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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

A small start-up in New Zealand claims it has created plasma, the first step towards nuclear fusion, in under two years and for less than $10mn after experimenting with an unconventional reactor design. 

OpenStar, founded by chief executive Ratu Mataira in 2021 in his Wellington apartment, said on Tuesday that it had created and contained a plasma cloud at around 300,000 degrees Celsius for 20 seconds in its first experimental reactor. 

While much higher plasma temperatures are required to achieve nuclear fusion, OpenStar’s test stands apart for its unconventional reactor design, which the company said could be faster to scale and commercialise. 

The promise of fusion — in which hydrogen isotopes collide with each other inside a plasma and fuse, resulting in the release of enormous amounts of energy — has tantalised researchers for decades.

In recent years, significant funding has gone into fusion start-ups, as investors bet that the process could provide cheap, carbon-free energy without long-lived nuclear waste. However, the technology is still being developed and experts say commercialisation is far from being realised.

Several other nuclear fusion projects, including ITER in France, the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor, and JT-60SA in Japan, use a “tokamak” design pioneered by Soviet scientists in the 1950s. The device consists of plasma contained inside a doughnut-shaped chamber by powerful external magnets.

Mataira said OpenStar’s breakthrough had been to turn the tokamak design “inside out”. Instead of magnets outside the chamber, OpenStar levitates a high-temperature superconducting magnet inside the superheated plasma, which is then kept within the magnet’s north-to-south field lines. This allows the plasma, which is so hot it would destroy any material it touches, to be contained inside a vacuum chamber.

“The core engineering challenge is how do you make a magnet that’s surrounded by plasma operate for long enough to be useful,” said Mataira, explaining that the levitating magnet runs on battery power, and that the current design can operate for 80 minutes before needing to be recharged. 

He said the design, pioneered in a decade-long experiment by scientists at MIT, would ultimately prove faster to scale than tokamak reactors because it is easier to modify.

“Building a tokamak is like building a ship in a bottle,” said Mataira. “Every design decision you make impacts every other system.” He said upgrading the system could involve building a new reactor and several years of work. 

Dennis Whyte, professor at MIT and a co-founder of US-based power fusion company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, said he was “thrilled” that OpenStar had built its levitating magnet reactor. “This adds an exciting option to the diverse approaches to fusion,” he said.

New Zealand passed a law in 1987 to become a nuclear-free zone across its territorial sea, land and air space. It has no nuclear power plants.

But Mataira said OpenStar’s research falls within the country’s radiation safety laws. He predicted that the public would accept the distinction between nuclear fission and fusion, which does not create any radioactive waste. 

The start-up has been funded by New Zealand investors to date, but has a goal of raising a series A investment round in the first quarter of 2025. Mataira said the company would ultimately need between $500mn and $1bn to prove out all technical risks. 

On its website, OpenStar estimates that nuclear fusion is six years away from being a commercial technology. 

“The reason why we are excited by fusion is because we think it can aid the decarbonisation of the energy sector, and for that there is an enormous amount of time pressure,” said Mataira. 

B&M shoppers are rushing out to fill their baskets with an item which is perfect for the upcoming festive season.

Bargain hunters have been getting excited about Christmas tree plates which cost just 10p, having been reduced from £4.

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One eagle-eyed shopper got their hands on one at their local store before spreading the word on social media.

They took to the Facebook group Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK group to let others know.

The person wrote: “Christmas tree platters 10p each in B&M.”

On person commented: “If you see these please get me a couple xx.”

Another tagged a friend, and said: “Get checking your store.”

Someone else simply said: “Fab find.”

Another happy customer commented: “These are what I was looking for.”

One person added: “Cute and a bargain.”

There is no guarantee that your local B&M store will have the items in stock , so it might be worth calling your ahead to avoid a wasted trip.

In any case, you should always shop around before buying something like this as you might find the same, or a similar item for less at another retailer.

You can buy a similarly designed white Christmas tree plate from Amazon for £13.49.

Waitrose is also selling a Christmas tree shaped white dish for £6.00.

B&M also sells other items as part of it’s Christmas tableware range, such as a Gingerbread serving board for £4, and star woven placemats for £6.

You can use online price comparison sites like Price Spy and Trolley to see if a product you have found is the cheapest compared with others.

You can also use the Google Shopping/Product tab to do a quick scan of the internet.

If you’re looking to pick up a bargain on your next B&M shop, you should get the retailer’s scanner app.

It’s free to download on to your smartphone via the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Once downloaded, you can use the camera on your phone to scan barcodes in-store.

It then tells you if a product has been reduced in price, even before a member of staff has changed the label.

The app also offers you a description of the product you are scanning.

It’s quite common for shoppers to find under £1 bargains in their local B&M stores.

One customer recently found a stainless steel egg slotter for just 10p instead of £2.99.

Another shopper found pet toys slashed to 10p in their local branch this summer.

Remember, you can find your nearest B&M branch by using the retailer’s store locator tool on its website.

Other ways to save money at B&M

One ex-B&M manager said the best time to visit your local store is first thing on a Wednesday.

This is when staff slash items to as little as 10p to clear excess stock and make way for new lines.

Deals expert Tom Church urged shoppers to keep an eye out for red stickers products as well.

These are put on special buy products that have also been reduced in price.

NatWest Group has blocked messaging services WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Skype on company devices to stop staff using them to communicate with each other.

The bank had already told employees to stick to “approved channels” for conversations about business matters.

But now it has gone further and made the platforms inaccessible on work phones and computers.

So-called off-channel communications are a persistent problem in both business and politics, with concerns that services such as WhatsApp are used to reduce the scrutiny some conversations can be subject to.

Messages can be difficult to retrieve or even set to disappear – whereas those sent via approved channels are fully retrievable, meaning they can be looked into if there is any suspected wrongdoing.

“Like many organisations, we only permit the use of approved channels for communicating about business matters, whether internally or externally,” NatWest said in a statement.

It said the change came into effect earlier this month.

Banks in the US have been handed fines worth more than $2.8bn (£2.18bn) over the past few years over record-keeping rules – with workers unable to retrieve old messages from some messaging services.

JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup are among those to be issued with penalties.

It was reported in August that the UK banking regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is considering a probe into how bank workers use messaging services.

It follows a fine issued by energy regulator Ofgem to Morgan Stanley over calls made on private phones over WhatsApp – breaching rules on record-keeping.

Outside of banking, there have been issues with staff using apps in the public sector, with questions surrounding how ministers have used WhatsApp for government business in recent years.

The UK Covid inquiry revealed officials and ministers had deleted WhatsApp messages exchanged during the pandemic.

That included then-prime minister Boris Johnson, with then cabinet member Penny Mordaunt telling the inquiry that two years of messages with him had disappeared. Johnson told the inquiry he had lost around 5,000 messages.

The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Metro Bank PLC £16,675,200 for financial crime failings.

FCA said the bank failed to adequately monitor over 60 million transactions with a value of over £51bn for money laundering risks between June 2016 and December 2020.

It noted that Metro automated the monitoring of customer transactions for potential financial crime in June 2016.

However, its system did not work as intended and some transactions were not monitored.

The regulator said an error in how data was fed into the Metro system meant transactions taking place on the same day an account was opened, and any further transactions until the account record was updated, were not monitored.

Junior staff raised concerns about some transaction data not being monitored in 2017 and 2018, but these did not result in the issue being identified and fixed.

Even once a fix had been put in place in July 2019, Metro did not have a mechanism to consistently check that all relevant transactions were being fed into the monitoring system until December 2020.

Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “Metro’s failings risked a gap being left in our defence against the criminal misuse of our financial system. Those failings went on for too long.”

FCA said Metro Bank has put in place processes to remediate the issues identified.

Metro, established in 2010, is an authorised firm regulated by the FCA and the Prudential Regulation Authority.

It offers retail, business, commercial and private banking services.

A LONDON street once said to be the gateway to the city has revealed plans to regenerate the area.

St John Street runs to Charterhouse Street in Isliington.

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It has been called the “once gateway to London” by local authorities, with people heading into the main city using the roads.

It remains a busy area with the nearby Farringdon Station having 1.2million monthly travellers.

However, the area is set to be revamped.

This includes more greenery and seating, with trees, rain gardens and plants as well as benches.

It also hopes to make the busy area quieter for a peaceful spot in the city.

Larger pavements, new cycle lanes and “historical details” will also be added.

Cllr Rowena Champion, Islington Council’s Executive Member for Environment, Air Quality, and Transport told local media: “We’re committed to working closely with the local community to create vibrant, people-friendly streets.

“These improvements to St John Street will help to create attractive, accessible space for all, making it safer for people walking, wheeling and cycling.

“St John’s Street has a historical significance to this area, and we want to ensure that it is a well-used space today as it was way back when, and this project aims to pay homage to that.”

The plans are open to the public to comment until December 15.

The London area also has a secret English woodland barely anyone knows about.

Barnsbury Woods is a tiny nature reserve in Islington open to the public.

It’s only open two hours a week so you will have to plan ahead.

And a new floating lido could open near Islington.

Swim City Basin has revealed plans for an outdoor swimming pool on top of Regents Canal.

It would be between Angel and Old Street, with a sauna and cafe too.

The website states: “Islington is one of the only London boroughs without an outdoor public swim facility or lido.”

Elsewhere in London, the busiest train station – London Liverpool Street – has revealed its latest renovation plans.

And we went down to the newest immersive attraction in the city – here’s what we thought.

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Wallis Simpson is like the Battle of the Somme: so much has already been written, yet there still seems to be more to say. Do we really need another book about the twice-divorced woman for whom a king gave up his throne, the duchess who died demented, alone and unloved in Paris?

Well, as it happens, yes. The widespread contempt that Wallis attracted in her adopted country was largely based on the putative “China Dossier”, a document which, if it ever existed at all, is now lost.

In Her Lotus Year, Shanghai-based historian Paul French writes that it was probably the “lascivious fabrication of someone in Special Branch or MI5”, disseminated in the 1930s to discredit her and put a stop to her burgeoning affair with the Prince of Wales. Detailed and disdainful, the dossier suggested she was promiscuous and predatory; that she had an affair with Mussolini’s fascist son-in-law; that she attracted her myriad lovers by using recondite sexual tricks learned in the brothels of Shanghai. And much more.

French is a fine and compelling writer, acclaimed author of a dozen books about old China. His painstaking, forensic research proves beyond reasonable doubt that although there was some truth in these sly and scandalous tales, none of them could have involved Wallis: the dates simply do not add up. She was certainly no angel, but nor was she the monster created by an establishment whispering campaign.

Peking was the kind of thrilling, romantic place you could now only visit in your dreams, as poor Wallis probably did in the punishing years of her final marriage

The story begins in September 1924, when Bessie Wallis Winfield Spencer sailed into Hong Kong harbour where her estranged husband Earl Winfield Spencer Jnr, known as Win, was awaiting her. Seconded to the navy from the air force, Win apparently thought he might save his marriage, though he soon relapsed into morose drunkenness. When he was posted to Canton, Wallis followed him, maybe for one last try. There, however, he became violent, and she realised that divorce was inevitable. Hoping, in vain, to obtain a decree from the American court, she moved on to Shanghai, and then to Peking.

French suggests an interesting reason for her travels. China was riven by fierce battles between rival warlords, backed by various foreign powers. Some names, like Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen, are familiar: others are known by nicknames. Chang Tsung-chan was familiarly known as the Three-Don’t-Knows General, since he couldn’t keep count of how much money, how many soldiers and how many concubines he had.

But it was no joke to travel through this bandit country. All rail journeys were cancelled, yet Wallis got through, on English or American ships, and was generally met on arrival, usually by influential men. French thinks she may well have been acting as a courier, passing information between European and American diplomatic legations, and he makes a good case for it. In fact, he presents a pretty good case for Simpson having been not only competent but genuinely admirable, even — almost — likeable.

There is no doubt that she fell on her feet. She often stayed in beautiful hotels and seemed always to meet helpful, generous people, especially in Peking. Her time there forms the best part of the whole story. Always adventurous, she rode at dawn along the Tartar Wall, picnicked in splendour in old Buddhist temples in the Western hills and discovered all the elements of the distinctive style that she was to make her own. She made money from playing poker and bridge and spent it buying cloisonné, silks, screens and jewellery.

It was the kind of thrilling, magical, romantic place you could now only visit in your dreams, as poor Wallis probably did in the punishing years of her final marriage, which offered her, after so much turmoil, something less than a fairytale ending. She once was heard to remark: “You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance”.

Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson by Paul French, Elliott & Thompson £25, 304 pages

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