Thursday newspaper round-up: Schlumberger, US-ISIS airstrikes, Athens

The world largest oil-field services company Schlumberger has pleaded guilty to violating sanctions in Iran and Sudan so will have to pay $232.7m, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The US has launched airstrikes against ISIS militants in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Meeting overnight, the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG) ruled that Athens had no legal claim to €1.2bn in funds held by the European Financial Stability Facility. The decision will add to the financial pressures on Athens as it tries to solve its cash crisis. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had argued that the money was erroneously sent back last month to the European rescue fund, The Times reports.

BT has fired the first shot in a new price war as it seeks to re-enter the consumer mobile market. The telecommunications operator is hoping to obtain a better foothold in the market even before it completes the £12.5bn acquisition of EE. BT is now offering a 4G package for £5 a month, The Times explains.

One pilot was reportedly locked out of the Germanwings Airbus A320 cockpit as it crashed in the French Alps with 150 people on board, wrote The Telegraph.

Two Ukrainian ministers were arrested during a cabinet meeting broadcast live on television hours after President Poroshenko of Ukraine fired a billionaire regional governor who played a crucial role in fighting pro-Russian rebels, The Times reported.

Patient care will suffer with growing wait times and a rising infection rate as the NHS draws closer to a £2bn deficit, according to The Guardian.

A whistleblower has revealed that police spied on at least 10 Labour politicians in the 1990s after they were elected into the House of Commons, wrote The Guardian.

Prime minister David Cameron ruled out a VAT rise in a confrontation with Labour leader Ed Miliband ahead of Thursday night’s television debate, said The Times.

The sale of a key government research unit to outsourcing company Capita could undermine crucial progress on food safety, according to The Independent.

Some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies have partnered with Genomics England to begin using genetic data from NHS patients in medical research, according to the Financial Times.