southampton, New York to enjoy a belated celebration for himself on Saturday, after turning 31 on May 26, instead of flying to Los Angeles with his pregnant girlfriend, Kourtney Kardashian, and their children, Mason, four, and Penelope, 23 months, to host a party for her niece in the backyard of their home in Calabasas, California.

Pic: Bang

Scott reportedly arrived at 1Oak nightclub in his Bentley with a huge entourage in tow shortly after midnight and wasted no time letting his hair down, according to Paul Micheli of DJ Prep.

He told gossip website RadarOnline.com: "He started smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. He seemed pretty wasted."

Pic: Reuters

The reality TV star, who calls himself "Lord Disick," was presented with a crown-shaped cake by the club, as 2 Chainz hit 'Birthday Song' was playing at around 1.15 a.m.

Meanwhile, North and her parents, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, were joined by a number of famous pals, including Ciara and her one-month-old son, Future, and fashion designer Rachel Roy, at a Coachella-inspired "Kidchella" party at Kourtney and Scott's $8.45 million mansion, which they purchased earlier this year.

Kim: Baby Ryan today at North's party Pic: Instagram

The couple spared no expense for the celebration, which took place almost one week after North's actual birthday last Sunday.

Always on honeymoon

Kim Kardashian believes she and Kanye West will always be in the "honeymoon" phase as they're always trying to surprise each other and do the best for one another.

Pic: Bang

Kim Kardashian thinks she and Kanye West will "always be in the honeymoon period".

The 33-year-old reality TV star married the 37-year-old rapper, with whom she has 12-month-old daughter North, in Italy last month, and she insists there's not a day that goes past when they don't speak.

Pic: Instagram

She told the MailOnline: "I feel as though we'll always be in the honeymoon period. We always say we really like to treat each other like it's our birthday. I try to treat him like it's his birthday every single day. I think we'll always be like that.

"We always try to make life as fun and enjoyable as possible.

Pic: Getty

"We do travel, and work really hard, when we're together - and even when we're apart, we're always on the phone 24/7 - just trying to make that time as memorable as possible."

The couple tied the knot at the Forte di Belvedere in Florence on May 25, and the brunette beauty admits Kanye had set up lots of surprises throughout the day to ensure their nuptials were truly unforgettable.

Pic: Instagram

Asked about the biggest surprise of the day, she replied: "Having Andrea Botticelli sing at our wedding as I'm walking down the aisle. I didn't even know it was really him. It was so Kanye to have him there. I should have expected that."

She added: "He [Kanye] seems to be able to get to surprise me and that's hard to do. The fact that he can surprise me is really good."

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian spent 4 days editing wedding photo

Kanye West admits he and his wife spent four days perfecting their first official wedding image after their photographer pulled out of shooting their big day at the last minute.

The 37-year-old rapper admits he and his wife Kim Kardashian, 33, wasted almost half of their honeymoon trying to perfect the first official photograph of their nuptials after top photographer Annie Leibovitz pulled out of shooting their big day at the last minute.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions film Festival in France today), he said: "She [Kim] was exhausted because we worked on the photo so much - because Annie Leibovitz pulled out of the wedding, because I think she was scared of the idea of celebrity."

However, the 'Bound 2' hitmaker still wanted the adorable snap, which sees the newlyweds kissing at the altar in front of a stunning wall of roses, to look like Annie's work.

He explained: "Because Annie pulled out, I was like, 'Okay, I still want my wedding photos to look like Annie Leibovitz'' and we sat there and worked on that photo for, like, four days because the flowers were off-color."

Despite spending a large amount of time perfecting their official photo, which was released on Kim's Instagram account, Kanye believes it was well worth the wait.

He said: "The fact the number one most-liked photo [on Instagram] has a kind of aesthetic was a win for what the mission is, which is raising the palette."

The couple, who have 12-month-old daughter North together, tied the knot in Florence, Italy, on May 25 in front of their family and friends.

Kim Kardashian buys Kanye West board game for birthday

Kim Kardashian bought Kanye West a customised board game for his 37th birthday on June 8.

Pic: Reuters

The 33-year-old reality star bought her husband My Monopoly, which allows buyers to name properties, make their own cards and create game pieces, as a gift for his 37th birthday on June 8.

Kim reportedly put her own sentimental spin on the Hasbro product, which won't be available in stores until August, by placing the Palace of Versailles - where the couple held their wedding rehearsal dinner - and Italy's Fort Belvedere - where their nuptials were held last month - on Kanye's customised board, according to Us Magazine.

Kim, who changed her surname to Kardashian West following her wedding on May 25, also treated her husband to a heartfelt message on Instagram on his birthday, which she accompanied with a stunning black and white photograph of them sharing a kiss.

She wrote at the time: "Happy Birthday to my husband and best friend in the entire world! You have changed my life in more ways than you know! The way you look at life inspires me! I love you so much!!! (sic)."

The brunette beauty, who has 12-month-old daughter North with Kanye, also had a special cake made for the occasion, which spelled out the word 'Yeezus', a reference to the rapper's current tour, in thick grey icing.

Kris Jenner furious with Kanye West

Kris Jenner is said to be annoyed after Kanye West and Kim Kardashian turned down a total of $11 million for their wedding pictures.

Pic: Bang

The 'Bound 2' rapper and his new wife Kim Kardashian - with who he has 12-month-old daughter North - were offered over $11 million to publish pictures of their nuptials in Florence, Italy, last month in publications across the globe, but decided to keep the rights and control of the images themselves, much to the unhappiness of the showbiz matriarch, who, as her daughter's manager, would have gained a percentage of sales for herself.

Pic: Bang

A source told the New York Post newspaper's Page Six column: "Kris was none too happy.

"Kanye is taking a page from Jay Z and Beyonce, who own their photos."

Pic: Bang

Another source admitted Kris had nothing to do with Kim's decision to refuse all offers for the photographs, which she and Kanye have opted to release themselves through their social media accounts.

The source said: "These are Kim's wedding pictures. Kim and Kanye were getting offers for money, and they decided with their teams not to take any."

Pic: Bang

As well as maintaining control, the couple are said to have decided against selling the pictures as they wanted to differentiate their nuptials from Kim's wedding to Kris Humphries in August 2011, for which her mother negotiated a deal which saw People magazine pay a reported $1.5 million for the wedding pictures, plus $300,000 for their engagement.

Kris vs Kim, ultimate showdown

She stole the limelight by wearing an eye-popping cleavage showing dress during daughter Kim Kardashian's wedding and that's not enough for mother Kris Jenner.

Pic: Bang

The 58-year-old matriarch is trying hard to compete with her hot young daughter.

Pic: Bang

And this time it's bikini war.

Pic: Bang

Kim, 33, posted two pictures in white bikini showcasing her washboard sexy tummy during her second honeymoon with husband Kanye West.

Not to be left behind by anyone, mummy Kardashian quickly posted a red hot bikini picture.

Pic: Bang

Kim has been complaining that her mother is “so embarrassing” trying to copy everything she does in the Keeping Up with the Kardashians episodes, and this looks like another example of her mom trying to beat her daughter.

North West's b'day goes south

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have postponed their daughter North West's first birthday bash until next weekend so their families can fly back to Los Angeles for it and the rapper can concentrate on work.

Pic: Instagram

The couple's little girl North is set to turn one on Sunday, but they have decided to wait until next weekend to celebrate, so the rapper can focus on work and both of their families can fly to Los Angeles for the event.

A source told E! News: "They are throwing her a big party next weekend and Kourtney [Kardashian], Khloé Kardashian and kids coming home for it."

Pic: Instagram

Kanye, 37, is also looking forward to spending his second Father's Day with North in New York City this Sunday, after his performance at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday night.

The couple have planned a "low-key" celebration to mark the occasions ahead of next weekend's lavish festivities.

Pic: Instagram

The insider said: "North was one day old last year [on Father's Day]. This weekend Kanye is performing at Bonaroo and they will fly to New York City for a low-key Father's Day and birthday party."

The 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star's sisters Khloé and Kourtney, who is expecting her third child, are currently living in the Hamptons in Long Island, New York, where they are filming their upcoming E! spin-off series with Kourtney's boyfriend Scott Disick and their children, Mason, five, and Penelope, 23 months.

Meanwhile, Kim and Kanye - who are also eager to have more children soon - spent this week enjoying their "second honeymoon" in Mexico, after trips to Ireland and Prague following their wedding in Florence, Italy on May 24.

Beyonce and Jay Z's wedding absence

Kris Jenner has hinted she was surprised Jay Z and Beyoncé chose not to attend her daughter Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding last month in favour of going to the Hamptons because she "assumed they were working."

Pic: Bang

The 58-year-old reality TV star has hinted she was surprised that the duo opted to enjoy a quiet weekend in the Hamptons instead of travelling to Florence, Italy to watch their close friend Kanye West marry Kim Kardashian last month.

Pic: Getty

The 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star told Australian radio station KIIS 106.5 FM on Wednesday: "[I] just assumed they were working."

The 'Holy Grail' hitmaker, 44, and the 'Pretty Hurts' singer were noticeably absent from Kim and Kanye's lavish nuptials, following rumours the groom had asked Jay to be his best man.

Pic: Getty

But Kris insisted that the high profile couple's decision not to attend didn't affect the celebrations.

She said: "There was so much commotion and excitement, I never really gave that a second thought."

Pic: Instagram

She added: "If you had been there, you would have thought that was the last thing on anyone's mind."

Beyoncé, 32, posted a picture of Kim, 33, Kanye, 37, and their 11-month-old daughter North from their recent Vogue shoot on Instagram shortly after they exchanged vows, with the caption: "Wishing you a lifetime of unconditional love. God bless your beautiful family."

Pic: Getty

Insiders previously suggested that Jay Z and Beyoncé declined their invitation after her sister, Solange Knowles, attacked him in an elevator at a Met Ball after party in New York City on May 5 because he was allegedly flirting with Kim's close pal Rachel Roy, who was among the guests at the wedding.

A source said: "Jay Z and Beyoncé were invited but didn't come, seemingly to avoid drama from Rachel Roy who was going. In the end, the wedding was full of love and super intimate."

Pic: Getty

Kris is also friends with Beyoncé's mother, Tina Knowles, and attended her 60th birthday bash in New Orleans, Louisiana, in January.

Kim and Kanye Mexican honeymoon

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have reportedly embarked on their "official honeymoon" to Mexico after holidaying in Ireland and Prague immediately after their wedding.

Pic: Bang

The couple - who recently wed in a lavish ceremony in Florence, Italy - were believed to have spent their honeymoon in Ireland and Prague, but it has now been revealed they have jetted south of the border to continue their celebrations in Punta Mita.

Mr. and Mrs. West - who are staying at a private residence at the Mexican beachfront village - are also celebrating the 'Yeezus' rapper's 37th birthday during the trip.

Pic: Bang

Earlier this week, the 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star took to her Instagram account to wish her husband, the father of her 11-month-old daughter North, a special day.

She wrote: "Happy Birthday to my husband and best friend in the entire world! You have changed my life in more ways than you know.

"The way you look at life inspires me! I love you so much!!!!"

Pic: AFP

Meanwhile, it has been suggested the pair may be looking to expand their brood while enjoying their romantic holiday.

A source told Us Weekly: "I think Kim will definitely have another baby soon - she wants to."

Speaking in an interview with Ryan Seacrest earlier this year, the brunette beauty confessed she wanted more kids but said she couldn't "do more than three tops".

Khloé Kardashian worried about leaving Rob Kardashian in charge

Khloé Kardashian is worried about leaving her brother, Rob Kardashian, in charge of the renovations at her new home in Calabasas, California but can't wait to move back in with him.

Pic: Bang

The 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' beauty purchased Justin Bieber's former mansion in Calabasas, California in March and is set to move into the lavish property with her younger brother, 27, once the redecorations are complete.

But the 29-year-old star admitted she is worried about Rob managing things while she is shooting her new spin-off 'Kourtney & Khloé Take The Hamptons' in the exclusive enclave in Long Island, New York.

She wrote on Twitter: "Having my brother oversee my construction at our new house while I'm in NY is a tad scary. I'm way too controlling lol (sic)"

Pic: Bang

Despite her fears, it seems Khloé can't wait to move back in with Rob, who previously lived with her and her now-estranged husband, Lamar Odom, before their split in December.

She tweeted: "I miss my best friend RobKardashian (sic)," and shared a photograph of them together when they were younger.

A source previously revealed that Rob, who is reportedly battling depression and has gained more than 60 pounds, was planning to live with Khloé again, as he thinks she can help him get his life back on track.

The insider said: "Living alone isolated him. Rob needs to be around people who love him."

Meanwhile, Khloé appears to be very happy after returning from safari in South Africa with her new boyfriend, French Montana, and their friends.

She shared a photograph of them in a jeep on Instagram, with the caption: "Such a blessing!!! Great memories with great people @frenchmontana @spifftv @miguelunlimited yes we really went on Safari!!!"

The rapper, 29, also posted a picture of himself with a giraffe on his profile, writing: "Sometimes you don't know how blessed you are #grateful #southafrica (sic)"

Kris Jenner's ex-lover silenced for life

Kris Jenner's former lover was forced to sign a contract to keep silent about the famous family's secrets.

Pic: Getty

The 58-year-old star - who had an affair with former soccer player Todd Waterman during her first marriage to Robert Kardashian - was "upset"

when the animator refused to ink the agreement, especially when he said he didn't want her speaking about him.

Pic: Getty

Speaking to RadarOnline.com his mother, Ilza Waterman, revealed: "He asked her 'why?' And she said, 'Even my mother had to sign one.' I think  she was joking.

"He said, 'Why would I do that?' He told her, 'I'll sign it if you sign something not to talk about me and to not speak about us anymore.' He said he didn't want her using him in books or newspapers and magazines to build up her public persona.

Pic: Getty

"She said 'no.' He said she was getting upset. So he just said, 'If it makes you happy, I'll do it.' "

Although reports emerged that Todd was paid $15,000 to $20,000 to appear on 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' after his identity was revealed

in 2012, his mother insists he never earned a penny for the show.

She added: "She never paid him for anything.

"When people have a lot of money they never pay for the things that they do. They can always get away with it."

Kim's wedding; Khloe's love; Kourtney's pregnancy

There’s never a lack of drama with the Kardashian-Jenner family, and reality TV’s (Keeping Up With The Kardashians) first family doesn’t disappoint this season.

Pic: Bang

It take off with mommy Kris Jenner's sexy poll dance. E! has released a teaser to give fans a preview of the drama of Season 9.

Khloe Kardashian‘s  failed marriage to Lamar Odom and new boyfriend French Montana will feature heavily this season.

Pic: Bang

Kim Kardashian West's famous wedding with Kanye West will also find special attention. After-all they have to earn back the money they spend on the pompous wedding.

Pic: Getty

Also the big revelation about Kourtney's third pregnancy takes place on season 9.

Pic: Instagram

Kylie banned from seeing Justin Bieber

Kylie Jenner has been banned from seeing Justin Bieber by her father, Bruce Jenner.

Pic: Twitter

The 16-year-old reality star's father, Bruce Jenner, is not happy with her hanging out with the bad boy singer - who has had numerous run-ins with the law this year and was caught up in fresh controversy this week when a video emerged of him using a racial slur - and doesn't want her seeing him again after she accompanied him to the Floyd Mayweather boxing match in Las Vegas on May 3 and to the Rainbow Room bar in Hollywood on May 27.

Pic: Instagram

A source told Sugarscape.com: "Bruce had thought Justin was hanging out with Kendall, his 18-year-old daughter, with Kylie just tagging along and he was fine with that.

Pic: Instagram

"But when he learned that Bieber had taken Kylie to Las Vegas to see the Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight, he hit the roof and immediately called [estranged wife] Kris Jenner, fuming.

"Bruce then phoned Kylie, forbidding her to date Bieber ever again bluntly declaring her doesn't want her influence by his drug use and bad behaviour."

Pic: Twitter

Kris is said to be supportive of Bruce's views and agrees she is too young to be hanging around with the 20-year-old 'Confident' singer.

The source added: "Kylie went crying to Momma, but Kris - who's usually all about the publicity - shocked her by siding with Bruce. She totally agrees Justin's bad news."

Khloe supports French Montana

(AFP)

Khloe Kardashian and French Montana have been inseparable.

She went along to offer support when he performed with Jennifer Lopez on Wednesday in New York.

(AFP)

And on Saturday, Khloe Kardashian flew all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to support French Montana as he performed at the MTV Africa Music Awards.

The 29-year-old reality star stunned in an elegant silk wrap dress as she took to the red carpet in Durban with her new boyfriend.

Khloe opted for a gorgeous pink Lanvin gown, which draped glamorously across her curvaceous physique before forming a bow at her waist.

The garment featured a very high slit to show off her toned pins as well as a plunging neckline to put even more skin on show on her upper body.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star wore her ombre tresses out and gently blow waved, with pale pink lipstick matching her subtly coloured dress.

French Montana was scheduled to perform at the event, which celebrated music created on the African continent.

Kris says Kendall has the 'perfect body'

(AFP)

Kris Jenner believes her daughter Kendall has the best figure and will go far in the modelling industry.

The 58-year-old reality TV star believes her 18-year-old daughter, with whom she has with her estranged husband Bruce Jenner, has the best body for the modelling industry.

(AFP)

Speaking to HuffPost Live, she said: "She has like, the perfect body, especially one that wants to be in the modelling business. I don't know, I got a lot of curves and I couldn't pull that off. But she always looks remarkable."

Not only is Kris - who also has children Kourtney, 35, Kim, 33, Khloe, 29, and Rob, 25, from her relationship with Robert Kardashian, as well as Kylie, 16, with Bruce - proud of Kendall's good looks, but she's glad the teenager has a good heart and feels confident in her own body.

She explained: "She's got such a good heart, and she's such a good kid. And she's really so happy in her own skin. She's not shy -- it doesn't bother her."

Meanwhile, Kendall recently admitted that gains more confidence with every modelling job she does.

She said previously: "I get more and more comfortable with everything. It's fun thought, it's the world I wanna be living in, so it's awesome."

Kanye West 'best dad in the world'

Kris Jenner believes Kanye West has adapted well to parenthood since welcoming his daughter North into the world with Kim Kardashian last year.

The 58-year-old reality star believes her son-in-law has adapted well to fatherhood since welcoming his daughter North into the world with Kim Kardashian last June.

Pic: Bang

Speaking about Kanye, 36, Kris said on the 'Today Show' this morning: "He's just the best dad in the world. I would never have guessed that the two of them [Kim and Kanye] would have just this little girl [North] wrap them around her finger.

"So it's been so wonderful to watch and just the way that they've taken on to being parents and it's just so amazing."

Pic: Getty

The couple, who got married on May 24 in Florence, Italy, are currently living with Kris while they wait for renovations on their new mansion to be finished, but the 'momager' insists the newly weds will be moving out "soon".

Pic: Bang

Asked when the pair will be moving into their new home, Kris said: "Daily, there are little changes ... selfishly I love having them there but soon [they will move out]."

Meanwhile, Kim, who has been married twice before, has decided to take on her husband's surname, but has refused to drop her maiden name.

When asked what Kim will be known as now, Kris replied: "Kim Kardashian West".

However, the brunette beauty doesn't know whether her daughter will be hyphenating her surname.

She added: "I haven't asked her that!"

Portuguese substitute Silvestre Varela grabbed a dramatic stoppage-time equaliser to secure a 2-2 draw with the United States in World Cup Group G on Sunday.

Just as it looked as though the Americans had secured a come-from-behind victory to qualify for the second round, Varela scored with a flying header from a Cristiano Ronaldo cross.

Clint Dempsey had given the United States the lead in the 81st minute, steering the ball home with his stomach from close range.

Portugal had taken an early lead and then sat back in the heat and humidity, allowing the Americans to start dominating.

It was little surprise when midfielder Jermaine Jones cut in from the left in the 64th minute and fired in a superb right- foot curling shot from 25 metres to equalise.

The result means the US are in second place, level with Germany on four points, and Portugal are third with one and face a tough task to make the next round.

"When you concede in the last second it is unfortunate, but it was an amazing game from us, I can't ask for any more," said US coach Juergen Klinsmann.

The Americans face Germany in the final game and need a point to ensure qualification.

"We will take even more confidence into the next game. It will be another final but that is what the World Cup is about," said Klinsmann.

Portugal took the lead in the fifth minute when US defender Geoff Cameron swung a foot at a Miguel Veloso cross and succeeded only in slicing the ball across his own area right to the feet of Nani who scored easily.

The Portuguese played slowly, appearing to try to conserve energy in the tough conditions. The temperature in the Amazonia arena was 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) at kickoff with a humidity reading of 65 per cent.

Portugal nevertheless looked capable of scoring again and Nani hit the left-hand post in the 45th minute from outside the area.

The ball rebounded to Eder but his looping shot was brilliantly scooped over the bar by US goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Portugal started with Ronaldo, who has been trying to shake off a knee injury. He only shone fitfully against the Americans, leaving the best until last.

FULL TIME

USA 2 (Jones 64" Dempsey 81") Portugal 2 (Nani 5" Varela 90+5")

90+5" GOAL! Silvestre Varela gets the equaliser for Portugal with less than 30 seconds remaining heading home a beautiful cross from Ronaldo.

Bradley loses the ball in midfield and Ronaldo rewrites the script with a perfect cross for Varela to keep deny United States and keep alive Portugal's hopes.

US goalkeeper Tim Howard (right) reacts after Portugal's forward Silvestre Varela (centre) scored during a Group G football match between USA and Portugal at the Amazonia Arena in Manaus during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 22, 2014. (AFP)

90+1" US make another substitution as Zusi makes way for Gonzalez.

90" There are five minutes of added time.

89" Ronaldo heads wide after a fantastic ball from Moutinho.

87" Dempsey is substituted by Chris Wondolowski.

USA 2 (Jones 64" Dempsey 81") Portugal 1 (Nani 5")

81" GOAL! Dempsey has put United States in front for the first time virtually bundling the ball into the net with his body off a rebound from a Bradley shot.

Jones plays a great ball in for Johnson on the right, he crosses it from the byline. It's deflected, but right to Bradley at the penalty spot.

Bradley's shot falls to Zusi who crosses it for Dempsey to chests the ball into an empty net.

Dempsey becomes the only US player to have scored in three World Cups.

US forward Clint Dempsey (second right) celebrates after scoring his team's second goal during a Group G match between USA and Portugal at the Amazonia Arena in Manaus during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 22, 2014. (AFP)

75" YELLOW! Jones is the first player to be booked after a crunching challenge on Moutinho.

72" US makes a substitution with Alejandro Bedoya making way for DeAndre Yedlin.

69" Portugal make another change with Silvestre Varela coming on for Raul Meireles.

USA 1 (Jones 64") Portugal 1 (Nani 5")

64" GOAL! Jermaine Jones has got the equaliser for United States.

Another wonder goal as Jones sidesteps Nani before firing into the far corner.

US midfielder Jermaine Jones celebrates after scoring during a Group G match between USA and Portugal at the Amazonia Arena in Manaus during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 22, 2014. (AFP)

62" Ronaldo breaks and slices his shot wide from ten yards out.

58" US are pressing hard with Johnson sending another cross into the box which is just out of the reach of Bradley.

56" Costa makes a goal line clearance after Johnson gets behind the line and crosses to Bradley whose shot from six yards is hacked away by the defender.

54" US win a free kick which they take quickly and starts a counter attack but the ball gets stuck under Bradley's feet slightly as he tries to play Dempsey through on goal. 

50" Johnson gallops along the right and nearly catches Beto out at the near post.

48" Another poor clearance by Cameron off a cross from Nani allows Eder a strike at goal. His volley sails over the bar.

46" Second half underway with Portugal making a change as William is on for Almeida.

HALF-TIME

USA 0 Portugal 1 (Nani 5")

45" Howard makes a brilliant save. Nani's long range shot comes off the post and Eder attempts to chip the rebound over Howard who is out ofhis line but the Everton goalkeeper recovers superbly to tip it over. Ronaldo heads over the corner.

43" Portugal slice open the US defence with a counter attack. Ronaldo finds Nani open on the right but Howard saves. Ronaldo fires the free kick high and wide.

37" Ronaldo finally has a shot at goal but it is a tame effort which is collected comfortably by Howard.

33" Portugal launch an attack only to find Ronaldo standing in an offside position.

31" The US are firing on all cylinders. Some pinged midfield passes lead to Bradley dummying for Dempsey, who turns and charges to the left. He feeds Johnson whose pile driver from 25 yards is just wide.

29" Dempsey backheels to Bradley who shoots from the edge of the box just wide of the far post.

27" Another chances for US as Costa blocks a shot from Dempsey forcing a corner but Nani clears it to safety.

24" Bradley lets fly from just outside the area after Jones squaes him the ball. It's very close.

20" Dempsey gets a ball over the top and shoots low and hard. Beto saves. Zusi takes the corner, which comes to Dempsey at the far post. He tries to chip the ball back over the keeper from close range without success.

17" Portugal are forced to make a substitution as striker Helder Postiga is limping. Eder comes on.

14" US nearly get the equaliser but Dempsey's free kick goes just over the bar.

12" Fabian Johnson surges down the left and wins a corner. Zuzi hits it to the near post and Portugal clear easily.

9" This the first goal conceded by United States in seven of their last 10 World Cup matches

Portugal's Nani (left) celebrates after scoring a goal with teammate Joao Moutinho against the US at the Amazonia arena in Manaus June 22, 2014. (REUTERS) 

USA 0 Portugal 1 (Nani 5")

5" GOAL! Portugal find the net early as the Manchester United's Nani puts Portugal in front pouncing on a defensive lapse.

The US fluffs an easy clearance and Nani collects it six yards out on the right. He stutters, Howard dives, and he slams it home.

4" The US tries to find Dempsey long and wide on the left. He's on his own and can't make anything of it. Portugal goal kick.

2" Ronaldo gets his first touch and the crowd roars before passing the ball out of bounds.

United States get the match underway.

US are in white, Portugal in red.

Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patricio failed to recover from a thigh injury with coach Paulo Bento calling up Beto for their second World Cup Group G game against the United States on Sunday.

Forward Cristiano Ronaldo has recovered sufficiently from a knee injury and starts.

Bento made three other changes from Portugal's opening 4-0 defeat by Germany.

Central defender Ricardo Costa was selected or the suspended Pepe while Andre Almeida took the place of injured left back Fabio Coentrao.

Up front Helder Postiga replaces Hugo Almeida, who came off hurt in the first half of the Germany game.

For the United States, midfielder Graham Zusi comes in on the left wing for forward Jozy Altidore, who suffered a hamstring injury in the 2-1 win over Ghana.

The team is otherwise unchanged.

Teams for Sunday's 2014 World Cup Group G match between United States and Portugal at the Amazonia arena, Manaus.

TEAMS

United States: 1-Tim Howard; 23-Fabian Johnson, 5-Matt Besler, 20-Geoff Cameron, 7-DaMarcus Beasley; 15-Kyle Beckerman, 4-Michael Bradley, 13-Jermaine Jones, 19-Graham Zusi, 11-Alejandro Bedoya; 8-Clint Dempsey

Substitutes: 2-DeAndre Yedlin, 3-Omar Gonzalez, 6-John Brooks, 9-Aron Johansson, 10-Mix Diskerud, 12-Brad Guzan, 14-Brad Davis, 16-Julian Green, 17-Jozy Altidore, 18-Chris Wondolowski, 21-Timmy Chandler, 22-Nick Rimando

Portugal: 22-Beto; 21-Joao Pereira, 13-Ricardo Costa, 2-Bruno Alves, 19-Andre Almeida; 4-Miguel Veloso, 8-Joao Moutinho, 16-Raul Meireles; 7-Cristiano Ronaldo, 23-Helder Postiga, 17-Nani

Substitutes: 1-Eduardo, 5-Fabio Coentrao, 6-William Carvalho, 9-Hugo Almeida, 10-Vierinha, 11-Eder, 12-Rui Patricio, 14-Luis Neto, 15-Rafa Silva, 18-Silvestre Varela, 20-Ruben Amorim

Referee: Nestor Pitana (Argentina)

PREVIEW

Cristiano Ronaldo is all set for his second chance to shine in Brazil when pointless Portugal attempt to get their World Cup campaign back on track against Juergen Klinsmann's United States in sultry Manaus on Sunday.

Despite rumours swirling around the internet about the condition of his left knee, the World Player of the Year is expected to start the Group G encounter against an American side chasing a win which would earn them a last 16 place.

Manaus police boost security

Brazilian police boosted security around the Manaus stadium on Sunday ahead of the World Cup Group G game between the United States and Portugal, bringing in extra officers and even a water cannon.

Almil David, commander of the local military police, said his men were also working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Authorities expect around 20,000 US fans in Manaus for the game. The stadium has hosted two World Games so far without a hint of trouble.

June 21, Day 11

Supporter of Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team cries at a city square in Sarajevo, early on June 22, 2014, during public viewing of live broadcast of Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Nigeria football match on World Championship 2014, in Brasil. Bosnian team lost to Nigeria with 0:1. (AFP)

Supporter of Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team cries at a city square in Sarajevo, early on June 22, 2014, during public viewing of live broadcast of Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Nigeria football match on World Championship 2014, in Brasil. Bosnian team lost to Nigerial with 0:1. (AFP)

Fans take a selfie before the Group F football match between Nigeria and Bosnia-Hercegovina at the Pantanal Arena in Cuiaba during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 21, 2014. (AFP)

Iran's fans celebrate on Vanak Square, in the capital Tehran, on June 21, 2014, despite their national team narrow defeat to Argentine in the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Iran, with only one win in four appearances at the World Cup, looked to have secured a famous draw before Argentine scored a brilliant injury time winner. (AFP)

Fans cheer in support of the German national football team near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany on June 21, 2014 during the public viewing of the FIFA World Cup 2014 group G football match Germany vs Ghana played in Fortaleza, Brazil. (AFP)

Tears and joy

Youngest supporters of Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team is seen at a city square in Sarajevo, early on June 22, 2014, during public viewing of live broadcast of Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Nigeria football match on World Championship 2014, in Brasil. Bosnian team lost to Nigeria with 0:1. (AFP)

Nigeria's fans cheer before the Group F football match between Nigeria and Bosnia-Hercegovina at the Pantanal Arena in Cuiaba during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 21, 2014. (AFP)

Argentinian fans cher reacting to the photographer as they arrive to attend the group F World Cup soccer match between Argentina and Iran at the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Saturday, June 21, 2014. (AP)

German fans watch the 2014 World Cup Group G soccer match against Ghana on an outdoor film projector, as they wait for the Sonnwendfeuer (Midsummer) Festival to begin, at Mt. Kampenwand in Bavarian Alps, Aschau, 100 km (62 miles) south of Munich, June 21, 2014. Picture taken June 21, 2014.  (REUTERS)

June 19, Day 8

Poliecemen control traffic as football fans cross an intersection in the Shibuya shopping district in Tokyo. (AFP)

Japanese football supporters cheer for Japan during their 2014 FIFA World Cup group C match against Greece at a public viewing in Tokyo. (AFP)

Ecuador's players gather during a training session at the Arena Baixada Stadium in Curitiba. (AFP)

Japanese fans cheer during a Group C football match between Japan and Greece at the Dunas Arena in Natal during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. (AFP)

Japan's defender Atsuto Uchida in action during a Group C match between Japan and Greece at the Dunas Arena in Natal during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. (AFP)

June 18, Day 7

Chilean fans celebrate in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AFP)

Croatia's midfielder Ognjen Vukojevic (L) vies with Cameroon's forward Pierre Achille Webo during a Group A football match between Cameroon and Croatia in the Amazonia Arena in Manaus during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. (AFP)

Greece's players warm up during a training session at the Dunas Arena in Natal. (AFP)

You Brazilians play football on a street in Salvador De Bahia. (AFP)

Fans hold up balloons that read: "FIFA GO HOME" after the Mexico vs. Brazil match, at the FIFA Fan Fest, during the 2014 soccer World Cup in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (AP)

A soccer fan sports a pair of Chilean flag sunglasses and headband, as she watches a live broadcast of the group B World Cup match between Chile and Spain, inside the FIFA Fan Fest area on Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP)

June 17, Day 6

South Korean football fans react during a public screening in Seoul of the South Korea vs Russia football match at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, early on June 18, 2014. Giant television screens were erected around Seoul ahead of the country's first game at the 2014 Brazilian World Cup. South Korea drew with Russia leaving both countries trailing Belgium who head the Group H table after beating Algeria 2-1 earlier. (AFP)

South Korean football fans react during a public screening in Seoul of the South Korea vs Russia football match at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, early on June 18, 2014. Giant television screens were erected around Seoul ahead of the country's first game at the 2014 Brazilian World Cup. South Korea drew with Russia leaving both countries trailing Belgium who head the Group H table after beating Algeria 2-1 earlier. (AFP)

Brazilian fans react as they watch a live broadcast of the 2014 FIFA World Cup group A football match between Brazil and Mexico in Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, on June 17, 2014.  (AFP)

A masked girl poses for photo surrounded by Mexico soccer fans as they watch their team's World Cup match with Brazil on giant television screens in Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo, Tuesday, June 17, 2014. (AP)

A performer dressed as Elvis Presley dances along Paulista Avenue, where soccer fans gathered to watch on a big screen the 2014 World Cup soccer match between Brazil and Mexico, in Sao Paulo June 17, 2014.  (REUTERS)

Brazilian fans react to a missed goal, as they watch the screening of the match between Brazil and Mexico, before the 2014 World Cup Group H soccer match between Russia and South Korea at the Pantanal arena in Cuiaba June 17, 2014. (REUTERS)

Russian fans pose for photos before the 2014 World Cup Group H soccer match between Russia and South Korea at the Pantanal arena in Cuiaba June 17, 2014. (REUTERS)

Mexican soccer fans throw a man in the air as they celebrate the 0-0 draw between Mexico and Brazil in their 2014 World Cup soccer match, at the Angel of Independence monument, in Mexico City June 17, 2014. (REUTERS)

Brazil fans react as they gather to watch a telecast of the 2014 World Cup Group A soccer match between Brazil and Mexico at a fan fest in Manaus June 17, 2014.  (REUTERS)

Fans watch a live broadcast of the 2014 FIFA World Cup group A football match between Brazil and Mexico near the FanFesta area at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on June 17, 2014.  (AFP)

June 16, Day 5

A group of Ghana fans get in a festive mood at halftime gathered with US fans to follow the action off a big screen from the pier at Hermosa Beach, California on June 16, 2014, as the United States defeated Ghana 2-1 in their first round World Cup match in Brazil. (AFP)

Iranian and American soccer fans pose for the picture holding their national flags during a live broadcast of the World Cup match between Iran and Nigeria, inside the FIFA Fan Fest area on Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 16, 2014. (AP)

Soccer fans celebrate Germany's victory at the end of a live broadcast of the World Cup match between Portugal and Germany, inside the FIFA Fan Fest area on Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 16, 2014. Germany routed Portugal 4-0 in their group G opener on Monday. (AP)

Fans watch the 2014 Brazil World Cup Group G soccer match between Ghana and the U.S. at a viewing party in Hermosa Beach, California June 16, 2014. (REUTERS)

Michelle Lopez, 14, (R) and her brother Erick Lopez, 12, watch the 2014 Brazil World Cup Group G soccer match between Ghana and the U.S. at a viewing party in Hermosa Beach, California June 16, 2014. (REUTERS)

Fans watch the 2014 Brazil World Cup Group G soccer match between Ghana and the U.S. at a viewing party in Hermosa Beach, California June 16, 2014. (REUTERS)

Fans cheer during the 2014 World Cup Group G soccer match between Ghana and the U.S. at a viewing party in Hermosa Beach, California June 16, 2014. (REUTERS)

U.S.A fans wait at half time for the 2014 World Cup Group G soccer match between Ghana and the U.S. at the Dunas arena in Natal June 16, 2014. (REUTERS)

Fans of the U.S. wait for the 2014 World Cup Group G soccer match between Ghana and the U.S. at the Dunas arena in Natal June 16, 2014. (REUTERS)

Soccer fans, many supporting Germany, raise their arms and cheer at the FIFA Fan Fest area on Copacabana beach, after Thomas Mueller scored Germany's fourth goal against Portugal on Monday, June 16, 2014  in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during Germany's World Cup soccer match with Portugal.(AP)

 

June 15, Day 4

Ecuador soccer fans arrive at the national stadium to watch their team play Switzerland in a 2014 World Cup match, in Brasilia June 15, 2014.  (REUTERS)

Fans of Switzerland cheer during the 2014 World Cup Group E soccer match against Ecuador at the Brasilia national stadium in Brasilia, June 15, 2014. (REUTERS)

France fans pose before the 2014 World Cup Group E soccer match between France and Honduras at the Beira Rio stadium in Porto Alegre June 15, 2014. (REUTERS)

Fans take photos as Argentina's national soccer players arrive ahead of their 2014 World Cup Group F soccer match against Bosnia at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro June 15, 2014. (REUTERS)

Fans wait for the 2014 World Cup Group F soccer match between Argentina and Bosnia at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, June 15, 2014. (REUTERS)

Bosnian fans celebrate a goal against Argentina during the 2014 World Cup soccer match against Argentina, at the main square in Sarajevo June 16, 2014. Argentina won 2-1 in their opening Group F match on Sunday at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro. (REUTERS)

The bus carrying the Brazilian team is surrounded by fans outside the Granja Comary training center in Teresopolis Brazil, Sunday, June 15, 2014. Brazil plays in group A of the 2014 soccer World Cup. (AP)

Soccer fans smile as they wait for the start of  the group E World Cup soccer match between Switzerland and Ecuador at the Estadio Nacional in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, June 15, 2014. (AP)

Bosnian fans cheer during a Group F football match between Argentina and Bosnia-Hercegovina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 15, 2014. (AFP)

Fans wait for the start of a Group F football match between Argentina and Bosnia Hercegovina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 15, 2014. (AFP)

Argentina's fans cheer before the Group F football match between Argentina and Bosnia-Hercegovina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 15, 2014. (AFP)

Argentina's fans kiss a fake trophy before for the Group F football match between Argentina and Bosnia-Hercegovina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 15, 2014. (AFP)

Argentina's fans cheer before the Group F football match between Argentina and Bosnia-Hercegovina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 15, 2014. (AFP)

Argentine fans cheer for their team before the start of a Group F football match between Argentina and Bosnia Hercegovina at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 15, 2014. (AFP)

French fans cheer before the group E World Cup soccer match between France and Honduras at the Estadio Beira-Rio in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Sunday, June 15, 2014.  (AP)

June 14, Day 3

Costa Rica fans cheer as they watch the 2014 World Cup Group D soccer match between Costa Rica and Uruguay at the Castelao arena in Fortaleza June 14, 2014. (REUTERS)

Italy fans celebrate after Italy won their Group D football match against England at the Amazonia Arena in Manaus during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 14, 2014. (AFP)

A man driving a Beetle painted with the colors of the Brazilian flag drives by Argentine fans gathering at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday June 14, 2014. (AP)

Italian fans cheer before the group D World Cup soccer match between England and Italy at the Arena da Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil, Saturday, June 14, 2014. (Antonio Calanni)

Fans wait before the 2014 World Cup Group D soccer match between England and Italy at the Amazonia arena in Manaus June 14, 2014. (REUTERS)

Uruguayan soccer fans watch an open air broadcast of the 2014 World Cup Group D soccer match between Costa Rica and Uruguay in Montevideo June 14, 2014. (REUTERS)

Italian national football team fans arrive to the Arena Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil, on June 14, 2014, for the FIFA World Cup 2014 match against England. (AFP)

Japanese football fans pose prior to a Group C football match between Ivory Coast and Japan at the Pernambuco Arena in Recife during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 14, 2014. (AFP)

Japanese fans cover protect themselves from the rain prior to the start of a Group C football match between Ivory Coast and Japan at the Pernambuco Arena in Recife during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 14, 2014. (AFP)

Japanese football fans pose prior to a Group C football match between Ivory Coast and Japan at the Pernambuco Arena in Recife during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 14, 2014. (AFP)

Japan fans cheer prior to the start of a Group C football match between Ivory Coast and Japan at the Pernambuco Arena in Recife during the 2014 FIFA World Cup on June 14, 2014. (AFP)

Soccer fans pose in front of a giant screen during the World Cup football match Italy vs England in central Rome's Piazza Venezia on June 14, 2014. (AFP)

LATEST UPDATE: A new Sunday Times reports states that the official police investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has reportedly identified the plane's captain as the prime suspect.

According to the report Malaysian cops discovered that married dad of three Shah, 53, appeared to have made no social or work commitments for the future, unlike other members of his crew,.

The report also claims that a probe found that he had programmed a flight simulator with drills practising a flight far out into the southern Indian Ocean and landing on an island with a short runway.

This section of the report will revive the conspiracy theorists favourite explanation: Diego Garcia.

Click to read: Diego Garcia and MH370 conspiracy of a 'lost' island in middle of it all

Search to change direction

The drawn-out search for missing Malaysian Flight MH370 will revert to an area hundreds of kilometres south of the previously suspected crash site following new analysis of the plane's flight path, a report said Friday.

Investigators grappling to solve the mystery of the jet's disappearance are set to scour a zone 1,800 kilometres (1,116 miles) west of Perth - previously subject to an aerial search - when an underwater probe resumes in August, the West Australian said.

Citing unnamed US sources, the newspaper said Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) would soon announce the hunt will move 800 kilometres southwest from where it was previously focused.

It said these sources had revealed that survey ship Fugro Equator was already operating in this area and would soon be joined by Chinese vessel Zhu Kezhen.

A massive aerial and underwater search for MH370, which had 239 people onboard when it diverted from its Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path on March 8, has failed to find any sign of the plane.

Scientists from British company Inmarsat told the BBC earlier this week that the search had yet to target the most likely crash site, or "hotspot", after becoming diverted by pings thought at the time to have originated from the plane's black boxes.

It was not clear from the West Australian report whether the new search area overlaps with the "hotspot".

JACC said Friday that the revised search zone, based on an intensive study of satellite communications from the jet and other data, would be announced by the end of the month.

Australian officials have said repeatedly that the revised search zone will be in the area of the seventh arc, or the final satellite "handshake" from the plane. It is believed to be when the aircraft ran out of fuel and was in descent.

JACC said the Fugro Equator was now working in this zone.

"Located along the seventh arc, that area is consistent with provisional analysis of satellite and other data that is being used to determine the future search area," it said.

Australian officials announced earlier this week that a survey of the sea bed, as yet mostly unmapped and crucial to the success of the underwater search, had resumed.

Two ships - Fugro Equator and Zhu Kezhen - will survey an area up to 6,000 metres deep and covering up to 60,000 square kilometres before an a contractor begins an intensive undersea probe looking for debris.

Previously an intensive undersea search for the plane, in the area in which the acoustic noises were detected, failed to find any sign of the jet.

The source of the noises is unknown.

Revised search zone for Malaysian flight by month's end; Seabed mapping resumes

Australian officials said Wednesday they will announce the new search zone for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 by month's end, as mapping of  the Indian Ocean seabed resumed.

The jet went missing on March 8 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and despite a massive aerial and sea search no sign of the aircraft which was carrying 239 people has been found.

An underwater probe of the Indian Ocean seabed where acoustic signals, thought at the time to have come from the jet's black box recorders, were heard also proved fruitless.

Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said analysis of satellite and other data to determine the search area for the next underwater phase would be concluded soon.

"The search area will be confirmed before the end of June, after completion of extensive collaborative analysis by a range of specialists," it said in a statement.

"It is already clear from the provisional results of that analysis that the search zone will move, but still be on the seventh arc (where the aircraft last communicated with satellite)."

The search has been frustrated by a lack of information, with experts modelling the plane's most likely flight path based on signals between it and an Inmarsat satellite.

The seventh arc, or "handshake", is the final signal from the plane and thought to be when the jet ran out of fuel.

Scientists from the British firm have suggested that searchers are yet to target the most likely Indian Ocean crash site because they became distracted by the acoustic signals detected in April.

"It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the northeast than our area of highest probability," Chris Ashton at Inmarsat told the BBC's Horizon programme on Tuesday.

But JACC said the area in which the Australian vessel Ocean Shield used a mini-sub to scour the ocean floor was "based on the best information and analysis available at that time", including from Inmarsat.

"The location was identified by the satellite communications sub-group, which included accident investigation agencies from the USA and the UK along with their technical advisors, including from the aircraft manufacturer, the satellite manufacturer and Inmarsat as operator of the satellite," JACC said Wednesday.

"Based on analysis at the time, it represented the most likely location of the aircraft."

Australia, which is leading the hunt given the plane is likely to have crashed in its search and rescue zone, said the vessel Fugro Equator, which it contracted, had begun its work in mapping the ocean floor.

It will be joined by Chinese PLA-Navy ship Zhu Kezhen in conducting the bathymetric survey crucial to carrying out the deep water search for the plane which is set to begin in August.

"So far, the Zhu Kezhen has surveyed 4,088 square kilometres of the ocean floor," before it was forced back to port for repairs, JACC said.

The survey of a 60,000 square kilometre search zone was expected to take three months.

Dead, alive or lost? How to live for 100 days... A wife's story

Zhang Qian's world has collapsed in the more than 100 days since her husband disappeared along with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. She quit her job, sleeps rarely and prefers not to go out, except to Buddhist temples, where she has found some solace.

In the more than 100 days since her husband disappeared along with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Zhang Qian's world has collapsed. She quit her job, sleeps rarely and prefers not to go out, except to the Buddhist temples where she has found some solace.

"At the temple, I can speak from my heart to my husband," Zhang, 28, said on a recent visit to the Temple of Spiritual Light in the western hills of Beijing. She broke down in sobs before continuing.

"I think he can hear me ... I have so much to tell him, there is so much I have not said. I hope the Buddha will carry those words to him and bring him back."

Much of the world has moved on from the frenzied interest in the mysterious March 8 disappearance of the plane, but relatives of the 239 people missing cannot. Satellite data shows that the plane went down in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean far from any land, but with no trace of the aircraft recovered, many cling to a flicker of hope — however faint — that their loved ones might still be alive.

"It may be my fantasy, but what if one day he sends some distress signals and he gets saved, and that will be the end of this?" Zhang said.

Her husband was among 153 Chinese on the plane. Chinese culture places an especially heavy emphasis on finding and seeing the remains of people believed dead before true grieving and the process of moving on can begin.

The absence of proof of death has made closure elusive for all relatives, said Lawrence Palinkas, professor of social work at the University of Southern California.

"When there is no physical proof of death, it is easier to remain in (denial) for a much longer period of time," he said. "At this point, those who have not accepted the possibility that the plane crashed and all aboard were lost are relying on extended family and friends to maintain the belief that family members are still alive, or that hope is still viable until the remains are found."

Hotspot hope?

The search for the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 is yet to target the most likely crash site, having been distracted by what is now believed to have been a bogus signal, British company Inmarsat claimed Tuesday.

Inmarsat's scientists told the BBC's Horizon programme that they had calculated the plane's most likely flight path and a "hotspot" in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down.

The flight lost contact on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with total of 239 passengers and crew on board.
Hourly pings sent by the plane were received by Inmarsat's spacecraft, leading scientists to calculate its likely path.

Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield was dispatched to investigate, but before reaching the likely site, began to detect a signal that it believed was coming from the plane's black box, Inmarsat told the BBC programme.

Two months were spent searching 850 sq km of sea bed north west of Perth, but the source of the "pings" was not found and a submersible robot found no evidence of the airliner.

"It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability," Chris Ashton at Inmarsat told Horizon.
Experts from the satellite firm modelled the most likely flight path using the hourly pings and assuming a speed and heading consistent with the plane being flown by autopilot.

"We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is," explained Ashton.

After coming under criticism from relatives over the futile search, Malaysia's civil aviation authority and Inmarsat last month decided to release the raw data.

However, its complexity has led to few independent conclusions being drawn about the likely crash site.
Malaysian Selamat Umar, whose son Mohamad Khairul Amri was on the ill-fated jetliner, questioned the motives behind the data release.

"I am not convinced at all by the data," he said. Why are they releasing it now? Before when we asked for it, they did not want to release it. What can we do with it now?
"I think they could have made some changes to the data," Selamat, 60, added.

Book claims truth

Just as the mystery that surrounds the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 was fading into distant memory, a new book is set to enflame passions and arguments that support a conspiracy theory.
The book, authored by a pilot and journalist from New Zealand, claims to show readers that the tragedy was no accident.

According to a report on stuff.co.nz Ewan Wilson, a commercial pilot and journalist Geoff Taylor, said: "For the first time we present a detailed analysis of the flight, the incredible route it took, and who we believe was in charge of the aircraft as it plunged into the Indian Ocean." 

The book, called ‘Good Night Malaysian 370: The Truth behind the loss of Flight 370’ will shock readers, the report said. 

The authors use a process of investigative elimination that removes all possible scenarios, except one.

'Will not rest'

Malaysia's government pledged on Monday that it "will not rest" until missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is found, as it marked the 100th day since the plane vanished on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew.

"100 days after MH370 went missing, its loss remains a painful void in the hearts of all Malaysians and those around the world. We cannot and will not rest until MH370 is found," Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said.

In a statement, Hishammuddin also promised that Malaysia "cannot and will not abandon" the families of the missing passengers, some of whom have sharply criticised the Malaysian government's handling of the mystery.

The Boeing 777 inexplicably disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. No trace of it has been found despite an extensive Australian-led search effort deep in the Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have gone down.
Hishammuddin also offered Malaysia's thanks to Australia, China, the United States and fellow Southeast Asian countries for their assistance in the search.

Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya issued a separate statement pledging similar resolve in finding the plane, calling the period since March 8 "the longest and most painful 100 days in Malaysia Airlines' history."

Anguished relatives of MH370 passengers have accused Malaysia's government of a bumbling and chaotic response to the crisis and covering up what happened to the plane.

Malaysia denies it is withholding information but has remained tight-lipped over investigations that it has launched into the mystery and given no timetable for when the findings of those probes will be released.

Promo of 'missing plane' film at Cannes... Click here

The director of a movie based on the Malaysian Airlines plane disappearance says he rushed the trailer of the project so he could bring it to the Cannes Film Festival.

"I was seeing the festival calendars and I could not miss Cannes. And so I told my team to make a trailer immediately," said Rupesh Paul of his planned film, "The Vanishing Act."

It wasn't until he arrived at the festival that he faced questions over the timing of the film's promotion and whether he was being sensitive to the families of the missing passengers.

"These things came in to my thoughts only after I came here," said Paul, also a producer, in an interview on Saturday. "From the very first interview I was only asked about this fact that we did not even think of much when we were pitching this in India. Nobody asked this question in India actually. When we came to Europe this was the only question I faced."

The 35-year-old director says he never thought his actions might upset anyone but insists "that nobody will be hurt (by) this movie."

"Why should I gain out of somebody's pain?" said Paul.

The trailer for "The Vanishing Act" shows two crew members kissing as a third looks at them angrily. It's something the director says will not be included in the main feature.

"This trailer was not even meant to get released on the Internet online," said Paul. "It was meant to show some investors and producers that the movie will be dramatic and thrilling. Somehow it got released, we had to give it to many people, it got out of my hands. And there is no love triangle in this movie at all and there is no romance in this movie."

A handgun is also featured in the movie, but Paul said it isn't what it seems.

"Everyone that has flown once on even a small flight will definitely understand that it is impossible to carry a gun inside, whatever you do," he said. "So it's impossible, but there is a weapon in the story."

The director is keeping tight-lipped about his theory on how the plane disappeared and what will be shown in the film. He said that although he "cannot reveal the climax, it will not be a tragic climax."

The trailer, which also shows commotion and horror on the plane, has garnered more than 300,000 views on YouTube.

Paul is aiming for a September release.

Dubai developers have commenced work on mega projects and are set to complete their developments much before 2020.

The aim is to deliver their iconic projects (tourist attractions) ahead of Expo 2020, which will run from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021, and aims to draw more than 25 million visitors to the country.

In April, Dubai government had said that the Expo 2020 master plan remains on track with a target date for completion of all major construction activities on site by October 2019, allowing for a full year of readiness testing across networks, systems and technologies.

Dubai is expecting Dh25 billion in total investment in infrastructure-related projects in the run-up to Expo 2020 with nearly 277,000 new jobs being created.

"We expect an acceleration in some iconic real estate projects as there will be a spurt in the overall demand from local and international investors. We foresee expectations increase dramatically across the entire spectrum of real estate,” Khalid Bin Kalban, CEO, Dubai Investments, had told this website.

As billions of dirham worth of construction contracts are awarded, state-owned entities have announced plans to build more new iconic projects this year.

Here are the details of projects under construction and announced this year.

Under-construction projects:

Dubai Water Canal

Work is in full swing on the Dh7.34-billion Dubai Water Canal that will connect the Business Bay with the Arabian Gulf passing through the heart of Dubai.

Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has already awarded contracts, worth Dh1.7bn, for the three phases of the project.

The new contracts announced are for phase II and phase III, worth Dh1.1bn.

China State Corporation has been awarded the Phase II contract, which comprises construction of bridges across the canal on Al Wasl and Jumeirah Roads at a cost of Dh384 million.

Phase II will provide a link between Dubai Creek and the Arabian Gulf via a water canal passing across Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Safa Park, Jumeirah 2 and up to the Arabian Gulf near the southern part of the Jumeirah Creek Park.

The work will completed be in the last quarter of 2016 to coincide with the completion of Phase I of the project covering the construction of a bridge on Sheikh Zayed Road passing over the course of the Canal, allowing free navigation around the clock.

The phase 1 contract, valued at Dh580 million, was awarded to Turkish firms Mapa and Gunal. It includes the construction of a bridge on Sheikh Zayed Road, comprising eight lanes in each direction.

Belhasa Six Construct Company was awarded the phase III contract, worth Dh802m. The phase III comprises construction of a water canal linking the Dubai creek with the Arabian Gulf.

Work is set to start in June while the scheduled completed date is end-September 2016.

The Dubai Water Canal project will include a new shopping centre, four hotels and 450 restaurants as well as luxury housing and cycling paths. It is expected to provide new areas measuring 80,000 square metres for public places and facilities, as well as private marinas for boats and a new trade centre at the entrance of the canal.

The canal itself will measure six meters deep, while bridges will be built eight meters high to allow the passing of yachts and marine craft.

Jewel of the Creek

With Dubai International Real Estate, the developer of the Dh3bn Jewel of the Creek project in Port Saeed, having awarded the package 8 contract, worth Dh1.45 billion, to Habtoor Leighton Group (HLG),  construction on the project will gather pace.

HLG has worked on the project since 2012 when it was appointed to construct and complete the substructure works for four basement levels and ground floor slabs on the waterside site between Al Maktoum Bridge, Baniyas Road and the Floating Bridge.

The scope of works for the new package involves construction and completion of five hospitality buildings, ranging between 15 and 19 floors, featuring a hotel and serviced apartments; a ballroom with an attached café; a marina including four foot bridges and one vehicular bridge; and hard and soft landscaping works.

Construction works on package eight is scheduled to start Q3 2014 and complete in Q3 2017.

Al Habtoor City

Work on the Dh11bn Al Habtoor City, a residential and hospitality development, is progressing at a fast pace.

The City, according to Al Habtoor Group, the developer, will incorporate more than 3,000 hotel and residential units on one plot, three branded hotels and a permanent Franco Dragone Entertainment Group water-themed production.

The three residential tower blocks will incorporate 1,460 luxury apartments, 11 penthouses, a tennis academy and club house with eight tennis courts including one covered air-conditioned court and a classical French-style landscaped garden.

British architects WS Atkins are working on the residential blocks, while British architects John R & Partners and Khatib & Alami, an architecture firm from Middle East, are working on the hotel complex.

The three hotels within the City consist of St. Regis, W Dubai Sheikh Zayed Road and Westin Dubai, Sheikh Zayed Road, with more than 1,600 keys between them.  Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide will operate them.

Three renowned interior design consultants are involved in the hotel project: Hong Kong-based Bilkey Llinas (The St. Regis Dubai); Singapore-based Silverfox Studios (W Dubai – Sheikh Zayed Road) and London-based WA International (Westin Dubai – Sheikh Zayed Road).

The developer, in an earlier statement, had said that the City and the Dubai Water Canal project are due to be completed at the same time.

Deira Islands

Deira Islands will see construction beginning soon as Nakheel is now seeking companies to design and build the stage 1 of Deira Islands, including up to nine beaches.

The stage 1 includes placing and profiling of up to nine new beaches, construction of new coastal structures (breakwaters, revetments and quay walls) for two shore islands.

The state-owned developer has already appointed AE7 for the design and supervision of the project, including master planning, parcelisation and infrastructure design, under a contract worth Dh28 million.

AE7 was also awarded an architectural and engineering service contract worth Dh19.5m for the project’s Night market and Board Walk areas, two major attractions on the island.

Announced during the Cityscape in October 2013, the 15.3 square kilometre Deira Islands comprises four islands, feature 21-kilometre beachfront and accommodate over 357,000 people when completed.

Deira Islands will include a shopping mall, 30,000-seater amphitheater and a marina that can accommodate large yachts.  The development will be accessible from the mainland via road bridges and abras.

New projects announced:

Aladdin City

Dubai Municipality is planning to build an “Aladdin City,” a project inspired by the tales of Aladdin and Sindbad.

The project will have three towers, comprising commercial and hotel space, with the towers spread over a distance of 450 meters on Dubai Creek.

The project will also have air-conditioned bridges with moving floor to connect the towers, driveways and parking lots. The shape of the bridge, according to the Municipality, that will link the buildings represents the form of exotic marine life such as dragon and snakes.

Three towers will have a built up area of 110,000 square meters with the highest tower of 34 storeys. The other two towers will have 26 and 25 floors respectively. There will be a total parking space for 900 cars.

No details have been shared as to when will work commence and be completed.

Al Mamzar beach project

The latest project to join the list is the Al Mamzar beachfront lifestyle development with Emaar Properties and Dubai Municipality having already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop the project.

Emaar, a Dubai-listed developer, will conduct feasibility studies and submit a detailed project report outlining the development potential to Dubai Municipality. Following approval of the master plan, the two parties will finalise the project management structure.

The project is being planned around the 53-hectare Al Mamzar Lake. Among the components being considered for the project are waterfront residences, serviced residences, retail amenities, fountains and water features, and water-themed leisure attractions.

The Public Transport Agency, Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai, has kick-started an ongoing campaign to monitor illegal passengers transport practices between various emirates of the UAE.

The aim is to realise the vision of the RTA (Safe and Smooth Transport for All) in a concerted effort aimed to uproot this practice which poses a genuine threat to individuals and the community.

Dr Yousef Al Ali, CEO of RTA Public Transport Agency, said: “It was decided to unleash these campaigns in December 2013 in a bid to mitigate the huge numbers of individuals detected using private vehicles to transport individuals against the law.

“Offences reported last year (before the launch of the campaign) amounted to 2647 offences, and about 1344 offences were reported last December.

“Intensive efforts were made to crackdown on this activity this year and during the period from March 10 to April 10 and the number of offences was substantially diminished to about 866 offences,” stated Al Ali.

The campaign contributed to detecting an array of offences besides the illegal passenger transport practice such as offences related to transporting general cargo on heavy vehicles, offences reported against vehicles belong to deluxe transport companies, offences against vehicles used in transporting passengers on hired buses, and individuals posting ads through the media to promote passenger transport on their private vehicles among others.

It is worth-mentioning that these campaigns are launched by the RTA to curb illegal passengers transport where owners of such vehicles offer passengers lifts to their intended destinations in consideration of amounts that fall short of the approved taxi fare set for this service; which constitutes a breach of the transport rules, be it within Dubai or from Dubai to other emirates.

The working hours for all private sector employees will be reduced by two hours during the Holy Month of Ramadan with no salary reduction for workers.

The announcement came in a circular issued by Saqr bin Ghobash Saeed Ghobash, Minister of Labour, in implementation of the provision of Article 65 of Federal Law No. 08 of 1980 concerning the regulation of labour relations and its amendments.

Ghobash offered sincere greetings to President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Their Highnesses Members of the Supreme Council and Rulers of the Emirates, the UAE people and the Arab and Islamic Nations, on the occasion of the advent of Holy Ramadan.

Click to read: Ramadan working hours for Federal Government announced

Justice Minister issues decision to set up Ramadan Moon-sighting Committee

Dr. Hadef bin Jowan Al Dhahiri, Minister of Justice, has issued a decision to set up the Moon-sighting Committee for the Holy Month of Ramadan in Hijri 1435, corresponding to 2014.

The committee, chaired by the Minister of Justice, includes Sultan Saeed Al Badi, the Under-Secretary of Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, along with a number of officials.

The decision called on all the Sharia Courts nationwide to detect the crescent moon and inform the committee.

The committee will hold a meeting after Maghreb Prayer on Friday, 29th of Sha aban, Hijri 1435, corresponding to June 27th, 2014, at the Judiciary Department in Abu Dhabi.

Brazil forward Neymar shot to the top of the World Cup scoring charts with a superb double in a 4-1 win over Cameroon on Monday that sent the hosts through as Group A winners to face Chile in the last 16.

After grabbing a brace in Brazil's 3-1 win against Croatia in their opening game at the finals, Neymar was again the star of the show at an electric national stadium.

The 22-year-old struck twice in the first half either side of Joel Matip's goal for already-eliminated Cameroon, Fred nodded home at the start of the second and substitute Fernandinho scored a late fourth.

The sparkling performance meant Brazil went some way to dispelling doubts about their title credentials following last week's goalless draw with Mexico.

"The main thing today wasn’t the result but the way the team played, getting back the spirit that we had in (last year's) Confederations Cup," Fernandinho said in a television interview.

"In the first two games of the World Cup we missed that a bit," added the midfielder.

Mexico finished level on seven points with Brazil thanks to their 3-1 victory against Croatia and went through in second place due to an inferior goal difference. They will play Group A winners the Netherlands, who beat Chile 2-0 earlier on Monday.

Mexico took a 3-0 lead with late goals in Recife, rattling Brazilian nerves until Croatia scored and Fernandinho, who was introduced at halftime, made it 4-1 in Brasilia.

Brazil were ahead after 17 minutes when Luiz Gustavo won the ball on the left and his low cross was perfectly weighted for Neymar, in space in the center of the penalty area, to deftly guide the ball into the far corner.

Cameroon refused to capitulate and were level nine minutes later when Allan Nyom squared for Joel Matip to sidefoot into an empty net and momentarily silence the home fans.

Shouts of "Brazil! Brazil!" then rang out around the vast arena and the hosts were back in front in the 35th minute when Neymar ran at the defense and clipped a low shot past a wrongfooted Charles Itandje in the Cameroon goal.

Brazil made a similarly brisk start to the second period and David Luiz popped up on the left wing in the 49th to chip the ball to the far post for Fred to head home.

Neymar came off to a rapturous reception and was replaced by Willian in the 71st minute before Fernandinho clipped the ball into the corner after a well-worked move six minutes from time to complete an impressive win for the tournament favourites.

FULL-TIME

Brazil 4 (Neymar 17" 34" Fred 50" Fernandinho 85") Cameroon 1 (Matip 26")

90+2" Marcelo makes a solo run and almost ads to the tally but Istandje makes a save.

90" Four minutes added time given.

87" If Brazil can hold on to this lead for the next three minutes and Mexico finish with the same score against Russia then Brazil avoid a clash with the Dutch.

Brazil 4 (Neymar 17" 34" Fred 50" Fernandinho 85") Cameroon 1 (Matip 26")

82" Brazil will have to defend with 10 men as Gustavo leaves the field and Scolari has already made three substitutions.

79" YELLOW! Stephane Mbia gets a yellow for bringing down Gustavo.

77" Nice move by Brazil as Willian finds Marcelo with a long ball on the left. Marcelo traps well and crosses for Fred but a defender clears in the nick of time. 

74" YELLOW! Substitute Salli is booked for a rough tackle on Dani Alves.

72" In the other match Mexico have taken the lead against Croatia but Brazil continue to top.

69" Neymar covers a lot of ground with the ball but looks like he was tripped from behind but no foul given as the striker lay on the ground. Stunned silence. Scolari does a wise thing of replacing him.

67" Cameroon push Brazil on the defensive but are yet to trouble Cesar in goal.

64" Nguemo takes a shot across the goalmouth with the Brazilian team in disarray. The shot lacking direction.

62" Hulk is taken off and in comes Ramires.

60" Brazil look comfortably placed to top the group as Croatia and Mexico are still goalless. 

58" Benjamin Moukandjo makes way for Edgar Salli in  the Cameroon camp.

57" Hulk deprives Neymar of a hat-trick. The burly striker had to only pass the ball to Neymar who was in the clear but he acted selfish and ended with a poor shot into a defender.

54" Good challenge by David Luiz on Matip as he looked like breaking the shackles. 

Brazil 3 (Neymar 17" 34" Fred 50") Cameroon 1 (Matip 26")

50" GOAL! Fred finally gets his name on the scoresheet in the third match after nodding home Marcelo's cross.  

47" Hulk is brought down in the box but no penalty. The ball is not properly cleared and Fred has his first good try of the tourn ament but is denied by Itandje diving to his right.

46" Brazil make a change brining in Fernandinho for Paulino.

A brace by Neymar was the higlight of the first half as Brazil took a 2-1 lead against Cameroon who pulled one through Joel Matip to make for an engrossing battle at the Stadium Nacional in Brazilia.

It's not over yet for the hosts as Cameroon, who are already out, seem destined to put up a fight.

HALF TIME

Brazil 2 (Neymar 17" 34") Cameroon 1 (Matip 26")

45" Hulk misses a sitter on the stroke of half time.

44" NEYMAR, NEYMAR, NEYMAR! being chanted in the stadium as the striker charges towards a long ball only to be foiled by a defender.

Neymar of Brazil celebrates scoring his team's second goal and his second of the game during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Group A match between Cameroon and Brazil at Estadio Nacional on June 23, 2014 in Brasilia, Brazil. (GETTY)

42" Eyong earns a free-kick just outside the Brazil box but Silva clears to safety after a scramble for the ball.

38" The goal, four in three, has put Neymar into the lead in the race for the Golden Boot. 

Brazil 2 (Neymar 17" 34") Cameroon 1 (Matip 26")

34" GOAL! Neymar's brilliance is to the fore again. Receiving a ball from Marcelo on the top of the box he takes on two defenders before beating Itandje with another neat placement. 

32" Cameroon push for two corners but to no avail.

30" The first 30 minutes providing a lot of action with the Indomitable Lions not willing to go down without a fight.

Brazil 1 (Neymar 17") Cameroon 1 (Matip 26")

26" GOAL! Joel Matip gets his reward this time applying the finishing touches to a cross from Nyom.

Joel Matip (left) of Cameroon  celebrates scoring his team's first goal with Allan Nyom during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Group A match between Cameroon and Brazil at Estadio Nacional on June 23, 2014 in Brasilia, Brazil.  (GETTY)

25" Matip hits the crossbar from a corner.

23" Hulk and Dani Alves look threatening on the right until Hulk is flipped but the referee is unmoved.

20" This time it's Neymar's cross from the left and Fred tries desperately to beat Itandje. Both the players are on the ground but Fred is unable to give it that final touch and Cameroon escape again.

19" Neymar's bullet-like left footer is blocked by goalkeeper Charles Itandje. Brazil are showing that they are not content with just one goal.

Brazil 1 (Neymar 17") Cameroon 0

17" GOAL! Gustavo sends an inch-perfect cross to Neymar who shows deft placement to score Brazil's 100th goal in their 100th match.

14" Moukandjo's free-kick has Julio Cesar scrambling at the last minute to collect the ball after the defenders let the ball over them.

13" Aboubaker makes another fine run down th eleft but his cross is cleared hurriedly by Luiz. 

11" YELLOW! Early booking for Cameroon's Enoh Eyong for a tackle on Marcelo.

8" Cameroon make their first foray into the Brazil area and Vincent Aboubaker sees his shot directed goalwards deflect off Marcelo for a corner.

7" Marcelo makes a darting run down the left flank in a bid  to reach a long ball from David Luiz but in vain. 

4" Brazil are on the offensive knowing a goal early will soothe their nerves as Fred is blocked again by defender Bedimo.

2" A Brazilian wave of attack stuns Cameroon early as first Paulinho is blocked and from the rebound Fred hits into the Cameroon wall.

Brazil, playing in yellow jerseys and white shorts today, kick-off their 100th World Cup match with a loud cheer.

A sea of yellow engulfs the stadium and a din that reverberates as the acton is about to begin.

Stadium Nacional erupts as the teams are out for their national anthems.

If Brazil go on to win they could face Chile who finished second to the Netherlands in Group B earlier in the day. The form that the Dutch team is in and with the hosts yet to hit peak form Scolari's lads would do well to finish on top of Group A.

Tension is building up in the stadium with less than 30 minutes to go for kick-off as yellow-clad supporters greet the players with a huge roar as they venture out into the middle for a light workout. 

Brazil will be playing their 100th World Cup match, second only to Germany who achieved that feat in their first match against Spain which the Germans won convincingly.

Eto'o may not be playing tonight but shares an embrace with his ex-Chelsea team-mates Willian and Ramires, who are both on the Brazil bench.

Hulk seems to have recovered from a thigh problem as he gets Felipe Scolari's nod and will start tonight's match for Brazil against Cameroon at the Estadio Nacional, Brasilia.

Teams for Monday's 2014 World Cup Group A match between Cameroon and Brazil at the Brasilia national stadium, Brasilia.

TEAMS

Cameroon: 16-Charles Itandje; 12-Henri Bedimo, 3-Nicholas Nkoulou, 22-Allan Nyom; 17-Stephane Mbia, 21-Joel Matip, 18-Enoh Eyong, 7-Landry Nguemo, 8-Benjamin Moukandjo; 10-Vincent Aboubaker, 13-Eric Choupo-Moting

Substitutes: 1-Loic Feudjou, 2-Benoit Assou-Ekotto, 4-Cedric Djeugoue, 5-Dany Nounkeu, 9-Samuel Eto'o, 11-Jean Makoun, 14-Aurelien Chedjou, 15-Achille Webo, 19-Fabrice Olinga, 20-Edgar Salli, 23-Sammy Ndjock

Brazil: 12-Julio Cesar; 2-Daniel Alves, 3-Thiago Silva, 4-David Luiz, 6-Marcelo; 8-Paulinho, 11-Oscar, 17-Luiz Gustavo, 7-Hulk; 9-Fred, 10-Neymar

Substitutes: 1-Jefferson, 5-Fernandinho, 13-Dante, 14-Maxwell, 15-Henrique, 16-Ramires, 18-Hernanes, 19-Willian, 20-Bernard, 21-Jo, 22-Victor, 23-Maicon

Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Sweden)

TEAM NEWS

Alex Song is suspended for Cameroon following his sending off for elbowing Croatia's Mario Mandzukic in the back.

Benoit Assou-Ekotto headbutted team-mate Benjamin Moukandjo in that match and is unlikely to play, while Samuel Eto'o (knee) remains doubtful.

Brazil forward Hulk has overcome a thigh problem.

The quartet of Neymar, Thiago Silva, Luiz Gustavo and Ramires will trigger a one-match ban if booked for the second time in this tournament.

PREVIEW

Brazil look to book their place in the World Cup second round on Monday with fans hoping for a stylish victory over Cameroon to ignite their title challenge.

Brazil have failed to convince in their opening matches, grinding out a 3-1 win over Croatia before toiling to a 0-0 draw with Mexico in Group A.

However a win over an eliminated Cameroon could give them useful momentum heading into the last 16, where they would face Chile or the Netherlands.

Brazil captain Thiago Silva acknowledged the hosts had not yet fired on all cylinders as they chase a record sixth World Cup crown.

"We want to show we are a good team and can play collectively in the best manner possible," Thiago said.

"In recent games we have had some problems, but that is normal at a World Cup."

Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, under pressure along with his players after last week's goalless draw against Mexico, said he will name the same starting lineup which beat Croatia in their opening game, meaning a recall for fit-again forward Hulk.

Spain, whose title defence ended with barely a whimper after Group B reverses to the Netherlands and Chile, meet Australia in Curitiba with both nations playing only for pride.

Croatia and Mexico, who can also progress from Group A, clash in Recife, while the Netherlands and Chile, who each have a perfect six points and are through to the last 16, battle it out for top spot in Group B in Sao Paulo.

UNDER PRESSURE

Under pressure but undeterred, Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said he would return to the same starting lineup that delivered an opening World Cup win over Croatia for Monday's Group A clash with Cameroon.

That would mean Ramires dropping to the bench and a recall for forward Hulk, who did not feature in the 0-0 draw with Mexico because of a thigh muscle problem.

"I will continue with the lineup that started the first match and depending on the performance I might make some changes," Scolari told reporters on Sunday.

"We have to be very careful, very attentive as we have not qualified."

Brazil beat Croatia 3-1 in their opener before the Mexico stalemate which left them on four points - level with the Central Americans at the top of the group, while the European side are a point back after beating Cameroon 4-0.

An unthinkable defeat against the disjointed and eliminated Africans at the Brasilia national stadium could see the hosts exit at the first hurdle for the first time since 1966.

Scolari said the pressure was on his team.

"We know we have two results to get tomorrow - a tie or victory," the 2002 World Cup winning coach said, before reciting the over used soccer mantra 'there are no easy games'.

"Of course we are all anxious, even if we had already qualified there would be anxiety over whether we would be first or second.

"This anxiety makes you make mistakes but we have been working on this in training so the players are at ease, but know in order to continue we must carry on working hard.

"I'm not going to change my team, I really trust my squad."

Ramires lasted only a half against Mexico down the left before being substituted for Bernard at the break as the Brazilian frontline struggled to break down a strong Mexican rearguard, led by impressive goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.

Striker Fred was another who failed to make an impact and was replaced by Jo in the second half against the Mexicans, while questions were asked about the performance of midfielder Paulinho who again looked below par.

The fiercely loyal Scolari said his side would continue to get better and dismissed concerns about the 25-year-old box-to-box midfielder.

"He has been improving his performance on what he had been doing in the past.

"I trust him, I admire him as a person, the way he is and the dedication, he might not be at his best moment but I trust him and tomorrow he will be back at a better level," he said, before discussing the team's standards.

"We already have a better tactical and physical condition than in the first match.

"In the game against Mexico we improved, that's my opinion, if we continue as we have we can win tomorrow and qualify."