The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on Friday promised a greener and more healthy British capital by imposing prohibitively high charges on polluting lorries and improving access to more local and organic food.
Calling it the the most radical overhaul of Londoners' diet and health since the establishment of the welfare state, Livingstone said he wanted his new food strategy for London to become a blueprint for other cities, not just around Britain, but also the world, just as the congestion charge had done which costs UK?8 (US$14) a day to bring a car into central London.
Addressing the Soil Association's conference on food and farming he said: "The energy and emissions involved in producing food account for 22 percent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions."
"I want London to set a standard for other cities around the world to follow in reducing its own contribution to climate change. How we deal with food will play an important role in this," Livingstone said.
His food strategy for London included cutting the amount of food transportation with the help of "prohibitively high" charges for polluting lorries.
By 2008 he hopes to introduce a low emission zone in London with very high charges for vehicles producing high greenhouse gas emissions, and punitive fines for those failing to pay;
Livingstone also wants to encourage schools and hospitals to buy more local and organic food. Five London state-run hospitals are experimenting with sustainable procurement.
"The power of public procurement will be used to transform food markets and drive sustainability," he said.
The mayor talked about the use of planning policies to end "food deserts" in poor areas where there are whole neighborhoods "where you cannot buy a single piece of fresh food." Death rates from heart disease are twice as high in the poorer East End of London as in the west. Improving food access was vital to tackling "health inequalities,"he added.
Overall, the mayor said he was setting a target to cut London's greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050. He predicted a fight over the low emission zones.
Meanwhile on Thursday evening, the Conservative party's national leader David Cameron chose the organic farmers' conference in London to declare himself in favor of organic production, and to identify himself with consumers' concerns over GM foods and diet.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of