Canada lifts jab mandate for domestic and overseas travel

Canada's federal government is lifting vaccine requirements for

travellers on domestic and outbound trains and planes, officials announced
on Tuesday

With infections rapidly declining and with around 81% of the

population fully vaccinated, officials said they could rescind the eight-
month old mandate.The requirement that federal workers be
vaccinated has also been suspended.The new rules are due to take
effect on 20 June, Ottawa ministers said in a statement.Since 30
October 2021, anyone over the age of 12 has been required to be
vaccinated against Covid-19 to board a plane or train in
Canada.Passengers will still be required to wear masks during travel.
The announcement comes a day after Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau tested positive for Covid for the second time in six months.
Last week, the country said it would suspend random testing at
airports for the rest of June in order to ease the long queues that have
been forming as more Canadians return to air travel. Unvaccinated
Canadians may still face barriers as certain countries, including the
United States, require vaccinations for most foreigners.Returning un-
jabbed Canadians will also be required to quarantine when they get
home. Non-Canadians must still be vaccinated in order to be allowed
into the country, or otherwise face required testing.However, "due to
the unique nature of cruise ship travel," the vaccination requirements
for cruise ship travellers will remain in effect, a government statement
said. Conservative ministers and business and tourisms groups have
been calling for months for remaining federal Covid mandates to be
lifted.

Covid: US to drop test requirement for air travelers

The US will no longer require air travellers to have proof of a negative Covid-19 test
before entering the country from abroad.

Officials said they were dropping the requirement due to the

"tremendous progress" the country had made in the fight against the
virus. The travel industry has been pushing for an end to the policy,
which they say has deterred bookings, as families fear getting
stranded abroad.The change comes into effect on Sunday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will re-
evaluate the policy in 90 days. The administration said it would "not
hesitate to act" to reinstate the rule should new variants make
officials believe it is necessary.

"We are able to take this step because of the tremendous

progress we've made in our fight against the virus: We have made
lifesaving vaccines and treatments widely available and these tools
are working to prevent serious illness and death, and are effective
against the prevalent variants circulating in the US and around the
world," a senior official told reporters.

The US introduced rules requiring air travellers to test negative

within three days of their flight - or provide proof of recent recovery
from the virus - in January 2021. US President Joe Biden tightened the
policy to within one day of flying in December, as the Omicron variant
pushed virus cases higher.The testing measure did not apply to land
crossings. Most non-US citizens must still be vaccinated to travel to
the country.The number of Covid cases in the US has dropped sharply
since January, though the figures had started to rise again in recent
weeks before plateauing. Deaths remain much lower than during the
height of the pandemic because of the impact of the vaccination
programme.

The travel sector, which has seen demand surge as concerns

about the pandemic wane, has said the US has lagged behind other
countries in re-evaluating testing policies.
The UK removed all Covid-19 test requirements for travel in March, as did Canada.
Italy ended its testing requirements this month.

On Friday, Canada also said it would pause random Covid testing

at airports for the rest of June in order to reduce wait times for
travellers.US Travel Association president Roger Dow said the change
in policy would "accelerate the recovery of the US travel industry",
while the International Air Transport Association said it was "great
news" the "ineffective" measure was being dropped. Airline Virgin
Atlantic also welcomed the move, saying it would "boost consumer
confidence even further and support the rebound in transatlantic travel
this summer".
 The US has been slowly easing Covid national restrictions. Last
November, it lifted restrictions on travellers from more than 30
countries, including the UK, after a more than 18-month ban.In April, the
US dropped its requirement that passengers wear masks on planes
after a court voided the CDC's mandate.

According to research by the US Travel Association, eliminating

the test requirement is likely to bring an additional 5.4 million visitors
to the US this year, boosting travel spending by 12%,"Today marks
another huge step forward for the recovery of inbound air travel and
the return of international travel to the United States," Mr Dow said.

How to turn your garden into a carbon sink

Frompatchesofwildernesstodecomposingplants,turningyourgardenintoacarbonsinkisn’tjustaboutaddinglotsof
trees.
During World War Two, the UK ministry of agriculture encouraged gardeners to
"Dig for Victory" and grow their own vegetables to help feed the country. Allotments
sprung up in private gardens and public parks – even the lawns outside the Tower of
London were transformed into vegetable patches. Almost 100 years later, the "Dig for
Victory" slogan has been repurposed by the UK's Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
The gardening charity aimed to mobilise the biggest gardening army since World War
Two to fight the biggest threat of the 21st Century: climate change. The tools at their
disposal? Planting trees, using rainwater instead of sprinklers, and making compost.

If every one of the UK's 30 million gardeners planted one medium-sized tree and
let it grow to maturity, they would store the same amount of carbon as is produced by
driving 284 billion miles (457 billion km), 11 million times around the planet, research by
the RHS shows. If every gardener produced 190kg of compost each year, they would
save the amount of carbon produced by heating half a million homes for a year.
 As governments and companies race to slash their emissions, there is increasing
interest in the ability of natural landscapes, such as forests, wetlands and mangroves, to
protect against the risks posed by climate change. Horticulturalists say the humble
garden can also serve as a powerful tool in this fight.

"Gardens are becoming shop windows for the wider environment, demonstrating
the dangers of pests and threats of climate change and showing what can be done to
tackle it," says Simon Toomer, curator of living collections at Kew Gardens in the UK.To
cope with climate change, gardens must become more resilient to hotter and drier
conditions in the summer and more rainfall in the winter, the RHS warns.

The ideal low-carbon garden has a wildness to it. It is packed with plants and
teeming with life. The gardener in this sustainable haven is equally mindful of nurturing
life below the ground as she is of tending to her flower displays and shrubs. She
recycles every grass clipping, fallen leaf and broken twig within the garden and avoids
toxic chemicals to boost plant growth, relying instead on home-made compost and living
mulch to create a thriving habitat.

Wild lawns

"In the past everyone wanted a pristine lawn, but now there's a big movement in
gardening for more natural landscapes which is really quite exciting," says Justin Moat,
senior research leader on Kew Gardens' Nature Unlocked programme, which explores
nature-based solutions to climate change and food security.

We need to put up with scruffy lawns," says Moat. This may be wishful thinking,
as BBC Future revealed recently: we appear addicted to manicured lawns (read more
about their strange appeal and the people who think we should get rid of them).In the
UK, gardeners were recently encouraged to let nature take its course during "No Mow
May". Environmentalists say if left alone, lawns could become thriving wildlife hotspots.
Given that an estimated 23% of urban land is covered by lawns, there is great potential
for them to help fight the global biodiversity crisis.
 Leaving the lawn mower in the shed also benefits the climate. One of the most
important things gardeners can do in the short-term is reduce their energy consumption,
from lawn mowers and sprinklers, says Toomer. Operating a petrol lawn mower for one
hour releases as much smog-forming pollution as driving for 160km (100 miles), says
the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

Sally Nex, a professional gardener and author of the book How to Garden the
Low Carbon Way, switched her petrol mower for a battery-powered one years ago after
learning how many toxic fumes it spews out. "There's no regulation on the maximum
emissions for petrol powered tools – it's really shocking," says Nex. Other gardening
tools are just as polluting as mowers. Using a petrol-powered leaf blower produces the
same amount of emissions as a 1,770km (1,100 mile) car journey – the distance from
Los Angeles to Denver – according to CARB.

Trapping carbon

Moat says the Nature Unlocked programme has highlighted the "phenomenal"
power soil has to transform our gardens into biodiverse havens that can help mitigate
climate change.

"So much more is happening underground than above it," he says. "We need
healthy soil for our food production and we need it to trap carbon."Replenishing and
restoring the world's soils – both in farming and natural landscapes – could help remove
up to 5.5 billion tonnes of CO2e every year, according to a 2020 study. That is
equivalent to the annual greenhouse emissions of the US, the world's second largest
polluter, in 2020.

Healthy soil offsets emissions by soaking up carbon from dead plant matter. To
lock in as much carbon as possible, soil needs a good balance of water, pockets of air,
living organisms, such as fungi, and nutrients. Gardeners maintain this balance by
constantly adding organic material to their soil.

"I compare it to a carbon checking and savings account," says Andrea Basche,
assistant professor at the department of agronomy and horticulture at University of
Nebraska. "You need a constant input of decaying plant matter and roots into the soil
checking account to feed all the living organisms."

Gardeners shouldn't press the soil down too much or use heavy equipment when
it's wet as this will cause it to become compacted, closing vital air pockets and
preventing water from draining, Gush says.If left bare and exposed to the elements, soil
will degrade and its carbon stocks will deplete. Covering the bare soil with plants, such
as clover, and mulches – loose coverings of biodegradeable materials – is therefore key
to prevent CO2 from seeping into the atmosphere, Gush says.

A recent study by Penn State University found that cover crops were more
effective at protecting corn and soybeans from pests than applying pesticides. Mulching
has transformed Nex's garden. "When I stopped digging and started mulching, I realised
my topsoil was getting deeper and deeper," she says. "The soil is black and teeming
with life it's very rewarding. Mulching also suppresses weeds, helps soil retain moisture
and protects plant roots from extreme temperatures. Fallen leaves and broken twigs
don't need to be removed from flower beds but can be treated as "living mulches",
which are contributing vital nutrients to the soil. "Essentially leave any organic matter to
feed into the soil," says Toam.

Living mulches can also reduce gardeners' reliance on nitrogen fertilisers, many
of which have a high carbon footprint. Basche says farmers in Nebraska are having to
use less fertiliser on their crops after growing a cover crop and using living mulches for
several years. Legumes, such as beans and peas, act as a green manure by adding
valuable nitrogen – vital for plant growth – to the soil when they decompose. Introducing
a legume crop for one year at a cereal farm in Scotland could reduce the amount of
nitrogen fertiliser needed over the entire five-year cycle by almost 50%, according to a
2021 study.

An easy way to enrich your soil is by adding homemade compost. Healthy

compost should contain a 50:50 mix of materials that are rich in nitrogen, such as grass
clippings and vegetable peels, and carbon, such as woody stems and paper towels.
 Composting also allows you to discard any leftover food in a sustainable way.
When dumped into landfill without oxygen, food waste rots and releases methane, a
highly potent greenhouse gas which, although shorter-lived in the atmosphere, has a
global warming impact 84 times higher than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year
period. But on a compost heap, exposed to oxygen, organic waste is converted into
stable soil carbon, while retaining the water and nutrients of the original matter. Food
which is composted releases just 14% the greenhouse gases of food that is thrown
away.

"I dispose of all my garden waste, vegetables and peelings in the garden. Every
time I harvest vegetables or prune roses, I'm removing carbon from the garden, so it's
important to return that carbon to the soil," says Nex. Compost heaps must be turned
regularly – the RHS recommends once a month – to add air to the biomass and keep it
moist. Garden compost can take up to two years to reach maturity, when it turns a dark
brown colour, has a crumbly texture and smells like damp woodland.

If you plan on buying compost, avoid one containing peat, says Gush. Peatlands
cover just 3% of the planet's surface, but store twice as much carbon as all the world's
forests. They lock in carbon over thousands of years, with 1cm of peat forming roughly
every 10 years. Peat bogs are very important sinks, they have accumulated carbon over
millennia," says Gush. "As soon as they are drained and the peat is exposed to the air,
carbon is unlocked and released back into the atmosphere."

The UK government said last year it plans to ban the sale of peat compost to
gardeners by 2024, but critics warn that the two-year delay will add more than 1.5
million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere – the equivalent of the annual emissions of
214,000 UK residents.
Plant abundance
While some gardeners might desire a uniform look for their flower beds and
lawns, growing a wide range of plants is beneficial if you are looking to transform your
garden into a miniature carbon sink.
 Plant diversity has been shown to increase productivity and the amount of carbon
stored in the soil. "Increased plant diversity boosts carbon sequestration by optimising
use of available space in a garden, both above-ground and below-ground," says Gush.
It's important to grow layer plants in your garden and grow crops with roots that will
reach different depths so that they can penetrate all parts of the soil and spread
nutrients around. "This facilitates maximum carbon drawdown," says Gush.

For those on a mission to transform their gardens into a carbon sink, growing
long-lived trees seems like the most obvious option. To make your garden climate-
resilient, the RHS recommends planting a mix of drought-tolerant trees, such as snow
gum and holm oak, and ones that can withstand waterlogging, such as red maple
and golden willow.

But trees are far from the only plants that can help offset your garden's carbon
footprint. Native grasses have extensive root systems – reaching more than 2ft into the
ground – and act as reservoirs for carbon, which transfers into the soil when the roots
die and decompose.

Woody shrubs, such as spindle and sweet briar and herbs like rosemary and
thyme, can help boost your garden's carbon stocks, Nex recommends in her book. If
you're set on sprucing up your garden with colourful crops, it's best to steer clear of
annual flowers which need to be dug up every year – releasing locked-in carbon in the
process – and opt for hardy perennials instead, such as peonies and sunflowers, says
Nex. Planting hedges is another worthwhile investment. A well-grown hedge, rich in
biomass, helps suck carbon out of the atmosphere and into plants and soil. One study
found that hedgerows store similar amounts of carbon to woodland. Hedges also
harbour rich biodiversity and are teeming with wildlife. A British ecologist who monitored
an old hedgerow near his home in Devon counted a remarkable 2,070 species, ranging
from pollinators to lizards and mammals, visiting or residing there.
 Ponds may also play an important role in gardens' fight against climate change.
One study of small, lowland ponds in north-east England found that they stored much
higher rates of carbon (79 to 247g per square metre per year) compared to surrounding
woodland or grassland (2-5g).

However, not all ponds act as carbon sinks. A US study found that man-made
ponds collecting stormwater run-off in Florida emit more carbon than they store in their
mucky sediment. That finding means some ponds are doing us an ecosystem
'disservice,'" Mary Lusk, the study's co-author and assistant professor of water and soil
sciences at the University of Florida, said when the study was published. "Our results
suggest that when they're new, [the ponds] emit large proportions of carbon from the
landscape."

Ponds can also emit large amounts of potent methane into the atmosphere. One
study by the University of Exeter concluded that ponds smaller than one square
metre are responsible for releasing around 40% of all methane emissions from inland
waters. However, not all environmental benefits are about carbon – and ponds come
with many other advantages, such as boosting biodiversity. In fact, some charities say
that adding a pond to your garden is one of the best things you can do for wildlife (more
on this later in the series).

"If you are disturbing the sludge at the bottom of the pond, your pond will release
more methane than it will absorb carbon," says Nex. To keep the noxious gas
contained, Nex recommends removing dead foliage from your pond surface as rotting
debris will give off methane and netting it in the autumn. Gardeners who adopt low-
carbon practices will be rewarded with thriving biodiversity and borders brimming with
lush plants."My plants now grow so much better. It's very flattering to me as I'm not
doing very much!" says Nex. "It has really improved the appearance of my garden – it's
quite breath-taking actually."

Uvalde shooting: Robb Elementary School to be demolished –

mayor
Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas - where a gunman killed 19 students and two
teachers - will be demolished, the city's mayor has said.
Don McLaughlin made the claim on Tuesday at a tense and
emotional council meeting with residents demanding answers over the
shooting.He did not say when the school would be demolished. Public
anger has risen since the May rampage, with police accused of waiting
over an hour to confront the assailant. "My understanding - and I had
this discussion with the superintendent - is that school will be
demolished. You can never ask a child to go back or teacher to go
back in that school ever," Mr McLaughlin said.
Robb Elementary has nearly 600 students in the second, third and
fourth grades.

US President Joe Biden had suggested knocking down the

school, State Senator Roland Gutierrez told local media last month.
Robb Elementary will not be the first school to be demolished after a
mass shooting. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut, was razed after 20 students aged six and seven years old
and six staff members were shot in 2012. A new school was built on
the same land.

Texas's public safety chief said on Tuesday there were enough

police on the scene in Uvalde to have stopped the gunman three
minutes after he entered the building. But police waited for more than
an hour outside classrooms before a team made entry.
Steven McCraw told a state Senate hearing the police response was
an "abject failure" and accused the on-scene commander of putting
officers' lives above the children's.
The attack by an 18-year-old - identified as Salvador Ramos - has led to
renewed national debate about gun regulations. US Senators on
Tuesday advanced new legislation to address mass shootings in what
has been called the most significant new gun controls in a generation.

Fears grow for summer holidays after flight cancellations

Cancelled flights and delays at airports are fuelling anxiety among UK holidaymakers
ahead of the key summer season, travel agents have warned.
Advantage Travel Partnership, a network of travel agents, said
30% of calls to its members were from people worried about future
bookings.Thousands of travellers are thought to be stuck abroad after
flight cancellations over the Jubilee weekend.The disruption is being
driven by staff shortages across the aviation industry. The problems
are taking time to resolve and Advantage's chief executive warned
there were "no guarantees" the situation would have improved by the
summer.
"Thirty per cent of everything my members are dealing with right
now are calls from very anxious holidaymakers who have bookings,
whose travel plans, as far as we know right now, will take place, but
they are anxious because obviously they're hearing all [about] the
disruption," said Julia Lo Bue-Said. Ms Bue-Said said airlines were
already employing new staff, many of whom were already undergoing
training, and that she hoped the industry would be ready by the busy
summer period.

However, Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, a union

representing staff working in airports and across aviation engineering,
said recent cancellations were having a "really damaging impact" on
people's confidence."It would be difficult to give anybody the
confidence at the present minute, that we are going to be okay by the
school holidays in July," he told the BBC's Today programme. A
sustainable long-term plan for the industry if the problems are to be
resolved, he said, including better pay and conditions for workers in
the sector.
Up to two million people were scheduled to fly to and from the
UK over the bank holiday weekend, and the vast majority of flights
have operated as expected.
But several airlines have cancelled flights, with EasyJet scrapping a
further 37 journeys on Monday.
According to aviation data firm Cirium, 305 flights departing the
UK were cancelled out of total of 10,662 scheduled flights over the
Jubilee weekend. Most journeys - some 114 flights - were axed on
Sunday and the airports worst affected were London Gatwick, London
Luton and Bristol. EasyJet cancelled the most flights on Sunday,
totalling 64, while Wizz Air cancelled 15 departing flights and BA axed
eight.

Families have been particularly affected by Sunday's disruption,

with children stranded abroad as schools return and the exam season
begins. Cirium said 189 international flights were cancelled to the UK
over the long weekend, with the majority from the Netherlands (39
flights), Spain and the Canary Islands (24), France (24) and Germany
(21).
Overbooking and cuts
Airlines are being blamed for taking more bookings than they can
manage following steep staff cuts during the height of Covid when
travel ground to a halt.
But industry leaders have argued the government could have done
more to support the sector during the pandemic.
It has also called for immigration rules on hiring overseas
workers to be relaxed to plug staff shortages, but Transport Secretary
Grant Shapps ruled out such a move.
Mr Shapps said the government had been clear that it was up to
industry leaders to tackle the problems, which were also seen at
Easter, and accused airlines of having "seriously oversold flights and holidays".
Before Covid, airports and airlines across Britain employed around
140,000 people, but since then thousands of jobs have been cut,
including around 30,000 for UK airlines alone.
Mr Clancy, of the Prospect union, said the government was
"culpable" for withdrawing pandemic-related support from airlines too
soon.
But airlines had cut too many jobs, he said, and now needed to find
ways to retain and recruit more workers."Ultimately this means fixing
pay and conditions which have deteriorated significantly in recent
years," Mr Clancy said.

"The problems we are seeing today are the result of a failed

business model, unable to cope with any level of stress in the
system."Unless the government and employers can come up with a
sustainable long term plan for the aviation industry, that supports jobs
and skills, then it is hard to see the situation improving."The
Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) said despite the recent
disruption the "vast majority of people" have been able to fly and it
expected that to be the case for the summer. ABTA urged passengers
to follow advice from airlines and airports for when to arrive for flights,
as "many are arriving well before check-in begins which puts
additional pressure on airport services".

Stuck in Spain
Jen Kassel is currently stranded in Spain with her partner and
three young children after her EasyJet flight was cancelled on Sunday.
She said the family had been given no explanation, but had been
offered accommodation at a hotel in Benalmadena."The kids were
really stressed," she said.
Nikolai Brooks and his wife Vicky, who live near Brighton, have
been stuck at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam since Saturday after their
EasyJet flight was cancelled.
Their new flight for Monday evening has already been delayed by three
hours.
They have had to pay for two extra nights in a hotel near the airport,
which has cost them about £600, not including food, Mr Brooks told
the BBC. "We didn't even get an email through that it had been
cancelled," he said. "It's more frustrating for my wife, she's a teacher
and she was due back for today." In a statement, EasyJet said it was
"very sorry" for flights being cancelled and said the disruption was
caused by "the ongoing challenging operating environment".
"Customers are being provided with options to rebook or receive a
refund, as well as hotel accommodation and meals where required,
along with information on how to arrange this quickly online or via the
app," a spokeswoman said.

Cadbury owner buys US energy bar maker Clif for $2.9bn

The owner of British chocolate brand Cadbury has announced that it is buying US
energy bar maker Clif Bar & Company for $2.9bn (£2.4bn).
Mondelez International - which also owns Oreo, Toblerone and
Milka - says the deal will help drive its plans to "lead the future of
snacking".The food and drinks giant also says it will continue to make
Clif's products at its facilities in Idaho and Indiana. In March, Mondelez
warned over the impact of rising production costs. In a statement on
Monday, the American confectionery maker said the buyout will
increase the value of its snack bar business to over $1bn. It added
that it would continue to operate Clif's business from Emeryville in
California, where the firm is headquartered, once the transaction is
completed later this year.
"We are thrilled to welcome Clif Bar & Company's iconic brands
and passionate employees into the Mondelez International family,"
Mondelez's chairman and chief executive Dirk Van de Put said."This
transaction further advances our ambition to lead the future of
snacking by winning in chocolate, biscuits and baked snacks, as we
continue to scale our high-growth snack bar business," he added.
Clif was founded three decades ago by Gary Erickson, who came
up with the idea to create an energy bar during a 175-mile bike ride,
according to the company's website.
The bar was debuted "after countless hours in mom's kitchen", and
named after Mr Erickson's father and "childhood hero" Clifford.Clif's
chief executive Sally Grimes said Mondelez was "the right partner at
the right time to support Clif in our next chapter of growth". Mondelez -
which has other global brands including Daim, Ritz and Belvita -
reported net revenue of almost $29bn last year.

Rising costs
However, like many of its rivals it is facing increasing costs and
in March said it would cut the size of Cadbury Dairy Milk sharing bars by 10%.It
reduced the bars' size from 200g to 180g, without lowering the price
for customers.

"We look to absorb costs wherever we can, but in this difficult

environment, we've had to make the decision to slightly reduce the
weight of our medium Cadbury Dairy Milk bars for the first time since
2012," a Mondelez spokesperson said.

In April, Swiss food giant Nestle warned that it will continue to increase
the prices of its products because of the rising cost of ingredients.The maker
of KitKats and Nesquik said it had put up its prices by more than 5% in
the first three months of the year.As costs rise, Nestle boss Mark
Schneider said "further pricing and mitigating actions over the course
of the year" will be required.

Energy firms face limit on direct debit overpayment

The UK's energy regulator has announced plans to better protect customers who pay their
bills through direct debit.
 Ofgem accused some firms of using customers' accumulated
credit like an "interest-free company credit card". Proposals include
tightening the rules on the level of direct debits that suppliers can
charge to "ensure credit balances do not become excessive".Ofgem
also wants to protect credit balances when suppliers fail so the costs
are not picked up by customers.
It come after a string of high profile closures linked to high
wholesale oil and gas costs, made worse by the war in Ukraine. Around
30 energy companies have stopped trading in the UK since August last year,
including Bulb which had 1.7 million customers. Ofgem said it wanted
to "prevent the kind of energy supplier failures we saw last year and to
better protect consumers' money if they do fail.

Ofgem added that the closures "put unfair and unnecessary costs
and worry onto consumers", as thousands scrambled to find out who
would fill the gap left by their supplier.Improving the financial health of
energy suppliers over autumn and winter would help reduce the risk of
failures, Ofgem added.The cost of moving customers to new suppliers
since September 2021, including buying extra gas at short notice while
prices were at record highs, as well as replacing lost customer credit
balances and green levy payments, was £94 per household, according
to the regulator.

Under current rules the new supplier does not get customer
credit balances from the failed supplier, so the costs of replacing
these balances are shared across all customer bills.The new plans,
which still need to be finalised through a consultation, would mean
energy companies must protect their customers' money if they go bust
and pass on the funds from accounts which are in credit to the
replacement supplier. Ofgem said it hoped the measures stopped
"risky behaviour" from energy firms.

Jonathan Brearley, chief executive of Ofgem, said: "Today's

proposals will make sure that customers' hard-earned money is
properly protected so that a company must foot the bill if it fails,
rather than consumers picking up the tab."He told the BBC that
"without a doubt" some companies were using credit balances in ways
they should not have last winter."We want to tighten those rules to
make sure that's not happening," he added.
Millions of domestic gas and electricity customers cover their
bills with an identical direct debit payment every month.When they've
paid for more energy than they've actually used, a credit balance
builds up.
About 30 companies have gone bust in the last year. Their
customers were automatically transferred to new suppliers.But, while
their credit balances were honoured, the cost of doing so was covered
by increasing everyone's bill.Now Ofgem is proposing that companies
hold more capital so credit balances are better protected, and the tab
isn't picked up by all billpayers if that supplier collapses. High credit
balances have been a source of long-term frustration to customers,
many of whom feel they simply provide a free loan to their supplier.The
regulator says these proposals should prevent excessive
overpayments from ever building up.
 Citizens Advice said it was correct for Ofgem to tighten the rules
which, up to now, had left customers picking up the cost of
companies' failures."Ofgem has previously allowed energy suppliers to
run risky business models. We're glad that it has listened to our
warnings and is taking necessary steps to tackle some of the root
causes of these issues," said Gillian Cooper, the charity's head of
energy policy.

Chris O'Shea, chief executive Centrica - the owner of British Gas,

said his company had already voluntarily ring-fenced customers' credit
balances, and said regulation needed to be faster."We welcome this
consultation but we are worried at the length of time it is taking to
make the changes necessary and we urge Ofgem to work with greater
urgency to protect customers fully and to prevent the events of last
year ever happening again," he said.

Wholesale prices
The proposals mark the next step in Ofgem's wider plan to curb
energy failures, which already include stricter entry requirements for
new suppliers, and carrying out regular "stress tests" - to ensure
companies are financially fit to run.
Prices for oil and gas have soared in recent months, fuelled by
the lifting of lockdowns and the Ukraine war. Food and fuel costs are
also rising, with consumer prices increasing at their fastest rate in 40
years. The typical UK energy bill is set to see a further rise of £800 in October,
when the energy price cap - the maximum price which suppliers can
charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales - increases again.
Afghanistan quake: Taliban appeal for international aid

The Taliban in Afghanistan have appealed for international support, as the country
deals with the aftermath of a devastating 6.1 magnitude earthquake.

More than 1,000 people have died and at least 1,500 were
injured, a local official said.Paktika province in the south-east has
been the most affected. The UN is scrambling to provide emergency
shelter and food aid.The rescue efforts are being hampered by heavy
rain and hail.The deadliest earthquake to strike the country in two decades is a major
challenge for the Taliban, the Islamist movement which regained
power last year after the Western-backed government collapsed.

The earthquake struck about 44km (27 miles) from the city of
Khost and tremors were felt as far away as Pakistan and India.
Witnesses reported feeling the quake in both Afghanistan's capital,
Kabul, and Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. The government sadly is
under sanctions so it is financially unable to assist the people to the
extent that is needed," said Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a senior Taliban
official.
"International relief agencies are helping, neighbouring
countries, regional countries, and world countries have offered their
assistance which we appreciate and welcome.The assistance needs
to be scaled up to a very large extent because this is a devastating
earthquake which hasn't been experienced in decades." The number of
people stuck under rubble is unknown. Health and aid workers have
said the rescue operation is particularly difficult because of the heavy
rain.In remote areas, helicopters have been ferrying victims to
 hospitals. The UN and aid agencies in neighbouring Pakistan are
assisting with the humanitarian effort, which includes deploying
medical teams and providing medical supplies.
One humanitarian aid agency, Intersos, said it was ready to send
an emergency medical team consisting of two surgeons, an
anaesthetist and two nurses. Most of the casualties so far have been
in the Gayan and Barmal districts of Paktika, a local doctor told the
BBC. A whole village in Gayan has reportedly been destroyed. There
was a rumbling and my bed began to shake", one survivor, Shabir, told
the BBC.The ceiling fell down. I was trapped, but I could see the sky.
My shoulder was dislocated, my head was hurt but I got out. I am sure
that seven or nine people from my family, who were in the same room
as me, are dead".
 'Every street you go you hear mourning'

Speaking to the BBC, a doctor in Paktika said medical workers

were among the victims."We didn't have enough people and facilities
before the earthquake, and now the earthquake has ruined the little
we had," they said. "I don't know how many of our colleagues are still
alive. Communication following the quake is difficult because of
damage to mobile phone towers and the death toll could rise further
still, another local journalist in the area told the BBC. Many people are
not aware of the well-being of their relatives because their phones are
not working," he said. "My brother and his family died, and I just
learned it after many hours. Many villages have been destroyed."

Afghanistan is prone to quakes, as it is located in a tectonically

active region, over a number of fault lines including the Chaman fault,
the Hari Rud fault, the Central Badakhshan fault and the Darvaz fault.
Over the past decade more than 7,000 people have been killed in
earthquakes in the country, the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs reports. There are an average of 560 deaths a
year from earthquakes. Most recently, back-to-back earthquakes in the country's
west in January killed more than 20 people and destroyed hundreds of
houses. Even before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan's emergency
services were stretched to deal with natural disasters with few
aircraft and helicopters available to rescuers. But more recently, the
country has experienced a shortage of medical supplies.

According to the UN, 93% of households in Afghanistan suffer

food insecurity. Lucien Christen, from the Red Cross, said
Afghanistan's "dire economic situation" meant "they're [Afghan
families] not able to put food on the table".

Chinese man jailed for sexual assault of Alibaba employee

on work trip

A client of Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for
sexually assaulting one of its female employees on a work trip.
The court in the eastern city of Jinan heard the woman had been
forced to drink alcohol before the assault. The woman was later fired
by Alibaba after she made her allegations public. Her case has made
headlines and sparked much comment, highlighting the harassment
Chinese women face in the workplace. The client plans to appeal.
The vast majority of sexual assault cases do not make it to court
in China - fewer still result in convictions.While there has been
sympathy for the victim, there has also been criticism of her on social
media for getting drunk. There was condemnation, too, of the country's
office drinking culture and Alibaba's handling of the case.

The Alibaba employee went public last August, saying the firm
had failed to take action. She also accused a more senior colleague on
the same trip of raping her. He was then sacked, but a criminal case
against him was later dropped. In December it emerged the woman
had been fired by Alibaba, her dismissal letter saying she had spread
falsehoods that damaged its reputation.

The client Zhang Guo, who has been in custody for nearly a year,
has about eight months left to serve of his sentence. Jinan Huaiyin
District People's Court found him "guilty of forcible indecency, sexually
assaulting the victim against her will while she was drunk", state
media outlet the Global Times reported. The court found the assaults
happened over two days - during their first meeting at a restaurant
"and again the next day in Zhou's hotel room", the Global Times said.

What were the allegations?

The woman's account of the incident was published in an 11-

page document, in which she said her manager raped her in a hotel
room while she was unconscious after a "drunken night" last summer.
It prompted a social media storm on China's Twitter-like platform,
Weibo. The woman alleged the manager coerced her into travelling to
the city of Jinan, which is about 900km (560 miles) from Alibaba's
head office in Hangzhou, for a meeting with a client.
She accused her superiors of ordering her to drink alcohol with
co-workers during dinner. She said that on the evening of 27 July the
client kissed her. She then recalls waking up in her hotel room the
next day without her clothes on and with no memory of the night
before.The woman said she obtained surveillance camera footage that
showed the manager had gone into her room four times during the
evening. After returning to Hangzhou, the woman said the incident was
reported to Alibaba's human resources (HR) department and senior
management and that she had requested the manager be fired.
She said HR initially agreed to the request but took no further action.

What was the response?

Alibaba faced a fierce public backlash, later firing the co-worker.

The company said two executives who failed to act on the allegation
also resigned.
A memo was issued saying Alibaba was "staunchly opposed to forced
drinking culture".
Alibaba had earlier said the man accused of rape had admitted "there
were intimate acts" while the woman was "inebriated". Although the
co-worker's case did not progress, prosecutors of the court approved
the arrest of the client, leading to his trial and conviction.
The case has divided opinion online and been one of the most
discussed on Weibo. Some social media users initially posted that the
co-worker got away too lightly while others said there wasn't enough
evidence against him.News of the sentence was widely covered in
China, although on social media there was a lack of sympathy for the
victim, whose own behaviour was questioned by many, apparently
ignoring what happened to her. Numerous posts from men supported
her attacker's appeal. Victims of gender violence struggle to speak up
about it in China, where attacks on women remain common. The
former Alibaba employee told reporters via WeChat that she read the
verdict on the news. "I don't know how to describe what I'm currently
feeling. I've waited so long for this verdict... I feel wronged, and sad,
but no-one empathises with me."

Kaliningrad row: Lithuania accuses Russia of lying about rail

'blockade'

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte has said Russian claims of a rail
blockade of its territorial outpost in Kaliningrad are a lie.

Kaliningrad is on the Baltic Sea and uses a rail link to Russia via
Lithuania for passengers and freight. When Lithuania banned the
transit of steel and other ferrous metals under EU sanctions last
Saturday, Russia threatened to respond.

The Kremlin condemned the sanctions as illegal and

unacceptable.Ms Simonyte explained that passengers were still able
to travel freely across Lithuanian territory from Russia to Kaliningrad
and only about 1% of Russian freight was affected. One senior
diplomat in Brussels said that Russian talk of a blockade was
disinformation and completely untrue. Lithuania is complying with the
sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia for its aggression
and war against Ukraine," the prime minister said. EU sanctions on
steel were imposed in March, but a three-month transition period was
allowed for existing contracts to wind down. Russia annexed
Kaliningrad after World War Two in 1945 and roughly one million
people live there.

It was not clear what Russian security council chief Nikolai

Patrushev meant when he threatened a "serious negative impact on
the population of Lithuania". The foreign ministry in Moscow said
merely that retaliation would be practical as well as diplomatic.
Regional governor Anton Alikhanov said that as well as reprisals,
Kaliningrad would organise shipments by sea.

One option would be to disconnect Lithuania from the electricity

network it shares with Russia, Belarus and the other Baltic states,
although officials in Vilnius have said for months they are ready to
connect through Poland to the West European grid. The Lithuanian
prime minister told the BBC that it was important not to overreact, as
this was the latest in a series of threats used by Russia or Belarus to
threaten their neighbours, such as attempted cyber-attacks on public
institutions and utilities.
Estonia called on Russia to stop issuing threats and suggested
Moscow was flexing its muscles ahead of next week's Nato summit in
Madrid, where Sweden and Finland hope to get backing to join the
Western defence alliance.As Lithuania is a member of the Nato as well
as the EU, the prime minister said lessons needed to be learned and
security had to be in place, given that Russia's neighbour Belarus had
acted as an accomplice, allowing its soil to be used as a staging post
for invasion of Ukraine. We need a significantly higher presence in the
region," she told the BBC's Katya Adler, citing a 100-km (62-mile)
corridor of territory that connects Lithuania and the other two Baltic
states to Poland.
"The Suwalki Gap is a place which is crucially important, not only
for my country or Poland, but also for Nato, because this is a short
corridor and there is a need to take its defence and security
seriously."She was speaking on the eve of an EU summit, where
diplomats said the Russian threats were bound to come up.

One diplomat told the BBC that when sanctions had been
imposed, it was unlikely that they were designed to stop Russia
moving goods internally. The European Commission might seek to de-
escalate the situation, the source added.

However, another senior European diplomat said the legal

argument was clear, that there would be no derogation for allowing
banned Russian goods from crossing EU territory. Further sanctions
are due to come into force in August and December, covering luxury
goods and crude oil, so the aim is for the Commission to make a public
statement on what is seen as legal and what is not.

The exodus of Paris' chefs to the countryside

 Many top culinary masters are abandoning the French capital in favour of greener
pastures, where they can have a hand not just in choosing, but in growing their ingredients.
It began before the pandemic: an exodus of chefs abandoning Paris for the French
countryside. James Henry's 2017 departure was perhaps the most publicised. The Australian
chef, who first skyrocketed to fame at small-plates trendsetters Au Passage and the former
Bones, left the Parisian cityscape to work alongside chef Shaun Kelly (ex-Au Passage) on a
passion project: opening a restaurant and inn in the small town of Saint-Vrain 30km south of
Paris. The result – Le Doyenné – is set to debut later this year. And, as the pair plant their
orchard and renovate the 19th-Century greenhouse and stables, they've also been supplying
some of Paris' top restaurants with produce from their three-acre vegetable garden.

But Henry and Kelly are far from the only chefs to step out of Paris in recent years. "I
think it started before Covid, but it was discreet," said Daniela Lavadenz, owner of Le Saint-
Sébastien restaurant in Paris' trendy 11th arrondissement. "There was already an explosion of
people buying country homes before Covid. But everything was multiplied with the
pandemic."To wit: chef Sven Chartier of the former Michelin-starred Saturne left the capital in
late 2020 for the countryside of the Perche region, 150km west of Paris; his new néo-
bistrot, Oiseau Oiseau, opened in October 2021 boasting a menu brimming with local produce.
In 2018, former jewellery shop owner Mickaëlle Chabat and her husband, chef Louis-Philippe
Riel (ex-Le 6 Paul Bert), ventured even further afield to the Italian border for a new home by the
slopes. They found the house that would become their Auberge de la Roche in the town of
Valdeblore (whose Alpine ski resort La Colmiane boasts the longest zip line in France) and
launched the project in collaboration with chef Alexis Bijaoui, formerly of Paris' Garance.

"We fell in love with the view," said Chabat. "It's almost like being in the middle of
nowhere." The preponderance of chefs abandoning the capital in favour of greener
pastures is, in part, a reflection of an ever-growing interest in locavorism. Despite a few
anomalies – such as mushrooms grown in the Catacombs and wine produced in a
handful of public parks – Paris has long been known for transforming ingredients, rather
than producing them. But in recent decades, many Parisian chefs had been paying
considerably less attention to where those ingredients were coming from.

Farmers' markets selling local produce are thin on the ground in Paris, with most
of the city's marchés actually peddling produce from Spain, Italy and Portugal by way of
wholesalers. The central Les Halles market, a mainstay of Paris since the Middle Ages,
relocated to the outlying city of Rungis (near Orly Airport) in 1969 and today occupies
4.2 sq km and boasts the largest turnover of any wholesale market around the world.
Fred Pouillot, the owner of Parisian cooking school Le Foodist, draws attention to this
discrepancy on tours of local markets with his American clients.

"I ask them, only looking at the produce, 'what is the difference between what
you see here and an open-air market back home?'," he said. "And then I lead them on
until the 'clue' is given – bananas! We don't grow bananas around Paris! Or mangoes,
or melons or anything you see here for that matter. In America, an open-air market is a
normally a farmers' market. This is not a farmers' market – this is a traders' market."

While this disconnect may seem surprising, especially given France's celebrated
link to its terroir, according to French culinary journalist Emmanuel Rubin, it's merely the
final step in a long and complex devolution. The rapid economic development France
underwent in the 1950s and '60s – a period known as the Trente Glorieuses – had,
Rubin asserts, a lasting effect on the country's cities, notably with regards to the arrival
of supermarkets on the outskirts of town centres that negatively impacted the availability
of small shops within. This, Rubin said, "modified French and urban dining habits in a
lasting way", radiating from the home into the restaurant industry.
The imposing gastronomic pedigree of Paris' robust technical arsenal made it easy
for Parisian restaurants to coast on their reputations alone

Perhaps even more essential to Paris' disconnect with the local landscape is its
style of cooking. The imposing gastronomic pedigree of Paris' robust technical arsenal
(as opposed to the ingredient-driven mindset that governs, for instance, Italian cuisine)
made it easy for Parisian restaurants to coast on their reputations alone. Additionally,
restaurants serving mass-produced meals in France became so prevalent that in 2014,
the government approved a label to affirm that the dishes being served were actually
being made in-house.
 Of late, however, as part of a growing resistance against industrialised food,
many of Paris' top chefs have started reducing their reliance on Rungis – where,
Lavadenz asserts, vegetables are "calibrated and covered in plastic or cardboard" – in
favour of partnerships with sustainable cooperatives and networks like Terroirs
d'Avenir, Agrof'ile or Tom Saveurs. But for some chefs, venturing into the countryside
themselves is a logical next step – something, Lavadenz posits, "makes the job more
interesting" for these culinary professionals, who now have a hand, not just in choosing,
but in growing their ingredients.

Loïc Martin and Édouard Bergeon have been growing much of their own produce
for their Martin wine bar and Robert restaurant – both in Paris' 11th arrondissement –
for seven years, ever since Martin bought land on the banks of the Loire River, almost
on a whim. The plot of countryside has since become the Jardin-sur-Loire. "At the
beginning, it was just to feed the restaurants in Paris," said Martin. But in 2021, the pair
expanded their portfolio to include Les Terrasses de l'Ile, a nearby guinguette (country
restaurant), complete with a tiny house perfect for hosting visitors.

Bertrand Grébaut houses Parisians in slightly more luxe fashion at his D'Une Ile,
a B&B and table d'hôte (fixed menu restaurant) in the same Perche region that also
tempted Chartier from the capital. The Michelin-starred chef of the infamously
impossible-to-book Septime in Paris' 11th arrondissement said he wasn't necessarily
looking to create a new venture outside Paris when, in 2017, he and his business
partner, Théo Pourriat, started to think about new projects to add to their portfolio.

"It was pretty vast, at that point," he recalled of the breadth of ideas he and
Pourriat were considering. "But at the end of the day, we were attracted by the idea of
finding a pretext to be closer to nature. To put our feet somewhere green."Once he'd
visited the B&B, the choice was made in an instant. "It's hard to not fall in love at first
sight when you get to D'Une Ile," said Grébaut.The irresistibly charming estate is
comprised of a small grouping of 17th-Century stone buildings in the heart of Le Perche
Regional Nature Park. Light stone and dark wood create a peaceful, rural and rustic
environment with food to match.
 "We were getting emotional over radishes and butter," recalled Grébaut,
"because we were growing our own radishes, because we were making butter in-house,
and because when we serve the radish, it was harvested two hours ago and it's never
seen the fridge."Tapping into local terroir is at the heart of the project at Auberge de la
Roche, as well. "The idea was to create a space that was really rooted in its
environment," said Chabat of her mountain oasis, whose kitchen relies exclusively on
products from within a 50km radius, meaning that the menu is often left to the whims of
Mother Nature.

We were getting emotional over radishes and butter

"When there's a storm, we've got no fish," she said, implying how they often need
to make adjustments on the fly. However, the restaurant's team has built a network of
local producers, such as Sandrine Giraud, who cultivates her own heirloom grains; and
Lawry Calendra, who produces pork that Chabat describes as "totally insane". And with
chefs Riel and Bijaoui in the kitchen, Auberge de la Roche is on par with any fine dining
restaurant you'd find in the French capital – with a price tag to match. A room at
Auberge de la Roche clocks in at €350, and the seven-course prix fixe menu costs €90.
But even at D'Une Ile, where rooms are priced at €85 a night and dinner costs €39 for a
rustic three-course menu, "locals think we're really full of it, with a radish-and-butter dish
at €5.50," Grébaut said.

This reflects an innate friction that often surfaces when Parisians abscond to the
countryside, with their affinity for curated rusticity. Locals who arrive at D'Une Ile,
according to Grébaut, baulk not just at the "Parisian" prices but at the "mismatched, flea
market chairs" and simplicity of the food.

"They were kind of disappointed that this was the restaurant that the Michelin-
starred Parisian chef who just showed up in the Perche decided to open," he said,
noting nevertheless that the simple approach to home-grown, quality ingredients, is "our
idea of luxury".
 Martin noticed a similar disconnect upon opening Les Terrasses de l'Ile last year.
"We closed again quite quickly," he said, explaining that in addition to challenges linked
to the re-emergence from lockdown, he found that many locals were suspicious of his
arrival. "This is a France that is feeling a bit forgotten," he said, noting that a group of
Parisians taking over the restaurant that had, for 25 years, served a buffet beloved by
regulars meant that "there were loads of things locals didn't like" about the new
approach, which was perhaps better suited to Paris than to the French provinces.

"It was awful for the team," Martin said, "so it was better to shut down."

It probably doesn't help that with these new arrivals comes an uptick in housing prices.
At just more than an hour from the French capital, the bucolic Perche in particular is
now home to a host of ex- or part-time Parisians. Local cocktail expert Forest Collins
can attest to the expensive result of having such high-profile neighbours, noting that in
her hamlet, somewhere between a quarter and a third of houses have become weekend
homes for city-dwellers and that local brocantes (flea markets) have considerably hiked
their prices as a result.

Martin has since switched gears at Les Terrasses de l'Ile, which reopened this
spring with a simplified menu that better caters to the local population. Egg mayonnaise,
house-made terrine, mussels and French fries, or sausage with mashed potatoes are all
made with 90% local ingredients and served at prices in-line with other offerings in the
area."We took a step back," he said. "It was the right idea. The right choice."

Edward Delling-Williams, owner of Paris' Le Grand Bain, made a similar choice

with his new venture in Normandy. Like many others, Delling-Williams had been itching
to leave the city before finally taking the plunge during the pandemic, happening upon
Heugueville and falling immediately in love with the north-western coastal village. "It
was springtime, and it was unbelievable," he said. "There was wild garlic everywhere."
He opened The Presbytère this spring in a former vicarage just steps from the beach.
Bit by bit, it will be fuelled by more produce grown on his land, which the previous owner
spent 12 years renovating "almost exactly how we would have done it", Delling-Williams
said. "He's planted 6,000 trees. He's made safe spaces for animals. There's solar
power. It's really unbelievable."

For the British chef, who also implemented a local mindset at Le Grand Bain, the move
was a logical next step, a break from the monotony that had come to small plate-
focused, natural wine-driven, contemporary Parisian restaurants – including his own.

Everything is going to be local, so why not cater to the local

population?

" That style of food is now just everywhere," he said. "If I brought you four dishes
from four different restaurants, Le Grand Bain included, you wouldn't be able to pick
which restaurant made which dish. And that seems a bit boring, now." At The
Presbytère, Delling-Williams instead serves a combination of accessible French bistro
fare (like house-made pâté or skate wing in butter sauce) as well as the food typical of
the English pub he was raised in, including a Sunday roast. And the prices match the
locale: around €18 euros for lunch, €30 for dinner.

"Everything is going to be local," he said, pointing to the sea purslane and sea
aster growing wild around the restaurant. "So why not cater to the local population?" "If
the Parisians want to come," he added, "they can come." But he's doing nothing to
overtly attract them. His focus is less on becoming an innkeeper than a brewer, a baker,
and, above all, a producer of his own ingredients.

"I'm pretty sure that if you talk to any chef, they're going to come up with the
same sort of reason: having control over the produce," he said of his motivations. But
then he prevaricated: "Maybe I'm just becoming an old man and I want to be in the
countryside. I think that's probably it." Age aside (the father of three is just 36 years old),
others may soon follow suit. Martin, notably, thinks that he, too, will eventually make his
part-time move to the Loire more permanent.

"I think that, in time, we might be happier raising animals and making our
products there," he mused, "rather than being in Paris five days a week." The French
capital's love of local is certainly on the rise, with restaurateurs realising that tapping into
the richness of the surrounding countryside has become an expectation rather than an
exception for many Parisian diners. But watching Delling-Williams traipse across his
land with young sons in tow, inviting them to smell fresh spring garlic and pull radishes
from the soil, it's perhaps no wonder that he's not the only chef with greener pastures on
the mind.

Is French cuisine forever changed?

Alain Ducasse says the pandemic accelerated the evolution of French cuisine. But some are in no
hurry to abandon the generations-old rituals that define the Gallic art of eating.

"French cuisine has always been in a state of movement," said famed French
chef Alain Ducasse, taking a sip of crimson-hued sparkling wine, surrounded by the
empty wooden tables of his Paris restaurant Aux Lyonnais. It was a warm day in
March 2021. A soft breeze floated into the restaurant through the takeaway window,
sunbeams illuminating the empty burgundy leather booths. The maitre d', dressed in a
suit, glided between the kitchen and the curb, brown paper bags brimming with plant-
based fare ready to hand off for delivery. The crinkling of the bags in motion was the
loudest sound in the room.
French cuisine has always been in a state of movement

Things are different now. After months of lockdown measures, curfews and
restaurant closures, Paris is slowly beginning to resemble its former self. The packed
tables of cafe terrasses spill off pavements and onto boulevards, waiters once again
balancing glasses of rosé on silver platters and cigarette smoke lingering in a never-
fading cloud. The chirping birds along the Boulevard Saint-Germain have been replaced
by the constant drone of revving engines.

But according to Ducasse – currently the world's most Michelin-starred chef and
emblematic figure of French gastronomy, often nicknamed the "godfather" of French
cuisine – gastronomy had been quietly evolving behind the doors of shuttered kitchens
during the pandemic's darkest days. He says Covid-19 accelerated the next "re-
evolution" of French gastronomy.

In March 2020, the order to shut down restaurants due to the pandemic sent
chefs into a tailspin. After getting the news on a Saturday evening with a room full of
diners, Ducasse learned he would need to close at midnight, without any foresight as to
when they might reopen. "We lost a lot of merchandise, and gave a lot of merchandise
to employees," he said. "It was too fast." France's dining scene ground to a halt.

Ducasse took a sip of wine. Behind him, an antique clock sat atop a mirror in the
back corner of the restaurant. It was stuck on 06:43. He put a paper napkin on his lap.
"The French are very strongly rooted in tradition," he said, laying out bamboo cutlery
with concentration.
In 2010, Unesco inscribed the gastronomic meal of the French onto its
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, permanently
enshrining the French meal under its protection. However, the designation isn't just
about the food. It emphasises all the traditional elements that comprise a gastronomic
meal in France, from the notion of conviviality – the idea of gathering together in a
warm-hearted atmosphere – to the thoughtful selection of high-quality local produce.
Other elements in the designation include table setting, food and wine pairings and a
fixed meal structure. The designation underscores the importance of dining as a
process, which has even been enshrined into French law: until the pandemic, for
example, it had been illegal for employees in France to eat lunch at their desks.

Fast-forward to 2020 amid continued restaurant closures, where delivery drivers

sped down deserted Parisian streets, shuttling Michelin-starred cuisine ready to be
plated up against the backdrop of the latest Netflix series.

The re-evolution in cuisine is freedom

But Ducasse didn't see this pandemic shift as a threat to French gastronomy. It
was an opportunity. "The re-evolution in cuisine is freedom," he said. In France, such
progressions aren't new. The last momentous evolution of French food – Nouvelle
Cuisine, spearheaded by Paul Bocuse in the 1970s – was in large part driven by the
desire by chefs to create cuisine for which they themselves would be recognised,
breaking from traditional dishes to make lighter, healthier and hyper-personalised
dishes that challenged some of the rules of classic French cooking.

Yet the traditional ritual around the meal remained rigid. A mere few years ago,
the topic of the "doggy-bag" – bringing leftover food home from a restaurant –
sparked national debate. Now, it's mandatory for restaurants to provide takeaway
materials to diners in an effort to cut food waste, prompting the Ministry of Agriculture to
rebrand the practice as the sexier"gourmet bag".

Ducasse is not a figure that one would traditionally associate with takeaway,
paper napkins or cheap food. But in April 2020, Ducasse, who had never offered a
takeaway or delivery service before – or even considered it – launched Ducasse Chez
Moi, an online delivery platform featuring a selection of dishes from his Paris
restaurants including Champeaux and Spoon. As part of the shift, he also
launched Naturaliste, an inexpensive, plant-forward delivery and takeaway restaurant in
the kitchen of Aux Lyonnais, behind its shuttered dining room. Essentially, a ghost
kitchen.

"We would have never dared to do it if we didn't have to. It was an opportunity.
Restaurants were closed, so we said we're going to try food differently," he explained.
"It would be accessible; a food that we could deliver, and a food specially edited for
delivery."

The new consumer is curious… Unfaithful. You have to seduce them

When I spoke with Ducasse in March, he didn't seem fazed by the transition to
delivery. He was sitting up straight in his wooden chair, gesticulating with enthusiasm as
he talked about his ideas for the future. The maitre d' was busy greeting customers at
the takeaway window, taking orders for Naturaliste.

For Ducasse, Covid-19 sped up France's next gastronomical evolution, which he

says is marked by a profound desire for human contact, an interplay between global
influence and local produce, the growing role of plant-based cuisine and a rapidly
evolving consumer. "The new consumer is curious… Unfaithful. You have to seduce
them," he said. "You have to take them on a journey."

Maryann Tebben, author of Savoir-Faire: A History of Food in

France, expands on the notion of a changing consumer, reflecting on how "they hear
about it, they're reading about it, they're careful about the ecological footprint that they
have, and they're more savvy than their parents or grandparents were about what food
does for the environment."

When I think of French cuisine, plant-based cooking isn't the first thing that
comes to mind. I think of meat, of Toulouse sausage, foie gras and calf brains. But,
Ducasse points out, the growing emphasis on plant-based dishes didn't happen
overnight; in recent years, vegetable-forward menus have been growing in the nation's
top kitchens. And at Ducasse's restaurants, this focus goes back even further.
 In 1987, he introduced plant-based menu Jardins de Provence to his three-
Michelin-starred Le Louis XV restaurant in Monaco. Now, "30-40% of clients choose
this 100% vegetarian menu," he explained.

The French take on a trendy 'superfood'

Fisherwoman Scarlette Le Corre has spent a lifetime quietly revolutionising fishing in

France and the greater story of seaweed cultivation, culture and cuisine in Brittany.

A As Scarlette Le Corre edges slowly through the sun-blazed shallows at low

tide, emerald sea lettuce and ginger sea spaghetti kaleidoscope around her rubber
boots like two-tone marbling ink. No step is taken without first scrutinising the marine life
at her feet – this highly trained eye doesn't miss a subaqueous beat. Snip. A head of
rock-clinging sea lettuce unveiled by the ebbing ocean is deftly cut off and popped in
her bucket of water. Snip. A fistful of coarse red dulse and clumps of green
hairy cheveux de mer (grass kelp) – which sea-vegetable gourmets in France simply
rinse, twirl in olive oil and eat – get the chop.

"Nature is generous and gives us many riches," said Le Corre. "I've eaten
seaweed for 35 years and am in good form – eat algae and life is très très belle."
Disarmingly petite and passionate, with a tendency not to mince her words, Le Corre is
the original female French fisher. Back in 1979 she was one of the nation's first women
to pass her Brevet de mécanicien à la pêche, qualifying her to captain a saltwater
fishing boat, and has since spent four decades working tirelessly in a masculine industry
where women at sea are traditionally believed to bring bad luck.

Her day begins at 04.30 in Le Guilvinec, a salt-of-the-earth fishing port in

Finistère, southern Brittany – the sort of place where street graffiti reads "plus de
pêcheurs, moins de supermarchés" (more fishermen, less supermarkets) and the
menfolk spend two weeks at sea working the town's 43-strong fleet of deep-sea
trawlers. By 06:00, Le Corre is alone at sea in her 1950s orange-and-white boat
called Mon Copain (My Boyfriend), tending her cultivated sea fields of wakame garlands
or casting her nets for sole, red mullet and the occasional lobster or octopus to sell at
morning markets in Le Guilvinec and neighbouring Penmarc'h. Afternoons are spent
gathering seaweed on the seashore.

"There's no room for failure in a profession considered only for men," Le Corre
told me, as we scrambled lithely across wet, slimy rocks together. "As a woman in a
man's world, I don't ask men for help – I assume complete responsibility to the very
end." Mention retirement to this feisty grandmother and her pace only quickens. Her
secret? "A slice of bread or toast each morning with tartare d'algues made from raw
seaweeds, olive oil, colza oil and rock samphire vinegar," she explained proudly.

The sea lettuce, dulse and nori Le Corre forages to make the tangy, strong-tasting
spread is organic and fresh off the rocks around Pointe de la Men Meur in Le Guilvinec.
Long ago historians identified this flat granite headland, pocketed with bizarre lunar-like
sinkholes, as the site of a quarry where millstones were dug out in the Middle Ages, and
later, until the 17th Century, round stone bases for the many roadside crosses
peppering this Celtic region in north-west France.

Scavenging for wild algae along Finistère's rocky coast has been a natural
pastime in this staunchly seafaring part of the world since time immemorial. The
daughter of a fisherman, Le Corre began working with seaweed to supplement her
fishing income in the early 1990s – long before the ugly-but-edible sea vegetable
became a fashionable "superfood". Algaculture is a centuries-old living Breton
tradition she simply grew up with. "I have collected seaweed from the moment I could
walk. My parents went, and I followed," she said. In April alone, at the height of the wild
seaweed season, Le Corre typically gathers 10 tonnes of thongweed (sea spaghetti),
Breton kombu and royal kombu along the rocky seashore – all by hand with a knife and
scissors.
Scave nging for wild algae along Finistère's rocky coast has been a natural

pastime in this staunchly seafaring part of the world since time immemorial .

Powerful memorabilia at the Écomusée des Goémoniers et de

l'Algue (Museum of Seaweed Harvesters and Seaweed) in the village of Plouguerneau,
further along the coast in Pays des Abers, tells the Breton algaculture tale. Black-and-
white photographs show 19th-Century goémoniers (seaweed harvesters) raking kelp –
the generic name for brown drift weeds – washed ashore on sandy Breton beaches and
piling it onto horse-drawn wagons with pitchforks. Antiquarian prints depict them carting
the kelp off to nearby sand dunes to dry and burn it for several days in open-air ovens.
The stench of acrid smoke was vile, but the valuable iodine-rich ash could be sold to
iodine factories on the northern coast for glass making. Remaining cinders were
scattered on farmland as fertiliser.

Other harvesters worked out at sea from flat-bottomed wooden boats, using long-
handled sickles to guillotine strands of weed growing in wild underwater kelp forests
near the shore and around offshore islands: 25 tonnes of cut kelp produced 1 tonne of
ash or 15kg of iodine. Harvesting was strictly seasonal (March to September) and
everyone had a second occupation – fishing or farming – to ensure a year-round
income.

Today, algaculture produces more than 30 million tonnes of seaweed globally a

year and is booming (35.82 million tonnes in 2019 compared to 4.2 million in 1990 and
0.56 million in 1950, according to the UN's Food & Agriculture Organisation's 2020
World Fisheries and Aquaculture Report). However, European farmers remain
responsible for less than 1% of world production and favour wild stock over farmed. But
in Brittany, where the rocky coastline tangoes for 2,700km and 1,000-odd islands and
islets speckle the pristine offshore waters, the landscape is slightly different. Exceptional
water quality, coupled with miles of protective rocky shores to keep strong currents at
bay, render Brittany seaweed farmland par excellence. "Seaweed flourishes in
temperate water and sunlight, which is why it grows in shallower waters near land," Le
Corre explained. In the sea, not far from shore, a myriad of white dots bobbing on the
water could easily be mistaken for a colony of resting seagulls. The floating grid of white
buoys is actually her cultivated sea field.

Gastronomic meals at Castel Ac'h open with an apricot, cheese and

dulse sablé (shortbread) and a basket of pain aux algues (seaweed bread)
accompanied by salted Breton butter spiked with nori flecks. Every course incorporates
seaweed, including dessert. As canny in the kitchen as at sea, Le Corre cooks up a
seaweed storm at her wildly popular dégustation (tasting) and cooking workshops,
where she demonstrates how ancient conservation methods (such as salting and
pickling) and family recipes marry with local algae to sensational effect: syrupy wakame
jam paired with warm goats' cheese on toast; mackerel and wakame rillettes; a sweet
spoon of velvety salted butter caramel peppered with wakame flakes.

Each dish combining her dried or fresh salted seaweeds, mustards, condiments
and chutneys is sublime. Each is also turbo-powered when you consider that sea
lettuce, for example, contains eight times more vitamin C than an orange and 10 times
more calcium than milk. Chemical- and preservative-free, the only source of nutrients in
algo-cuisine is the natural ebb and flow of the tide and the rise and fall of the sun. "A
fistful of seaweed is food for a month. Everything traditionally done with fruit and
vegetables, I do with seaweed," said Le Corre with pride. "It is my heritage – a savoir
faire born from the beaches I grew up on, the rocks I mucked around on, the endless
days I spent with my father at sea 60 years ago."