the earth is blue like an orange

two egyptian women in a polling station (from the site www.lemonde.fr)

President Mubarak, who has been in power for about a twenty-five years, has now proposed a referendum. The population doesn’t participate: the number of Egyptians that voted is quite low.

For the first time since he took power a quarter of a century ago Mr Mubarak allowed his opponents to criticise him and campaign for alternative parties.

Since the murder of president Anouar Sadate, in 1981 (a quarter of a century ago),
Egypt is under the emergency law. Amnesty International today called on Egyptian members of parliament to reject proposed amendments to the country’s constitution, which the organization described as the most serious undermining of human rights safeguards in Egypt since the state of emergency was re-imposed in 1981. The organization Amnesty International called the population to boycott the referendum. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian party, obtain one fifth of the elect at the parliament in 2005. As the new constitutional project forbid parties based on religion, President Mubarak seems to be trying to take away the political opposition.

Hamdy Hassan, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, says: “Seven hundred of our members have been arrested for participating in street demonstrations. Eight out of twelve members of our politburo are behind bars. The Government is trying to reduce the space in which we can move’.

Moreover, President Mubarak shows clearly that he would like his son to succeed him. Democracy seems to be an endangered species in Egypt.

Principal topics of the constitutional reform: 

Article 5: Parties or political activities with a religious base or reference are forbidden. 

Article 136: The president is not obliged to solicit the nation opinion by means of a referendum to dissolve the parliament. 

Article 179: The authorities are allowed to arrest suspects, rummage their domicile, read their letter and wiretap them without judiciary mandate. 

Moreover, the president can decide to make military tribunals responsible for the judgment. of the persons suspected of terrorism.

To have more information:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article678100.ece

http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE120082007

Some countries, preoccupied with the global warming caused by the excessive emissions of carbon dioxide, decided to use bio fuels instead of  diesel made with petrol. The bio diesels are less polluting that the normal ones. In Brazil, for instance, the cars run on sugar cane alcohol. But I think the bio fuels will not solve the question of global warming. The many fields that are used for sugar cane plantation could served for growing foodstuffs for people and corn for the animals.

Electric cars can’t neither be a solution. I remember of a Spanish, that was complaining because the numerous aeolian windmill disfigured the landscapes of his country. The problem with electric cars is the production of electricity.

In fact, I think all the renewable energy sources that are proposed for the transportation won’t solve anything. The real problem is our behaviour. How many businessman go to work alone in their car? We should developpe public transportation, like buses and subway, and optimize the private transportation, trying to use all the space we can in the cars. We could easaly divide by two the carbon dioxide emission caused by transportation. All we need is to act; if everybody do something, we could  limit the problem.

“World Looks to Ethanol to Ease Fossil Fuel Dependency”, on the newspaper Voice ofAmerica: an article about Bush Latin America tour. The brazilian mostly disapprove this trip, whose objective was to discuss ethanol (sugar cane alcohol) with president Lula.