The last time Brazil faced infrastructure problems on this scale was in 2001, when energy shortages led to six months of power cuts and rationing across the country.
It would help working people and the poor by empowering them with greater freedom and control concerning their own health care, freeing them from centralized government power and control, and the rationing that would involve.
Kathmandu's residents have learned to live with much more deprivation than fuel rationing--four- to eight-hour power outages daily and an acute shortage of drinking water.
They need reliable electric power now and they know that they will not get it under the present energy rationing that exists in Japan or in any non-nuclear future possible in the remaining years of this decade.