Electoral authorities in Egypt say the ruling National Democratic Party has won all but two of the 16 upper house seats in run-off elections. The other two seats went to independent candidates allied with the NDP. Last week's first round of voting gave the NDP a commanding majority in the 88-seat Shura consultative council.
The opposition Muslim Brotherhood failed to win any seats following a massive crackdown on members of the group and violence in the first round in which one person was killed. The group, which is outlawed in Egypt, fields candidates standing as independents.
Only candidates who took at least 50% of the vote in the first round won their seats outright. Run-offs were held to decide other seats.
The final result was 84 seats to NDP candidates, three to independents and one to the left-leaning Tagammu Party. There are 264 seats in the upper house, which has limited legislative powers; 176 are elected and 88 appointed by the president.
These are the first elections to be held in Egypt after changes to the constitution aimed in part at limiting the electoral chances of the Muslim Brotherhood. The constitution has been changed to ban political activity based on religion and to weaken judicial supervision of elections. Two major opposition parties, al-Wafd and the Nasserite Arab Democratic Party have boycotted the election.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
China has overtaken the US as the biggest producer of carbon dioxide, a development that will increase anxiety about its role in driving man-made global warming and will add to pressure on the world's politicians to reach an agreement on climate change that includes the Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen next year.
This is why China refused to sign the Kyoto accord.
But according to figures released yesterday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, which advises the Dutch government, soaring demand for coal to generate electricity and a surge in cement production have helped to push China's recorded emissions for 2006 beyond those of the US. The agency said China produced 6,200m tonnes of CO2 last year, compared with 5,800m tonnes from the US. Britain produced about 600m tonnes. But per head of population, China's pollution remains relatively low, about a quarter of that in the US and half that of the UK.
China's surge to 8% more than the US was helped by a 1.4% fall in the latter's CO2 emissions during 2006, which, analysts say, is down to a slowing US economy. China's emissions were 2% below those of the US in 2005.
Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the agency who compiled the figures, said: "There will still be some uncertainty about the exact numbers, but this is the best and most up to date estimate available. China relies very heavily on coal and all of the recent trends show their emissions going up very quickly."
The new figures include only CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production. They do not include sources of other greenhouse gases such as methane from agriculture and nitrous oxide from industrial processes. They exclude other sources of CO2 such as aviation and shipping as well as deforestation, gas flaring and underground coal fires.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/20/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
How did this happen? Does China have their own Congress now?
Posted by: Dar ||
06/20/2007 0:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
OMG run in fear.
China must be emitting 1% of the 0.1% of the plant-food in the atmosphere from human emissions, that is 0.03% of the total atmosphere.
This won't get a big mention in the MSM becuase AGW is about controlling/owning people not the climate.
#3
Damn it we're slipping, we gotta get the Plant Food Title Back!!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
06/20/2007 5:09 Comments ||
Top||
#4
They do not include sources of other greenhouse gases such as methane ....
They forgot breathing. A fair system of allocating CO2 emissions would give each country a total breaths allocation. They would then have to allocate that equitably over their population. The Chinese would just have to breath only a quarter as much as Americans.
Those who stop breathing can sell their unused breaths as Breathing Credits to those who wish to breath more.
#10
No one ever mentions that the U.S.A. is actually a net-carbon-sink. Through our Forestry and reforestation activities we actually "fix" more carbon than we produce.
I guess the Socialists are entitled to their own set of facts.
Posted by: Natural Law ||
06/20/2007 10:49 Comments ||
Top||
Top French government officials are ignoring warnings to ditch their cherished BlackBerrys -- smartphones with e-mail capacity -- despite warnings their messages may be intercepted by US spy agencies, a report said Tuesday. "They tried to offer us something else to replace our BlackBerrys," an unnamed official in the prime minister's office told Le Monde newspaper. "But that didn't work and some people use their BlackBerrys in secret."
I'm surprised they didn't come up with a totally French solution. Made by EADS. Delivery starting in 2014. It's overweight.
French security officials are worried that e-mails sent by government officials from a BlackBerry might be picked up by the US National Security Agency because the servers for BlackBerry mail are located in the United States and Britain, according to Le Monde.
They first notified the government of this risk 18 months ago but have had to reissue the warning, the paper said. "The risk of interception is real, it's an economic war," Alain Juilllet, a senior French economic intelligence official, told Le Monde.
Research in Motion, the Canadian firm that makes BlackBerry, is the market leader for mobile e-mail devices with more than seven million users of its smartphones in use worldwide.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/20/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"The risk of interception is real, it's an economic war,"
I know the French do that, among many others. But does the U.S.?
#2
They worry little about wat they say in public, why the concern over wat goes on in private? I see a huge Franco market niche for Parisian servers and .....FrogBerrys.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has appointed former finance minister Jean-Louis Borloo as the country's new Minister of State. Borloo's appointment comes after former minister of state Alain Juppe failed to secure a parliament seat in legislative elections and had to resign. Borloo will head a new energy and environment mega-ministry.
Christine Lagarde, who was previously named the minister of agriculture, will replace Borloo as economy minister. Lagarde is to oversee a series of reforms including tax cuts and a retooling of France's 35-hour workweek. She has also served as France's minister for foreign trade.
Former foreign minister and the European commissioner Michel Barnier will reportedly be named as new minister of agriculture. That is expected to give him a key role in trade negotiations. Francois Fillon, a key ally of Sarkozy in his presidential campaign, remains as Prime Minister.
Sarkozy reshuffled his cabinet after his center-right UMP party fared worse than expected at the polls. Sarkozy's UMP party and its allies won 345 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.
A solid 60% majority is 'worse than expected'. Any political party would take these results.
Many in the UMP blamed Borloo for the party's lower-than-expected majority in the parliament as he had suggested the government might raise value added tax. UMP was expected to gain as high as 470 seats.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/20/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Electoral authorities in Egypt say the ruling National Democratic Party has won all but two of the 16 upper house seats in run-off elections. The other two seats went to independent candidates allied with the NDP. Last week's first round of voting gave the NDP a commanding majority in the 88-seat Shura consultative council. 
China has overtaken the US as the biggest producer of carbon dioxide, a development that will increase anxiety about its role in driving man-made global warming and will add to pressure on the world's politicians to reach an agreement on climate change that includes the Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen next year.
Top French government officials are ignoring warnings to ditch their cherished BlackBerrys -- smartphones with e-mail capacity -- despite warnings their messages may be intercepted by US spy agencies, a report said Tuesday. "They tried to offer us something else to replace our BlackBerrys," an unnamed official in the prime minister's office told Le Monde newspaper. "But that didn't work and some people use their BlackBerrys in secret."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has appointed former finance minister Jean-Louis Borloo as the country's new Minister of State. Borloo's appointment comes after former minister of state Alain Juppe failed to secure a parliament seat in legislative elections and had to resign. Borloo will head a new energy and environment mega-ministry. 
