Category: Culture

Warning over risky electric blankets sold online

Illegal electric blankets are being sold online which could cause electric shocks, a consumer group warns.

Which? found some of the products being sold are made “so poorly” they could pose “a serious risk”.

Separately charity Electrical Safety First says it found “highly dangerous” electrical products for sale by third party sellers online.

It wants new regulations to bolster consumer protection.

The cost of living crisis has seen a huge rise in the popularity of electric blankets as people try to minimise use of their central heating.

Nine out of the 11 electric blankets, throws and shawls Which? bought from third-party sellers on AliExpress, Amazon, eBay and Wish should not be sold legally in the UK.

The consumer champion group identified problems with how the products are made, the packaging, markings and instructions.

Which? found some products with electric wires that could easily be pulled out and others lacked the proper safety standard marks.

In addition to safety concerns, some of the blankets were incredibly inefficient and did not work properly.

All those flagged by Which? as having issues have now been removed by the online marketplaces.

Which? is calling for sites to bear more legally responsibility for allowing unsafe and illegal products to be sold on their platform.

The current approach puts most of the responsibility on the third-party sellers.

Sue Davies, head of consumer protection policy at Which? said buying these products cheaply on online marketplaces can put people’s safety at risk.

“The government must urgently act to give online marketplaces greater legal responsibility for unsafe and illegal products sold on their sites so that consumers are no longer put at unnecessary risk of harm,” she said.

Last week a Private Member’s Bill was tabled by Labour MP for Gateshead, Ian Mearns, to implement more regulation in this area.

The Bill, supported by the charity Electrical Safety First, aimed to “close a gap in the law” which has allowed online marketplaces to operate “without any responsibility” for ensuring that the products sold via their sites are actually safe.

Electrical Safety First found “highly dangerous” electrical products for sale by third party sellers across major online marketplaces, including Amazon Marketplace, eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Wish.com.

Boss Lesley Rudd said: “Households are perpetually being left at risk from products, such as dangerous electric blankets, as people seek to keep heating costs down.

“Without changes to the law, people will continue to be left exposed and vulnerable.”

AliExpress, Amazon, eBay and Wish.com all said they take safety very seriously and removed the listings that Which? flagged to them.

None of the third-party sellers of the products provided a comment to Which?

March 7, 2024
Quarter of global population used site daily in December

The number of people using Facebook daily grew to an average of two billion in December – about a quarter of the world’s population.

The bigger-than-expected growth helped drive new optimism about the company, which has been under pressure as its costs rise and advertising sales slump.

Shares in parent company Meta surged more than 15% in after-hours trade as boss Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 the “year of efficiency”.

He said he was focused on cost cuts.

“We’re in a different environment now,” he said, pointing to the firm’s revenue, which declined in 2022 for the first time in its history after years of double-digit growth.

“We don’t anticipate that that’s going to continue, but I also don’t think it’s going to go back to the way it was before.”

Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, announced a major restructuring last year, including reducing office space and cutting 11,000 jobs or about 13% of staff.

The firm said those moves cost it $4.6bn last year – hitting its profits, which were almost cut in half. It still brought it in $23.2bn in profit for the year.

“2022 was a challenging year but I think we ended it having made good progress,” Mr Zuckerberg said.

In the three months to December, the firm said revenue was $32.2bn, down 4% year-on-year.

But that was better than many analysts had expected.

Meta alarmed investors last year when it posted the first-ever decline in daily Facebook users in its history and signaled it was focusing investments on virtual reality, known as the metaverse.

But in December, the number of users on the site daily was up 4% from a year earlier, adding users even in Europe and the US, and Canada.

Meta said the number of people active across all of its apps each day was up 5% year-on-year.

Mr Zuckerberg said the company was making progress with its video product – Reels – which it has been focused on as it faces off with rivals such as TikTok, which have gained traction, especially among younger users.

Mr Zuckerberg said those efforts were starting to pay off, and ad dollars were starting to follow users to the videos.

Investors seized on the company’s forecast of lower costs and stronger sales than expected in the months ahead, helping send shares higher.

The company also said it would spend an extra $40bn to buy back shares, which dropped sharply last year amid investor doubts about the direction of the company.

March 7, 2024
Photo of a man posing with a Coca-Cola bottle in 1981 symbolized a cultural shift in China

A young man stands grinning in Beijing’s Forbidden City. It’s the dead of winter, and one of his hands is buried deep into the pockets of his long overcoat to protect it from the chill. The other grasps the unmistakable contours of a glass Coca-Cola bottle.

Today, Coke is the world’s most famous soft drink and can be found just about anywhere. But back in 1981, when the image was shot by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Liu Heung Shing, it was only just getting into the hands of ordinary Chinese people.

Liu, who was in his late 20s when he began working for Time magazine in Beijing, felt the country was on the cusp of a great cultural shift following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.

“The changes (at first) were subtle, and unless you lived there, you wouldn’t have noticed,” he recalled during an interview at his home in Hong Kong.

He had earlier photographed people grieving for Mao along the banks of the Pearl River in Guangzhou. It was here that he was struck by how differently people carried themselves compared to what he had seen in late-1950s China, where he grew up during the disastrous Great Leap Forward campaign — a series of failed industrialization policies — before moving back to Hong Kong as a child.

Under Mao, the country went on to suffer from widespread famine and poverty, and the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution. But in the aftermath of the Chinese leader’s death, Liu said, “suddenly, people’s steps looked a little bit lighter, they dropped their shoulders and their faces looked more relaxed.”

It would prove to be a relatively liberal period in Chinese history — politically, economically, and in terms of everyday life, which Liu captured in candid shots. One photo from the time showed a plastic surgeon and his client after a cosmetic procedure. Another depicted people gathering at a “Democracy Wall” in Beijing, where they wrote now-unthinkable criticisms of the government.

One of Liu’s most iconic images was captured on his way into the Time bureau after he had a strange feeling that something was “missing.” He turned his car around and, sure enough, a large portrait of Mao that had once hung prominently on a building had been freshly taken down. He quickly shot images of workers gathered around the depiction of the late Chairman, with some of their scaffolding visible in the frame.

March 7, 2024
Missing radioactive capsule found in Australia

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.

March 7, 2024

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