January 2010

Published: 28 Jan 2010
NADALEEN SINGH

The Government is in the process of partnering with the US to develop a renewable energy research centre, said Energy Minister, Conrad Enill. “We are in the process of developing a framework for partnering with the United States through its Department of Energy (USDOE), in the development of a renewable energy research centre and a framework for partnership under the energy and climate partnership of the Americas (ECPA). Enill was delivering the feature address at the opening session of the T&T Energy Conference on Monday. Enill said the partnership was first announced at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April, and since then there have been feedback from T&T’s regional neighbours. “Regional response has been positive across all five ECPA elements: energy efficiency, renewable energy, cleaner fossil fuels, critical infrastructure and energy poverty alleviation.”

Published: 25 Jan 2010
Prakash Persad

Before tribes and political parties, way before nations and governments, the earth existed. From time immemorial man has been sustained and nourished by the earth. Its lands have provided us with food, its rivers with water and its atmosphere with the breath of life. From it we have obtained materials for our homes and cities, our energy needs and our factories. It has sustained us as any good mother would do for her children and we have grown to depend on her. The concept of earth as mother is one that exists in many agrarian societies and continues in the present. The tradition of living off the land is ingrained in the psyche of rural man. Most men, if not all, were rural beings before the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of cities and today’s mega metropolises. Earth has endowed humanity with the belief that we can feed our families by our own hard labour and sacrifice. Mother Earth birthed a culture of self-belief and self-sufficiency as a way of life. This belief has been a major catalytic stimulus in the mass emigrations to the “new world” as free men (eg Europeans to the Americas and the colonies) or as indentured labourers to prop up colonial plantations.

Published: 13 Jan 2010

Avatar, the movie, illustrates the raw power of corporate imperialism. Set on a fictional planet, Pandora, in 2154, it illustrates the sheer scale and complexity of corporate imperialism. Avatar dramatises a war between a spiritually evolved forest people and a corporation. The Na’vi people wish to live in peace; the corporation wishes to remove them from their spiritual homeland. At the centre of their homeland is a humongous tree which feeds their entire spiritual ecosystem. The tree grows atop a mine; this mine contains a valuable metal. The corporation is out to get its metal. The immense flexibility of imperialist weaponry is put on show. First the imperialist corporate army can grow a man to look like you, smell like you, taste like you, walk and talk like you, then send him out among you to learn about you. This incarnation or Avatar can then influence you, your women, your leaders, your philosophy and feed information back to his masters.