PARIS // The French government expressed outrage at a report that the US National Security Agency eavesdropped on millions of phone calls inside France and demanded that the US halt the spying.
The Foreign Ministry in Paris summoned the US ambassador after Le Monde, using documents disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, reported that the US intercepted and recorded 70.3 million bits of “telecommunications data” between December 10, 2012, and January 8, 2013.
“This type of practice between partners that intrudes on the private sphere is totally unacceptable,” French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Luxembourg today. “We have to see to it very quickly that this practice ceases.”
Allegations based on data provided by Mr Snowden, who was granted asylum by Russia as he faces espionage charges in the US, have stirred tensions between the US and countries including Germany and Brazil.
The US embassy in Paris declined to comment through a spokesman that the ambassador, Charles Rivkin, was called in to the French foreign ministry.
Le Monde said NSA targets included undersea cables and Internet infrastructure operated by Alcatel-Lucent SA and Wanadoo, now owned by Orange SA.
Valerie La Gamba, a Paris-based spokeswoman for Alcatel-Lucent, declined to comment in an email. A spokesman for Orange wasn’t immediately available.
* Bloomberg
It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
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