World
Australian nuclear agency joins hunt for lost radioactive capsule
Individuals informed to remain away from the tiny capsule containing Caesium-137, which emits radiation equal to 10 X-rays per hour.
Australia’s nuclear security company has joined the hunt for a tiny radioactive capsule lacking someplace within the outback, sending a group with specialised car-mounted and moveable detection gear.
The lack of the radioactive capsule, which is believed to have fallen from a truck that travelled some 1,400km (870 miles) throughout Western Australia, has triggered a weeklong search and a radiation alert for giant components of the state.
On Tuesday, the Australian Radiation Safety and Nuclear Security Company stated it was working with the Western Australian authorities to find the capsule. The Australian Nuclear Science and Expertise Organisation additionally despatched radiation companies specialists in addition to detection and imaging gear.
The capsule, a part of a gauge used to measure the density of iron ore, had been entrusted by Rio Tinto Ltd to a specialist contractor to move. Rio apologised on Monday for the loss, which occurred someday previously two weeks. The truck had travelled from north of Newman, a small city within the distant Kimberley area, to a storage facility within the northeast suburbs of Perth – a distance longer than the size of Britain.
Western Australia Chief Well being Officer Andrew Robertson stated underneath strict laws radioactive materials is often transported round Western Australia.
“This can be very uncommon for a supply to be misplaced,” he stated in an announcement.
State emergency officers on Tuesday issued a brand new alert to motorists alongside Australia’s longest freeway to take care when approaching the capsule search events, as automobiles carrying the radiation detectors are travelling at sluggish speeds alongside the freeway
“It would take roughly 5 days to journey the unique route, an estimated 1400kms, with crews travelling north and south alongside Nice Northern Freeway,” Division of Hearth and Emergency Companies (DFES) incident controller, Darryl Ray, stated in an announcement late on Monday.
The capsule was picked up from Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine web site on January 12. When it was unpacked for inspection on January 25, the gauge was discovered damaged aside, with one in every of 4 mounting bolts lacking and screws from the gauge additionally gone.
Authorities suspect vibrations from the truck triggered the screws and the bolt to return unfastened, and the capsule fell out of the bundle after which out of a niche within the truck.
The silver capsule, simply 6mm (0.24 inches) large and 8mm (0.31 inches) lengthy, comprises Caesium-137 which emits radiation equal to 10 X-rays per hour. Individuals have been informed to remain not less than 5 metres (16.5 toes) away as publicity may trigger radiation burns or radiation illness, although specialists have stated driving previous the capsule can be comparatively low danger, akin to taking an X-ray.
The capsule doesn’t pose a hazard to passers-by who don’t linger, stated Edward Obbard, senior lecturer in Nuclear Engineering on the College of New South Wales, Sydney.
“Should you have been standing a metre away from it for an hour, you’ll obtain a radiation dose of round 1 millisievert. That’s about one-twentieth of the dose individuals who work with radiation are allowed to get in a yr,” Obbard wrote in The Dialog.
“Should you have been a lot nearer to the capsule, say 10cm or so, you’d be getting round 100 millisievert per hour, which may do you some actual harm,” he stated.
If the capsule stays lacking, it would pose a hazard for “the following century or so”, in response to Obbard. The priority is that such a risk could also be forgotten with the passage of time.
“Will anybody bear in mind?” Obbard requested
“Should you got here throughout a tiny cylinder on the street immediately, you’d know to maintain your distance – however what about when you discovered it in 5 years, or in 20 years?”
World
Video: How Internet Access Is Transforming Life in This Amazon Tribe
Since September, the Marubo, an isolated Amazon tribe, were connected to high-speed internet through Elon Musk’s Starlink. Jack Nicas, The New York Times’s Brazil bureau chief, visited the tribe’s remote Indigenous villages to see what the internet has changed for them.
World
Russia not 'bluffing' with nuclear threats as Biden greenlights limited military strikes, Medvedev says
A senior ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia is not bluffing about using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and warned that the conflict could spill over into other countries.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the Security Council of Russia, made the comments after President Biden quietly authorized Kyiv to launch U.S.-supplied weapons at military targets just over the border in Russia that are supporting an offensive against the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
“This is, alas, neither intimidation nor bluffing,” Medvedev said Friday, speaking on the potential to use strategic nuclear weapons, per Reuters.
UKRAINE SEEKS TO STRIKE RUSSIAN TARGETS WITH WESTERN WEAPONS, ZELENSKYY SAYS
Russia has been using staging locations just across the border to enable its attacks against Ukraine and Biden has given Ukraine the go-ahead to use American weaponry to hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them. Germany has also backed the move.
The White House says the policy is limited and prohibits the use of army tactical missile systems (ATACMS) or long-range strikes inside Russia.
In March, the U.S. quietly delivered long-range ATACMS to Ukraine for the first time – which the Ukrainians have since deployed against Russian military forces inside Ukraine.
Medvedev said Friday that “Russia regards all long-range weapons used by Ukraine as already being directly controlled by servicemen from NATO countries.”
“This is no military assistance, this is participation in a war against us. And such actions could well become a casus belli (an act that provokes a war),” Medvedev said Friday, per Reuters.
Medvedev, who served as Russian president from 2008 and 2012, said that the West’s ongoing support of Ukraine could lead to an escalation of the 27-month-old full-scale invasion.
“The current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario. There is a constant escalation when it comes to the firepower of NATO weapons being used. Therefore, nobody today can rule out the conflict’s transition to its final stage,” Medvedev said.
KYIV’S FORCES ARE UP AGAINST A CONCERTED RUSSIAN PUSH IN EASTERN UKRAINE, A MILITARY OFFICIAL SAYS
The comments come as depleted Ukrainian troops are losing ground in the war – and just weeks after the U.S. agreed to send an extra $60 billion in aid to the war-torn country. In the border region of Kharkiv, Ukraine has endured a Russian onslaught this month that has stretched Kyiv’s outgunned and outmanned forces.
The White House says that Russia’s forward progress has stalled and that Russia will not be able to capture Kharkiv.
Russia has only moved forward by a few kilometers and its forces are under relentless barrage by the Ukrainians and suffering at an extraordinary cost, the White House tells Fox News.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that it’s only a matter of time before Ukraine utilizes the Western weaponry to strike Russian territory.
The developments and threats of escalation came just weeks after Gen. Charles Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said NATO military trainers will eventually be sent to Ukraine, according to a report in the New York Times.
Ukrainian officials have asked their U.S. and NATO counterparts to help train 150,000 new recruits closer to the front line for faster deployment, per the report.
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., told Fox News Digital at the time that deploying military trainers would lead to a wider war in the region.
Friday’s comments by Medvedev are not the first time he has taken a hardline stance against the West. In January, he warned the U.K. that putting boots on the ground in Ukraine would amount to a declaration of war against Russia.
In January, he also raised the prospect of nuclear war, warning NATO allies that a defeat for Russia in Ukraine could provoke a nuclear war.
“The loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the beginning of a nuclear war,” he said in a Telegram post.
“Nuclear powers have [never] lost major conflicts on which their fate depends,” the Kremlin official added.
Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Businesswoman Halla Tomasdottir set to become Iceland’s next president
Tomasdottir wins 34.6 percent of the votes to become the Nordic country’s second female president.
Halla Tomasdottir, a businesswoman and investor, has won Iceland’s presidential election, topping a crowded field of candidates in which the top three finishers were women, the country’s national broadcast service reports.
Tomasdottir, 55, was elected to the largely ceremonial post with 34.3 percent of the vote, defeating former Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, with 25.2 percent, and Halla Hrund Logadottir, with 15.5 percent, RUV said on Sunday.
Tomasdottir is currently on leave as chief executive of The B Team, a global nonprofit co-founded by UK business tycoon Richard Branson to promote business practices focused on humanity and the climate, and has offices in New York and London.
Iceland’s president holds a largely ceremonial position in the parliamentary republic, acting as a guarantor of the constitution and national unity. He or she, however, has the power to veto a legislation or submit it to a referendum.
Tomasdottir campaigned as someone who was above party politics and could help open discussions on fundamental issues such as the effect of social media on the mental health of young people, Iceland’s development as a tourist destination and the role of artificial intelligence.
She will replace President Gudni Th Johannesson, who did not seek re-election after two four-year terms. Tomasdottir will take office on August 1.
Iceland’s second woman president
Iceland, a Nordic island nation located in the North Atlantic, has a long tradition of electing women to high office.
Vigdis Finnbogadottir was the first democratically elected female president of any nation when she became Iceland’s head of state in 1980.
The country has also seen two women serve as prime minister in recent years, providing stability during years of political turmoil.
Johanna Sigurdardottir led the government from 2009 to 2013, after the global financial crisis ravaged Iceland’s economy.
Jakobsdottir, 48, became prime minister in 2017, leading a broad coalition that ended the cycle of crises that had triggered three elections in four years. She resigned in April to run for president.
In the country of 380,000 people, any citizen gathering 1,500 signatures can run for office.
While Jakobsdottir was at times seen as the favourite, political observers had suggested that her background as prime minister could weigh against her.
Among the other main candidates in the field of 13 were a political science professor, a comedian, and an Arctic and energy scholar.
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