Category: Blog

Authorities in Western Australia say they have found a tiny radioactive capsule that went missing last month.

Emergency services had “literally found the needle in the haystack”, they said.

A huge search was triggered when the object was lost while being transported along a 1,400km (870 miles) route across the state. 

Authorities released a close-up picture of the pea-sized capsule – which could cause serious harm if handled – on the ground among tiny pebbles.

A serial number enabled them to verify they had found the right capsule, which is 6mm (0.24 inches) in diameter and 8mm long.

It contains a small quantity of Caesium-137, which could cause skin damage, burns, or radiation sickness.

Mining giant Rio Tinto apologized for losing the device, which is used as a density gauge in the mining industry.

A 20m “hot zone” has now been established around the capsule and it will be placed into a lead container.

It will be stored at a secure location in the town of Newman overnight before being transported to a secure facility in the city of Perth on Thursday.

Announcing their find, the state emergency services paid tribute to “inter-agency teamwork in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds”.

The capsule was found when a vehicle equipped with specialist equipment, which was traveling at 70 km/h (43 mph), detected radiation, officials said.

Portable detection equipment was then used to locate the capsule, which was found about 2m (7ft) from the side of the road.

The device is part of a density gauge, which was being used at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. 

“The simple fact is the device should never have been lost,” said the head of the company’s iron ore division, Simon Trott. He thanked the authorities for the “pretty incredible recovery” of the capsule.

Rio Tinto would be happy to reimburse the cost of the search if requested by the government, Mr. Trott added.

Australian authorities have promised a review of existing laws on the matter. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a news conference in Perth that the current fine for failing to safely handle radioactive substances is “ridiculously low”. It currently stands at A$1,000 ($700, £575) and A$50 ($35, £30) for every day that the offense continues.

Europe’s stock markets have beaten Wall Street by the biggest margin in more than three decades over recent months as its economy looks set to dodge a recession many thought inevitable just a few weeks ago.

Since late September, European market benchmarks have risen by 20 percentage points more than Wall Street — the largest outperformance seen in a four-month period in the past 30 years. 

Though over the past two weeks, Europe’s stocks have posted slightly smaller gains than US equities, this has done “little to erode their outperformance since September,” Graham Secker, chief European equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, told CNN. 

The overall rise is a reversal of a 15-year trend that has seen US stock indices, flush with fast-growing tech companies, consistently beat those across the Atlantic.

“It had been quite a sharp turnaround and the sharpest in a while,” Thomas Mathews, senior markets economist at Capital Economics, told CNN.

In a note earlier this month, Morgan Stanley said the reversal was driven by a combination of falling gas prices and better-than-expected economic data in Europe, as well as China’s swift reopening.

Similarly, Mathews at Capital Economics noted that the “steady outperformance” of European stocks can be dated back to a decline in European wholesale gas prices from their all-time high reached in late August. Europe’s benchmark gas contract is now trading at €57 ($62) per megawatt hour, sharply down from the peak of €346 ($375) per megawatt hour.

Consumer price inflation in the region has also ticked down in recent months. In the countries that use the euro, inflation fell from a record high of 10.6% in October to 8.5% in January, preliminary data from the EU statistics office showed on Wednesday. 

More broadly, investors have been encouraged by Europe’s economic resilience over the past year. GDP in the eurozone grew 3.5% in 2022 — more than in the United States or China — including a slight expansion in the final quarter, according to a preliminary estimate by the EU statistics office.

Hungarian photographer Andi Gáldi Vinkó’s playful portrait of her child, part of series on becoming a parent, combines humour and intimacy.

o say the subject of Andi Gáldi Vinkó’s book is a diary of motherhood doesn’t get anywhere near to the fleshy, playful vulnerability of her pictures. Titled Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back, the Hungarian photographer’s journal is a kind of traveller’s tale from the magical and estranging foreign land of childbirth. “When I realised I was pregnant,” she writes, by way of introduction, “I had no idea what awaited me. How messy and how raw, how unpredictable and how out of control motherhood really was compared to the images I had in my mind from films, photos, paintings done by men.”

Her images take you deep into that out-of-control place, her body no longer all her own, colonised by other dramatic forces. Her camera watches it all swell, as she pictures befores and afters: “Then I was an emerging artist, travelling around and going to art fairs and exhibitions and openings. Now I am a mother of two working on borrowed time hoping the years I’ve lost to mothering can be written into my CV without guilt and shame.”

One of the first steps in bringing each Eurovision Song Contest to life is the reveal of its visual identity and slogan. The BBC can today announce the 2023 Contest is set to be truly ‘United by Music’.

The new slogan demonstrates the unique partnership between the UK, Ukraine and host city Liverpool to bring the 2023 Contest to audiences across the globe and the incredible power of music to bring communities together. It also reflects the very origins of the contest, developed to bring Europe closer together through a shared TV experience across different countries.

With over 160 million viewers watching last year, the look of the vibrant, wider identity celebrates this shared cultural experience as ‘millions of hearts beat as one’. Inspired by the Ukrainian and UK flags, the colours used are designed to reflect the joy and diversity of the contest.

The typeface used is called ‘Penny Lane’, inspired by the twentieth-century cast-iron signs displaying Liverpool street names and a nod to the city’s rich musical heritage.

Designed through a creative partnership between Superunion agency in the UK and Ukrainian creative studio Starlight Creative, the new brand will first be seen by viewers during the Handover and Allocation Draw programme on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on 31 January from 7pm. This partnership demonstrates how the show will be made by collaborations on and off camera.

In Liverpool, the iconic St George’s Hall and the Liverpool sign at Liverpool ONE will be dressed in the brand this week before it’s rolled out wider across the city in April.

Martin Green CBE, Managing Director, Eurovision Song Contest 2023, BBC says: “The 2023 Eurovision Song Contest will be a truly special event and the creative look is a big part of creating that magic. This year’s identity sums up perfectly the amazing partnerships across the Contest and more importantly the power of music to bring people together across the world.”

Superunion’s Executive Creative Director, Stuart Radford and Creative Director, Katherina Tudball says: “We are thrilled to create the 67th Eurovision Song Contest visual identity in partnership with Ukrainian agency, Starlight, and the BBC. For this year’s theme, United By Music, our solution was inspired by research showing that when experiencing live music together, human hearts synchronise to beat in unison. This insight led to the creative concept of 160 million hearts beating as one, an idea that captures the universal spirit of Eurovision.”

Olena Martynova, CEO, Starlight Creative comments: “Creativity and music both have the power to unite and inspire. We are so proud to be part of the creative concept for such an important musical event when more than ever, we need to come together as a global community. For Starlight, it is an opportunity to represent Ukraine on an international stage, showcase our creative and musical ability, and create something that honours our strength and the power of unity.”