The physicist and presenter of the BBC’s Wonders of the Universe will be answering your questions, 1-2pm Thursday The final instalment of BBC Two’s visually spectacular and spectacularly popular Wonders of the Universe airs on Sunday. Six million people watched the opening episode and it was the first BBC factual show to top the iTunes chart. There have been grumbles, however – about dumbing down, deafening music and an excessive use of soaring scenic shots – which the presenter, Brian Cox, addresses in an interview in Thursday’s G2: “I may have been standing on a mountaintop, but what I was saying was about electro-weak symmetry breaking. Some people can’t see the content for the style.” Nobody would dispute his passion for science and his belief in the importance of passing some of that enthusiasm on to the next generation of young scientists. “Britain is squandering its lead in science and engineering,” he says. “We once led the world, and we can again.” When he’s not presenting television documentaries, Cox works on the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider . He is a member of the particle physics group at the University of Manchester and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. The professor will be answering your questions about astronomy, particle physics and the Wonders of the Universe between 1 and 2pm on Thursday. Brian Cox Astronomy Particle physics Physics Cern Physics Television guardian.co.uk
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Call for witnesses who saw estate car with taxi markings between Swindon and Savernake after woman disappeared Police searching for the missing woman Sian O’Callaghan are appealing for witnesses who saw a green estate car with taxi markings on the night she vanished or the day after. O’Callaghan disappeared after leaving a nightclub in Swindon in the early hours of Saturday and police have been combing the Savernake forest 12 miles away. Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher, who is leading the inquiry, appealed for anyone who saw a green taxi estate car between Swindon and Savernake on the day the 22-year-old vanished, to come forward. “I am urgently appealing for any witness sightings of a green Toyota Avensis estate with taxi markings seen between 3-4am and 12-9pm on Saturday 19 March 2011 between Swindon and Savernake.” Hundreds of members of the public had been helping police search the forest but they were now being asked to stay away. Specialist dog teams were being called in to help with the search. Police have said they believe they are close to finding O’Callaghan, after narrowing down the search area. Fulcher said earlier: “We have made good progress in narrowing the search using a number of technologies and techniques and I believe we are getting very close to identifying Sian’s whereabouts. “While I still want anyone with information to contact police I am not asking for any more public assistance with searches at this time.” A police spokeswoman refused to expand on the statement and declined to say whether it meant police believed O’Callaghan – or her body – was in the forest. O’Callaghan’s family thanked the public for their help in the search for “our beautiful girl”. In a statement released by the police they said: “We have been so touched by the support shown by the community that we wanted to express our thanks. “The sheer numbers of people who have given up their time to help search for Sian and distribute appeal posters are overwhelming and we couldn’t ask for better support from the public, police and media.” A reward of £20,000 has been offered for information leading to her being found. The family said they were grateful for the reward and hoped it might help to encourage someone to come forward with information. “This is an extremely difficult time for us and we continue to hope and pray that our beautiful girl is found soon.” O’Callaghan, an office administrator, disappeared after leaving Suju nightclub at about 2.50am to walk the half mile to the flat she shared with her boyfriend, Kevin Reape. Analysis of her mobile phone records suggests that about 30 minutes after she left the club, her phone was somewhere in the 1,800-hectare (4,500-acre) Savernake forest, near Marlborough. Chief Superintendent Steve Hedley, area commander for Swindon, said further analysis of the records had produced several “hot spots” that specialist search teams were examining. “We have got a better idea of where we could be searching,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we are going to find anything specific but we have got more of an idea from the technology where to look first.” Another senior officer, Chief Inspector Bob Edge, urged clubbers and pubgoers in the area to take care. “Some people will be asking what else they can do and even wondering if it is safe to go out. “I want to emphasise that whilst there is no reason to believe there is any increased risk to anyone, it is always wise to take basic and well-known simple steps when we go out.” Colleagues of O’Callaghan at the industrial storage company Dexion told how she was in “good spirits” and “looking forward to the weekend” before she disappeared. Liz Watson, operations director, said staff felt helpless and missed her. “She is a well-liked and popular member of our team and has a friendly and cheerful nature, always smiling and happy. “Sian attended work on Friday as normal and she was in her usual good spirits and looking forward to the weekend. “We are all very worried about her at the moment and hope that further developments of her whereabouts will come to light soon. “Our staff are feeling very helpless at the moment and are keen to contribute in any way.” • Anyone who saw the green estate car or who has information is asked to contact police on 0845 408 7000 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, where details can be left anonymously if preferred. Police Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Radiation exceeding health limits for infants was found in a Tokyo city water purifier and authorities are advising that the water not be given to infants
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Three cable-layers at Fukushima power plant exposed to high levels of radiation after stepping into contaminated water Three workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been exposed to high levels of radiation after reportedly stepping into contaminated water as they battled to make the stricken No 3 reactor safe. Two of the workers were taken to a special radiation unit at a hospital in Chiba city, east of Tokyo, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said. The workers, who are all in their 20s and 30s, were exposed to between 170 millisieverts (mSv) and 180 mSv of radiation. This is above the usual legal limit of 100 mSv per year for nuclear power workers in Japan, but below a new limit of 250 mSv, introduced last week to enable them to spend more time inside the crippled facility. The men were affected while laying cable in the turbine building of the No 3 reactor, said Fumio Matsuda, an agency spokesman, adding that two had exposed skin on their feet to radioactive elements. Their accident cast doubt on the wisdom of raising the threshold for radiation exposure for the hundreds of technicians, firefighters and soldiers taking part in the Fukushima operation. The government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said the injuries were “very regrettable”, but defended the health ministry’s decision to raise the exposure limit soon after the start of the world’s worst nuclear power emergency since Chernobyl. “Atmospheric radiation levels are monitored constantly, but in this case the workers stepped into water,” Edano said. “The decision to increase permissible radiation exposure was taken on the advice of experts, who say that workers are able to withstand up to 250 mSv per year before radiation has an effect on their health. “But this kind of exposure, from water, was unforeseen. We are trying to find out exactly what happened so we can ensure it doesn’t happen again.” More than 20 workers have been injured at the Fukushima plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, since it was badly damaged in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami. They include 11 who were hurt when the No 3 reactor building exploded. The condition of the No 3 unit is of particular concern as it contains plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel and would release highly toxic plutonium in the event of a meltdown. On Wednesday afternoon, workers were temporarily evacuated from the plant after black smoke was seen rising from the same reactor. The smoke receded after an hour and radiation levels remained unchanged, the safety agency said. The three workers who stepped into contaminated water were part of a team positioned in the reactor building’s basement. They were laying cables to connect a pump to the power supply and restart the supply of fresh water in an attempt to cool the reactor. The release of radioactive substances from the plant is continuing to cause anxiety in Tokyo. Wednesday’s warning that radioactive iodine levels in the capital’s tap water had exceeded levels considered safe for babies prompted a rush of people buying bottled water. The warning was lifted on Thursday after iodine-131 dropped to safe levels, but they were still above the safe upper limit for infants in the neighbouring prefectures of Chiba and Saitama. In Tokyo, a city of 13 million people, supermarkets quickly ran out of bottled water; the metropolitan government said it would distribute an extra 240,000 bottles to families with infants. “Customers ask us for water, but there’s nothing we can do,” Masayoshi Kasahara, a supermarket worker, said. “We have asked for extra deliveries but we don’t know when they will arrive.” Tokyo’s stores have also started rationing milk, toilet paper and rice, which have been hit by a surge in demand and delivery disruptions. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Energy Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
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Two men from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards were killed after their vehicle hit an explosive device in Helmand Two British soldiers were killed after their vehicle hit an explosive device in Helmand province, less than a week before they were due to return home. The two men from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards were killed on Thursday on their way back from a successful mission in the Nahr-e Saraj district, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The soldiers were working alongside Danish soldiers to disrupt insurgent activity and search compounds in the south of the country. A spokesman for the taskforce in Helmand said they were on their way back to camp to commence their handover after a successful mission when their vehicle was hit. The deaths of the two soldiers bring the total number of British fatalities in Afghanistan to 362 since operations started in 2001. The soldiers’ families have been informed. Afghanistan Military Rowenna Davis guardian.co.uk
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Chancellor says he wants to ensure drivers see benefit of cut in fuel duty and introduction of fair fuel stabiliser funded by £2bn tax on oil company profits George Osborne said he would be watching oil companies “like a hawk” to make sure there was “no funny business” following his budget decision to cut 1p from fuel duty. The chancellor said he wanted to ensure motorists got the benefit of his announcement, which lopped 1p a litre off fuel duty and introduced a fair fuel stabiliser, funded by £2bn of new taxes on the windfall profits of oil companies amid record global prices. Doing the round of broadcast interviews following Wednesday’s announcement, Osborne told ITV’s Daybreak: “We will be watching like a hawk to make sure that motorists get the benefit of the budget changes and make sure that there’s no funny business.” Asked whether there was a mechanism to stop oil companies putting prices up, he said: “I’m not in control of the world’s oil price, unfortunately. What I am in control of are the taxes that go onto oil in Britain – in other words, the duty that gets levied at the petrol station.” He added: “I’m not pretending that this is going to transform the situation overnight for families who are feeling the squeeze, but it helps.” His chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said in an interview on Wednesday, when it was put to him that the Treasury was increasing the tax on oil companies because they were unpopular, that “that’s a fair way of putting it”. Osborne declined to comment, but admitted the sector was “not particularly popular”. Malcolm Webb, the chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, denied that companies would simply pass on the increase in the levy to motorists at the pumps. “Oil is an internationally traded commodity. This is a direct squeeze on the incomes of the oil companies. It won’t affect the consumer at the pump at all,” he told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme. Labour attacked the fuel duty cut as “Del Boy economics” on the grounds that there is a 3p increase in VAT at the same time. The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, seized on the fact that Osborne’s budget was undermined by the ominous prospect of lower growth, rising unemployment and higher borrowing to claim the government was “clinging to an economic strategy” that is not working. Figures from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) showed slower growth would result in £45bn extra borrowing between now and 2015, with growth this year at 1.7% – lower than the 2.1% expected – while 200,000 fewer jobs would be created during this parliament. Balls told Today: “The OBR said yesterday that nothing in the growth plan would make any difference to the growth of the economy. They actually forecast unemployment and borrowing to be higher over the next few years. “George Osborne is, in a blinkered way, carrying on regardless of what people know is the reality. The reality is that it is not working. He is a political chancellor who doesn’t understand the economic reality that he is facing.” The chancellor, on air on the programme an hour later, defended his plan to get Britain back on its feet as the “right course for the country”, with Britain’s growth forecast stronger than France’s, stronger than Italy’s and stronger than the European average. While he wished that growth was “even stronger”, Osborne cited the context of the “deepest recession” in his lifetime. “What I’ve managed to do, I believe, is create the stability, and now given the entrepreneurial boost, to get us into the prosperity we all want to see.” He seized on comments made earlier in the day by Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of the advertising giant WPP, who said the company was now considering returning to the UK. WPP relocated to Dublin in 2008, citing the former Labour government’s plans to tax the profits of companies made overseas. “I have chosen, in a neutral budget, to take money out of oil companies and put it in the hands of families,” Osborne said. “I have chosen to increase taxes on pollution, I’ve chosen to undertake a huge crackdown on tax avoidance, and try and use some of that money to help businesses and help families with their income tax bills. “So yes I have distributed things around the tax system. I’ve done it in a way that is economically smart, because that’s what the country needs at the moment.” Budget 2011 Budget George Osborne Oil Commodities Oil and gas companies Energy industry Motoring Petrol prices Tax and spending Ed Balls Economic policy Economics Global economy Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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• Delroy Grant convicted of 29 crimes, including rape • Met police admit they missed chance to catch him in 1999 • 146 offences believed to have been committed since then A police blunder allowed a prolific sex offender who carried out a total of 203 burglaries and sexual assaults to terrorise the elderly for a decade, it can finally be reported. The admission from the Metropolitan police can be revealed after Delroy Grant was convicted by a jury at Woolwich crown court on 29 counts of preying on 18 elderly men and women between 1992 and 2009. Police apologised for missed chances to stop Grant as they said he was responsible for some of the most “awful and disturbing crimes” in the history of Scotland Yard. Police admit that 146 offences happened after they missed a chance to catch the “sickening and depraved” attacker in 1999, meaning the bulk of his victims could have been spared suffering. Among those offences were 23 sexual assaults. Grant’s offending began in 1991 and ended only when he was arrested in November 2009. He had been charged with committing 18 burglaries, three rapes, one attempted rape and seven indecent assaults. Police believe he was responsible for 203 crimes, targeting no one younger than 68. His oldest victim was 89. Seven of his victims died after Grant targeted them. They and others were so traumatised by the attacks that they remained haunted by the fear that he would come after them again. Grant, 53, was dubbed “the night stalker” because he always struck at night. He attacked his victims after watching them, often for hours, and cutting phone and power lines. Sometimes he carried out ferocious assaults, other times heeding pleas for mercy. But the story that can now be told is that the chance to catch and stop Grant was missed in 1999. On 28 May of that year, Grant carried out a burglary during which a member of the public spotted a car which seemed suspicious and noted down the numberplate. On hearing that a nearby house had been burgled, that person contacted the police and passed on the car registration. Police did investigate but became confused and linked the numberplate to a Delroy Grant living in east London, who was the wrong age. His DNA was checked against DNA recovered from the crime scenes and did not match. But worse was to follow. By August 1999, the name of Delroy Grant was marked down as having being investigated and eliminated from inquiries. Grant carried out at least three rapes after May 1999. A senior officer said: “We accept the fact it was a major omission for which we have apologised.” The police error was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It has recommended that two officers should receive words of advice. Crime Police London Older people Rape Independent Police Complaints Commission Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
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News that top firms are to recruit students from less traditional universities has not been welcomed by all Corporate lawyers are up in arms about a shift in the profession’s graduate recruitment strategy that could see them forced to mix with “riffraff”. “I did not study at Oxford and the LSE to end up working with people who graduated from Leicester or Queen Mary,” wrote one person on legalweek.com in response to the news last week that magic circle outfit Freshfields is extending the number of universities from which it recruits. Others suggested that students from the less traditional universities were “dirty” and “substandard”, and that recruiting them was a pointless concession to political correctness. Freshfields’ announcement – which sees the solicitors to the Bank of England up the amount of institutions it targets to 28, including ex-poly Essex University – follows rival firm Allen & Overy’s (A&O) recent doubling of the number of universities it recruits to 40. The institutions include the University of East London (ranked 68th in The Times list of top law schools), City (ranked 57th in The Times list) and Greenwich (ranked 51st). A&O graduate recruitment manager Caroline Lindner says the idea that the profession is only interested in one type of person is “outdated”. She adds: “Our clients come from a range of backgrounds so it makes sense for our business to reflect that.” To facilitate this change in strategy the firm has said that it is prepared to be “flexible” with its traditional minimum A-level entry requirement of AAB, pledging to consider all applications, even if they fall short of that standard. However, the expectation is that those with lower A-levels grades will need to make up for it with strong degree performances. Another firm to have cast its net wider is Pinsent Masons, taking the total of major law firms to have broadened their recruitment pools since September to seven. During the last recruitment round Pinsents began targeting graduates from Napier (67th) and Aston (not ranked). The firm’s graduate recruitment manager, Edward Walker, puts the trend down to the impending tuition fee hike, which he thinks will see students increasingly select universities close to home so they can save money by living with their parents. “It’s not going to be a simple case of the best students going to the best universities anymore,” he says, adding that this will lower the incentive for graduate recruitment teams to travel far and wide to bring in the best new talent. Walker continues: “It’s going to make greater sense to focus more on the universities closer to the firm.” All this represents quite a change in mindset for the leading law firms, where Oxbridge graduates make up 38% of trainees , with just 12% having studied at universities outside the top 20. It’s a phenomenon partly explained by recent research from Dr Louise Ashley of Cass’s Centre for Professional Service Firms, which found law firms turned down candidates who looked or sounded working-class in order to preserve their upmarket brand. One City solicitor told Ashley: “There was one guy who came to interviews who was a real Essex barrow boy, and he had a very good CV, he was a clever chap, but we just felt that there’s no way we could employ him. I just thought, putting him in front of a client – you just couldn’t do it.” But there’s a growing sense that the legal profession – which is notorious for lagging other walks of life in reflecting the public mood – is casting aside some of these prejudices. This is illustrated by initiatives such as Addleshaw Goddard’s monitoring of its graduates’ socio-economic backgrounds, and the Bar Council’s new career website, become-a-barrister.com , set up to get the message across that students of “all backgrounds and ethnicities” can become barristers (although in doing so it glosses over some alarming statistics about how few trainee jobs there are at the bar). Certainly there are many lawyers in favour of broadening access, particularly among the older generation who joined the profession in an era when entry requirements were far less stringent. A senior partner at a large law firm told me recently that he thought recruitment based purely on academic merit had gone too far, advocating instead a return to the old system of hiring “five brainboxes, five wild cards, five solid all-rounders who were good at sport (for the firm’s cricket and rugby teams) and five stunningly beautiful women”. He added that one of the main reasons his firm stuck to the top universities was the students themselves: “They’re the biggest snobs of all. If we recruit too widely they won’t come to us.” Somewhere between these extremes may lay a happy medium. Alex Aldridge is a freelance journalist who writes about law and education Law Barristers Solicitors Students Higher education Alex Aldridge guardian.co.uk
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Channel 5 owner would consider selling Daily Express, Star or magazines, according to sources – but only for the right price Richard Desmond is willing to entertain offers for the Daily Express, Daily Star or his magazines – but would only be prepared to consider selling for the right price. Last week it emerged that Barclays Capital had approached Desmond asking if he was willing to see if was willing to sell OK! or any of his other magazines – an approach insiders described as a “fishing expedition”. However, BarCap was not simply dismissed – and instead the bank was given the indication that if Desmond would at least listen to any bidders for any part of his printed stable. One friend said “I told him that he wouldn’t have even entertained selling any of the newspapers or magazines a year ago”, but added that, since the £103.5m acquisition of Channel 5 last year, Desmond’s priorities have changed. Desmond is now closely involved in decisions relating to Channel 5, and has long been particularly attached to OK! magazine. Meanwhile sales of both the Express and Star titles are falling – reflecting the downward trend in the sector – even though both have been price promoted heavily. But with News Corp’s takeover of Sky close to sealing regulatory approval, a sale of the Express and Star titles to an existing newspaper owner may be easier to achieve. Any consolidation play would attract a premium bid. Nevertheless, it remains unlikely that Desmond will sell out, not least because his media empire remains profitable with little or no borrowings, and he has no need of money. Prior to the Channel 5 acquisition Desmond had net cash of £41.7m at his wholly owned Northern & Shell network according to the latest set of accounts available. Profits at Desmond’s publishing and printing activities were £11.4m in 2009, down sharply from £30.8m the year before, largely due to the £52m cost of promotional price-cutting at its titles. Richard Desmond bought the Express and Star titles for £125m from Lord Hollick’s United News & Media in 2000, with the aid of a £97m loan. Aggressive cost cutting meant that Desmond has been able to rapidly pay off the debt and generate healthy profits from the tabloids in the years since. Barclays Capital declined to comment. •
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• Sussex captain to fly home immediately • ‘I felt that it was the only sensible option for me’ Michael Yardy has been withdrawn from England’s World Cup squad suffering from depression and has returned home ahead of England’s quarter final match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Yardy was days away from one of the biggest matches of his life, but after consultation with England’s medical staff he has returned home immediately to receive specialist advice as he seeks to overcome an illness that an England Wales Cricket Board statement said he “has been managing for a prolonged period of time.” A statement from Yardy, the Sussex captain, said: “Leaving at this stage of a World Cup campaign was a very difficult decision to make but I felt that it was the only sensible option for me and I wanted to be honest about the reason behind that decision. “I would like to wish the squad all the very best ahead of the game on Saturday. I would appreciate some privacy over the coming weeks while I spend time with family and close friends ahead of what I hope will be a successful season for Sussex.” Hugh Morris, managing director of England cricket, said: “I would like to offer my full support to Michael on behalf of everyone involved with the England team and the ECB. He has been an integral part of the England set up in recent years and while he will be missed in the knockout stages of the World Cup, our priority now is to ensure that he returns home to his family and is able to spend time recovering with a strong support network around him. ” The ECB has applied to the ICC’s Technical committee to replace Yardy in its CWC squad and is awaiting a decision. He is the fourth player to pull out of England’s World Cup squad in a matter of weeks, following Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad and Ajmal Shahzad, whose involvement was prematurely ended because of injury. Yorkshire’s all-rounder, Adil Rashid, overlooked for the entire winter, would be one of the players in contention along with Nottinghamshire’s Samit Patel. Yardy has had a troubled time on the field during the World Cup. He took only two wickets against India, Ireland and South Africa and he looked innocuous on Indian pitches, drawing attention to the fact that England utilise his slow left-arm as a defensive option in one-day cricket even though he is not a regular bowler at county level with Sussex. He was also a vital component of England’s Twenty20 World Cup win in the Caribbean earlier this year but, at 30, it is possible that his international career is now at an end and he will return to a less stressful career on the county circuit. This is not the first time an England player has suffered from a depressive illness. Marcus Trescothick retired from international cricket, failing in several England comeback attempts, because of clinical depression. He has continued to play county cricket and has captained Somerset without any relapse. Trescothick described in his award-winning autobiography the homesickness, sleeplessness and anxiety which forced him to fly home from Test series against India in February 2006 and from Australia later that year. “I would not have wished this illness on my worst enemy,” he said. Sussex were quick to offer support. Mark Robinson, their cricket manager, said: “Sussex are very proud of Michael Yardy and very supportive of his decision, not only to come home but also to be prepared to go public with the reasons. “He’s always been a person admired for his utmost honesty and integrity, and his courage in dealing with this issue emphasises that. As captain and one of our leading players, we’ll give him all the time and all the support necessary so that he can continue to lead this club forward.” Cricket World Cup 2011 Cricket David Hopps guardian.co.uk
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