United Kingdom

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5586412

Fig. 2: Relative environmental footprint from GHG emissions of diet groups in comparison to high meat-eaters (>100 g d−1).

Fig. 3: Relative environmental footprint from GWP100, land use, water use, eutrophication potential and biodiversity impact of diet groups in comparison to high meat-eaters (>100 g d−1).

Appreciate the people taking part trying to keep this on the agenda. May be a few years before we'll see any progress but these people are keeping us on the right path, however long it is.

Brand claims that the UK Government and "the media" are out to get him!

Shot dead on her doorstep 24 years ago, and the killer is still at large.

Britain pitched itself to the world Friday as a ready leader in shaping an international response to the rise of artificial intelligence, with Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden telling the U.N. General Assembly his country was “determined to be in the vanguard.”

Touting the United Kingdom's tech companies, its universities and even Industrial Revolution-era innovations, he said the nation has “the grounding to make AI a success and make it safe.” He went on to suggest that a British AI task force, which is working on methods for assessing AI systems' vulnerability, could develop expertise to offer internationally.

His remarks at the assembly's annual meeting of world leaders previewed an AI safety summit that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is convening in November. Dowden's speech also came as other countries and multinational groups — including the European Union, the bloc that Britain left in 2020 — are making moves on artificial intelligence.

The EU this year passed pioneering regulations that set requirements and controls based on the level of risk that any given AI system poses, from low (such as spam filters) to unacceptable (for example, an interactive, children's toy that talks up dangerous activities).

The U.N., meanwhile, is pulling together an advisory board to make recommendations on structuring international rules for artificial intelligence. Members will be appointed this month, Secretary-General António Guterres told the General Assembly on Tuesday; the group's first take on a report is due by the end of the year.

Major U.S. tech companies have acknowledged a need for AI regulations, though their ideas on the particulars vary. And in Europe, a roster of big companies ranging from French jetmaker Airbus to to Dutch beer giant Heineken signed an open letter to urging the EU to reconsider its rules, saying it would put European companies at a disadvantage.

“The starting gun has been fired on a globally competitive race in which individual companies as well as countries will strive to push the boundaries as far and fast as possible," Dowden said. He argued that “the most important actions we will take will be international.”

Listing hoped-for benefits — such improving disease detection and productivity — alongside artificial intelligence's potential to wreak havoc with deepfakes, cyberattacks and more, Dowden urged leaders not to get “trapped in debates about whether AI is a tool for good or a tool for ill.”

"It will be a tool for both,” he said.

It's “exciting. Daunting. Inexorable,” Dowden said, and the technology will test the international community “to show that it can work together on a question that will help to define the fate of humanity.”

Suppliers should treat customers with compassion, an Ofgem spokesperson said, adding that it was keeping standing charges under review.

Energy UK said suppliers had increased support "during a very difficult time for its customers over the last 18 months".

This includes "emergency credit, offers of payment holidays and altered repayment arrangements".

Customers may also be able to get direct financial assistance through suppliers' funds, "which are often run in partnership with charities and consumer groups who can also offer specialist support and advice", a spokesperson said.

"An extended period of record bills has seen an unprecedented number of customers seeking support with call volumes quadrupling and an accompanying increase in the time taken to resolve challenging and complex cases," the spokesperson added.

So energy firms have expanded customer service teams and set up specialist teams "to deal with the most challenging cases".

"Suppliers will continue to do all they can to support customers struggling with bills but in the middle of a wider cost-of-living and affordability crisis, they alone cannot provide all the help people need," the spokesperson said.

Mark Garnier, who is also on the MP committee, said that while the government "did step up to the plate last year" it now "needs to give some assurances on support to vulnerable households".

Met Office issues severe weather warnings as heavy rains set to return

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/479123

Rishi Sunak is considering introducing some of the world’s toughest anti-smoking measures that would in effect ban the next generation from ever being able to buy cigarettes, the Guardian has learned.

Whitehall sources said the prime minister was looking at measures similar to those brought in by New Zealand last December. They involved steadily increasing the legal smoking age so tobacco would end up never being sold to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009.

In a positive development for Microsoft, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has "provisionally concluded" the company's revised deal to purchase Activision Blizzard will be enough to grant approval.

Back in April, the CMA made the shock decision to block Microsoft's proposed deal to acquire the Call of Duty maker. At this time, the regulatory body cited concerns relating to the cloud gaming sector, stating that the deal risked "stifling competition in this growing market".

In August, Microsoft submitted a revised proposal in a bid to appease the regulator, saying it would now sell the streaming rights for all Activision Blizzard games released in the next 15 years to Ubisoft should the new deal be accepted.

The Grayzone can now reveal that YouTube’s financial censorship of Brand is the result of an effort waged by a former British government minister who was responsible for London’s crackdown on dissent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her husband has also participated in that campaign of state repression as deputy commander of 77th Brigade, the British Army’s psychological warfare division.

...

New developments suggest YouTube’s censorship of Brand was driven by direct British government decree. On September 19, the social media companies TikTok and Rumble received a pair of almost identical letters dispatched from Caroline Dinenage, the head of the UK parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Dinenage informed the companies she was “concerned that [Brand] may be able to profit from his content” published on both platforms.

...

Caroline Dinenage served as the UK government’s Digital and Culture minister from February 2020 to September 2021, making her de facto chief of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

In this capacity, she was personally responsible for overseeing construction of the repressive, World Economic Forum-endorsed Online Safety Bill, which has been criticized by rights groups for threatening the rights to free expression, and privacy.

...

Moreover, during this period, the DCMS was home to the shadowy, intelligence official-run Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU), which policed “COVID-19 disinformation narratives” online.

Investigations by the civil liberties organization Big Brother Watch have revealed that instead of suppressing content that posed risks to public health, the CDU was preoccupied with censoring and deplatforming reasonable online criticisms of the British government’s Covid-19 response, including opposition to lockdowns and vaccine passports.

According to an official fact sheet, the CDU’s focus turned to the Ukraine proxy war in 2022, and particularly to targeting content suggesting “the Bucha massacre and the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, were both hoaxes.”

Dinenage’s husband is Mark Lancaster, a fellow information warrior dedicated to advancing the propaganda goals of the British government. Lancaster reportedly left his wife and four-month-old daughter in 2013 when he began dating Dinenage, who was herself married at the time to a British Naval officer.

A former Conservative MP and Armed Forces minister, Lancaster helped lead London’s blitz on pandemic dissent as deputy commander of the British Army’s 77th Brigade between June 2018 and July 2022.

Specialized in “behaviour and attitudinal change,” the 77th Brigade maintains a vast militia of real, fake, and automated social media accounts to disseminate and amplify pro-state messaging, and discredit domestic and foreign enemies.

During the pandemic, the 77th Brigade targeted people within Britain and across the West with advanced psychological manipulation strategies honed on battlefields against enemy militaries. The online profile of a 77th Brigade veteran notes they were deployed straight from a tour of the Middle East – where they “successfully implemented behavioral change strategies against ISIS” – to “countering dis- and misinformation during the Covid-19 crisis.”

However, in January, an ex-Brigade whistleblower revealed how the Ministry of Defence and RRU routinely circumvented British law to advance the government’s crusade against pandemic dissent:

“To skirt the legal difficulties of a military unit monitoring domestic dissent, the view was that unless a profile explicitly stated their real name and nationality, they could be a foreign agent and were fair game. But it is quite obvious that our activities resulted in the monitoring of the UK population…These posts did not contain information that was untrue or coordinated [emphasis added].”

The PPF is not meant to be a piggy bank for companies that are badly ran. Aside from the proposals in the article, the PPF should have legal powers to draw back some of that lost money from people who have profited from firms, that have not protected pensions, while knowing they were going into liquidation. This sort of egregious disregard for the well being of employees is why the PPF was introduced in the first place after the Maxwell scandals.

At least 25 local councils have now been left responsible for preventing more than 500 Afghans becoming homeless, including 300 children. Some have been allowed to stay in the hotels on a temporary basis but had their meals withdrawn overnight. One man in Bradford said there were no fridges or cooking facilities, meaning he and his family have to rely on takeaways for hot food.