In the last weeks we have been through a series of important global events.

When the global economical crisis began to lose strength and the European Union and United States started a timid recovery, the political crisis in the Middle East exploded in a very brutal way, clamoring for democracy. A significant number of casualties together with an uncertainty about the future in those countries leads us to consider what is really happening there.  The social networks played an important role and this is a new variable in geopolitics, but only years from now we will learn with more clarity what has happened and what the consequences will be.

In Brazil we have also had some disturbing events, but of natural origin. A downpour of record-breaking volume fell over a tourist mountain region near the city of Rio.  It caused a series of landslides that changed the relief, the courses of rivers and more than eight hundred deaths. We are dealing with the consequences but it will take us a long time to recover.

In other aspects, for example economics, the situation is a little better than in the northern hemisphere. Last year we had elections for President and, for the first time in our history, a woman was elected President. She was the Chief of Staff of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who left the position with an unbelievable approval rating of 82% after 8 years of leadership. 

With the new government a huge dance of chairs is taking place and no one in a public position is certain about where one will be in the next months. But this is no reason to lose confidence in a bright future. With the recent discovery of giant deep-sea oil reserves, the so-called pre salt, energy sources are not a concern. [“Pre-salt oil” lies beneath a layer of compressed salt that sits 1.8 miles beneath the ocean surface and another 3 miles beneath the ocean floor.] Perhaps it could cause a delay in the construction of new nuclear power plants, but this is a good dilemma.

We are almost ready to start the calls for our next Radiation Physics Symposium. During the eleventh ISRP, in Melbourne, I proposed Salvador, Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil, as the city to host the symposium. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find a suitable team and place to run the event. We decided then to run the conference in Rio, and the Workshop, focused in dosimetry for radioprotection, in São Paulo. The venue is very nice and we hope to be able to organize a symposium as good as the former ones.

As a last word, I should say that my idea to share this space with the other members of the council was not a very bright one, as Mic Farquharson pointed out in a previous issue.  However, I will always make Bulletin space available to society and council members who have something to say that will benefit the rest. Just send me a letter.

 O. D. Gonçalves