Entries Tagged 'People' ↓

In May 1946, my father France Pak Lin got the permission from Grand father to marry Lise Francette Ah Lim on the condition that they would soon after move to China to prepare the grounds for the return of the family back home in China. My grand parents wanted my mother to learn to speak Hakka and to embrace the Hakka culture. Soon after, they boarded a ship to Hong Kong. After a short stay in Hong Kong they traveled to Mei Shien via Swa Tow: sea ferry to the port of Swa Tow from Hong Kong and by a river barge up stream from Swa Tow.

They had never travelled outside Mauritius before. Their knowledge of English and French were helpful. Fortunately, father had many Mauritian friends settled Hong Kong of the like of Edouard Leung and Li Wan Po, who helped them during his transit in Hong Kong.

Poor mother, an island young girl on her first trip to foreign land, pregnant of me, her first child, migrating to a small village in China where she could hardly communicate with the extend family and relatives. It was hard time there. There was no running water nor had any toilet in their home. She had to learn to live in a farm in remote China. The ways and means of living as well as the standard were well below what she was used to before.

When the time of delivery came, mother told me that she was taken on a bicycle from the ancestral home and farm to the hospital managed by German catholic nurses in town. It was in the hospital that I visited in 1999: 52 years later that I was born.

Only a few months after my birth, the situation in South China became unbearable for my parents: they lived the invasion of hooligans in the province and the imminent civil wars reaching the region. Father immediately got me and mother in a flight on a small military aircraft to SwaTow whilst he got on a river barge to the port. That was my inaugural aircraft flight. Then together, all three of us took a sea ferry back to Hong Kong where we stayed for sometime in Wan Chai at St Francis hostel before catching a steamer to Mauritius.

Do you know Alain Simon? The name could be very common. Google found 2600000 pages to a inquiry in the English & French pages on the names. Two first names: Simon and Alain flocked together. But past yesterday, Alain Simon has a new significance for me;Alain Simon opened my gate to the new world of Geopolitics. Alain Simon is a professional speaker, entertainer, world observer, and researcher, thinker with a vivid and alert mind. Alain Simon is an economist and lawyer by training; he leads a consulting firm International Development, Groupe Phileas and contributed to many magazines and publications. He accompanied for several years business strategies to COFACE. He is the author of two books, Le sens des cartes (1977) and geopolitique et strategies d’entreprises (1974) which was award best book of the year in the economic section. He gave last thursday, a brilliant 7 hours lecture to the APM group shared his reading of the economic world through the prism of Geopolitics using up to date observations.

What I enjoyed most was the use of multi perceptional positioning on different world maps with layers of different legends to read the intentions of the world political decision makers and by extension to identify their strategies and predict the possible moves. He told the group how to read an emerging trend as opposed to a breakthrough. 1985 according to him is a milestone date for contemporary world politics. The advent of M. Gorbachev at the helm of the then USSR marked the end of the cold war and the start of the next war.

I had always thought that the strength of the Euro was the making and initiative of the Europeans to conquer the supremacy of the green bill dollars. He proved my thinking wrong. A strong Euro is in the plan of the US. The Euro up to now is the currency traded for 20% of world trade which was the position of the D mark before the advent of the Euro. What is the use of being a strong currency whilst not being a sought after currency? No doubt the US is still the main player and dealer in world, may it be for world equilibrium of war & peace or world economy. He demonstrated that all the moves of the US in spheres of economics, cultural, trade are governed by its Geopolitical intent & strategies. According to him, American Geopolitics rules all. Economy is only one of the means of Geopolitics.

What then is Geopolitics? The study of geopolitics has undergone a major renaissance during the past decade. Multidisciplinary in its scope, Geopolitics includes all aspects of the social sciences with particular emphasis on political geography, international relations, the territorial aspects of political science and international law. With globalization, I now realize how Geopolitics influences all, including the smallest business one may operate in remote Mauritius. Entrepreneurs beware, keep watch. Understanding and following up Geopolitics is a must to succeed in international trade.

Merci Alain Simon

« Nous avons  l’honneur - et le plaisir! - d’être invités encore une fois par Foi et Vie pour une rencontre le jeudi 8 novembre 2007 au Thabor à Beau Bassin à 18h00. 

 Foi & Vie nous informe que les Mouvements d’Action Catholique auront une rencontre internationale à Malte en octobre 2008 avec comme thème “Les migrations, une chance pour construire des ponts”.  En lien avec ce thème, et avec la situation actuelle du pays,, Foi & Vie avait organisé une soirée fin juillet dernier avec Lindsay Rivière suite à son article “Risques et Périls“.

 Pour faire suite à celà, le mouvement Foi & Vie organise la soirée de jeudi prochain avec Maurice Lam, haut cadre du Board of Investment, qui avait pris part au Symposium “Pas blyé nou rasin” le 19 juillet 2006 en prononcant un discours sur “Mauritius – the Global Nation“. 

[Afin de vous familiariser avec ce sujet, il serait opportun de prendre connaissance de ce discours mais regrette de ne pouvoir vous le communiquer avec ce message.  Peut-être pourriez-vous consulter le site de ce Symposium?]

 Foi & Vie compte sur la présence d’un bon nombre de Cadres afin que les partages durant la soirée soient riches et animés!  Egalement, pour favoriser une ambiance conviviale, Foi & Vie a la bonne idée de suggérer à chacun de porter son apéritif et ses sandwiches ou autre collation.

 Nous espérons vous voir nombreux à cette rencontre et vous disons merci d’avance pour votre présence! »

 

J’étais présent à cette rencontre, d’ailleurs ma première,  avec Foi & Vie. Je livre ici mes notes de la rencontre que je conserve pour ma mémoire.

 

Grande était  ma surprise d’avoir  eu à adresser la parole à l’assemblée présente, et ce, à la demande du père Gérard Sullivan, pour présenter Maurice Lam. En boutade, je disais que je me voyais comme Jean Baptiste qui annonçait la venue de Jésus. C’était pour mieux situer Maurice Lam qui se dit par la suite, dans son exposé, citoyen du monde, résident à Singapour et qui fait la navette entre sa ville résidentielle, île Maurice, son pays d’origine, New York où vivent & travaillent ses enfants. Consultant international en finance et stratégie, il a quitté île dans les années 75 pour le Canada et les Etats-Unis où il poursuivit ses études à l’université de Columbia. Dans le cadre de son travail, il a  résidé et travaillé à Tokyo, Londres et Singapour. Maurice Lam se situe lui-même dans son cadre familial d’un père de foi bouddhiste et d’une mère catholique. Il est fier de l’éducation obtenue dans son enfance et adolescence dans l’île et  mit en exergue la contribution des prêtres Avrillon, D’Arifat, Bathfield, et Brown qui lui ont donné un fondement chrétien solide. D’avoir pu se baigner dans ce bouillon de culture et de religions dans l’île lui a donné un esprit d’ouverture et de paix intérieure qui habite toujours en lui, n’ importe où il pourrait se trouver.

Maurice se dit un optimiste par nature et  nous livre ses convictions :

 

             Pourquoi avoir accepté la présidence de la BOI ?

 

• Motivé par la gratitude qu’il a pour son pays natal, il choisit de servir son pays. Il voudrait également démontrer qu’il est possible de travailler au gouvernement en témoignant d’une façon de faire chrétienne.
• Il a été choisi pour ses qualités professionnelles,  non pas par le jeu d’influence.
•  Il souhaite aider son pays à changer pour une meilleure justice sociale, et pour prendre les orientations qui répondent à l’ère de la mondialisation comme il avait évoqué dans son discours fait précédemment à l’ouverture du symposium.
• Il souhaiterait voir plus de chrétiens qui oeuvrent aux responsabilités de l’état.
• Attendons peu du gouverment, changeons notre facon de penser et de faire.
• Je suis pour une prise en charge de soi,  l’assistanat étant un modele révolu.
•  De mendier des aides et subsides aux pays riches et amis pour subsister est dépassé. Il n’y a plus d’acquis.
• Maurice aura à se réinventer continuellement pour être compétitif dans le marché global.
• De même que nous avons souffert de la concurrence mondiale sur notre main- d’œuvre dans le secteur textile, il y a nul doute que nous subirons le même phénomène dans les industries de services. L’arbitration se fait à l’echelle mondiale.
• Notre insularité et notre éloignement avec les marchés ne sont plus des handicaps dans les services.
• Notre système d’éducation est à revoir et à être reformé de toute urgences. Nous héritons d’un passé lourd qui s’exploserait en une fracture sociale.
• Maurice  Lam semble prôner le libéralisme et crois dans l’arbitrage par la libre concurrence interne et étrangère. Par conséquent, il recommande que l’intervention de l’état soit minimisé pour laisser  aisance et actions  aux innovateurs entrepreneurs non distincts de leur nationalité. En contrepartie, les entrepreneurs ont la responsabilité et des devoirs envers les démunis de la societe. Ils devront créer le climat social propice au développement de tous.

Notes

Dans ma lecture de ce jour dans mon livret ‘Magnificat’ :j’ai été agréablement surpris de lire un texte de Mgr Marc Ouellet qui parle de la manière d’agir et de pâtir du citoyen chrétien :

Le disciple qui pratique la justice est transformé par le Christ, sanctifié par l’esprit Saint et mû par la charité. Cela se révèle à la manière d’agir et de pâtir du citoyen chrétien qui par l’éthique des Béatitudes, révèle la dignité christique de tout homme et de toute femme. Sa manière de traiter chaque personne laisse en effet transparaître le christ présent dans son corps en venant à la rencontre de tout homme. Le chrétien qui vit « dans le christ » ne peut donc pas se laver les mains de l’injustice du monde et se réfugier dans le domaine du pur religieux.  

Farewell Susan

I got to know Philip first, in the early 70’s, when I was attending University; he was a fresh graduate from England and was lecturing to open up our minds on the usefulness of computing. Whereas Susan, wife of Philip, was then better known to me, to start off, as the austere secretary of Tim Taylor, sister of my colleague Jean Pierre. As the years went, fate or (I prefer) God arranged for me to get closer to Susan & Philip. Together with Philip and a bunch of fore sighted individuals, we set up the Toastmasters organization in Mauritius. During the teething period of Toastmasters, I got to work closely with Philip and learnt to appreciate his uprightness and honesty: ‘un homme de principe’. No fooling around and straight to the point seems to be Philip’s motto. Philip, a left brainer, is methodical in his approaches, always punctual and he hates wasting time, energy and any resources for that matter. When I got to meet Susan more often at work, I could sense that the couple shared the same values and were driven by the quest for continuous improvement in life. Both of them are persons of few words, I would even dare to say persons of one word, with a high sense of respect for others whilst being kind and generous. Later, we met more often and worked together on projects as we were members of the Rotary club of Port Louis. I enjoyed their fellowship. What I admired most in them is their sense of duty towards their loved ones; parents, children; towards their work and the society at large. Because of their humility, it was only when Philip became president of the Rotary club that their human goodness became prominent and shone as the couple was in the limelight.

This afternoon, I came back from Susan’s funeral! Or farewell function! She left us too soon at 54, too soon for her children and Philip, and too soon for the crowd that came to bid farewell to her. Tim, her boss for whom she had worked for 34 years, made a speech on her life story; her continuous drive to reach loftier heights; her sense of duty; her hard work; her dedication to her family; and the joy and fun she carried. Farewell to the Queen Bee of the 3^rd floor! Later, Jonathan, their son, paid hommage to his mother, thanking her for the love, care and laughter she bestowed upon him, his sisters and his dad.

How would I have felt if it were the case of bidding farewell to a close friend who had decided to migrate to some distant country, leaving her children to fend for themselves? I would cherish the lovely moments we shared together; taken stock of the good things we have achieved together; thank God for having made it possible; wish my friend success in her new abode and pray that God looks after her. What is then the difference with the present situation? Susan is gone forever. I shall not see her ever in the same form on earth.

 To think about it, is it not the way you and I shall go? It would be sad and even somewhat wasteful or meaningless if there is no life after life. I wish, hope and believe that there would be life after.  At least, there would be something to look forward to!  Is it reasonable to say that the more people have this wish; the more it may turn out to be true? No one has ever come back from death to prove life after life to mankind, except if we believe in Jesus Christ and His and our resurrection.  He did come back. Is death  only a passage way to a rebirth in another world or dimension?  This is the way we are heading: the essence of our life is thus found.Farewell.

For the last fortnight, it would seem that PKK and Kurdistan have been topping the world news. The statement of President Bush declaring the PKK today as a terrorist organization aroused my curiosity and moved me to dig into the calamities of the Kurds. I recalled that the Kurds were people victims of geography for being divided and recently expelled from Iraq whilst being a minority in Turkey and in neighboring countries Iran and Syria.

The Kurdistan Region’s demography has changed considerably in the last few decades mainly because of forced migration by the previous Iraqi government, which is one of the main reasons for the movement from the countryside to towns and cities. By 2001, at least 600,000 people were internally displaced mainly because of the previous Iraqi regime’s policies since the 1970s. This included more than 100,000 people expelled in November 1991 alone from Kirkuk by the Iraqi government. According to a UNDP survey, 66% of people living in Duhok province have been forced to change their residence due to war at any point in their lives, while the figures in Suleimaniah and Erbil are 31% and 7%, respectively.

Traditionally, the majority of people in the Kurdistan Region lived in villages and survived on farming and animal husbandry of mainly sheep and goats thanks to the land’s fertile soil. The Region was known as the breadbasket of Iraq. Today this has reversed, with the majority living and working in the three cities of Erbil, Duhok and Suleimaniah and working in the government, construction, and trade.

In the 1980s Saddam Hussein’s regime destroyed over 4,000 villages and forcibly moved their residents to collective towns. Many of these villages have now been rebuilt. The Kurdistan Regional Government, with the support of UN agencies and NGOs, after 1991 rebuilt 2,620 of some 4,000 destroyed villages.

I have spent the last few hours reading on Kurds, I feel sorry for them. Admittedly they were a conquered nation under the Ottoman Empire, Since World War I, Kurdistan has been divided between several states, in each of which Kurds are minorities. No wonder the oppressed Kurds have become revolutionaries.

What would one expect of a nation ousted from its fertile land? “Kurds have no friends but the mountains”. Their curse was to own the snow mountains that are the sources of the famous Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as well as numerous other smaller rivers like the Khabur, Tharthar, Ceyhan, Araxes, Kura, Sefidrud, Karkha, and Hezil. With their water, the Tigris and the Euphrates give life not only to the Mesopotamian plain and the whole of Kurdistan but also to Iraq and Syria. These rivers, which flow down from heights of three to four thousand meters above sea level, are also very significant for the production of energy.

Do you know Chin -Ning Chu? I was very glad to listen to her on video streaming from her website today. Couple of years ago, I had read her first book Thick Face, Black Heart which was offered to me by one of my good friends.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is a known theme and many authors have written thereon. Chin-Ning Chu now proposes The Art of War for Women. In her address to a women assembly in San Francisco, she confirms, like many other scholars who have studied Sun Tzu that the art of war is to win without ever going to war.

Some points that I have retained from her speech:

The weak can overcome the strong just like water can crack the hard rock.

Sun Tzu is a self taught philosopher who used his mind to devise strategies to win wars.

The Elements of Strategy

Before waging a war, the five elements that govern success must be examined. Only then can a proper assessment be done.

Those five elements are: 1. Tao (moral standing or ethics); 2. Tien (timing); 3. Di (terrain or

resources); 4. Jiang (leadership); 5. Fa (managing).

According to Sun Tzu, five elements govern success and must be understood in the planning stages of any action.

TAO: Your moral standing and the motivation that drives your actions. If your moral position is pure, colleagues will be willing to go to the mat for your cause.

TIEN: Timing. There are certain times when you should take action, other times when it is far better to wait. Tien lets you know which way to decide.

DI: “Earth,” “terrain,” or “resources.” Di refers to the obstacles that you face on your journey to success. Are you traveling over level ground? In other words, is everything going smoothly at work—or is each task akin to scaling a great mountain? Di also includes the distances you need to travel to accomplish your goal.

JIANG: “Leadership.” Sun Tzu believed that a leader must be wise, trustful, benevolent, courageous, and strict.

FA: “Method” or “how to”—what we today would call managing. Your “army” must be well organized, disciplined, and responsible, and as a leader you must be strong, and merciless in your attempts to maintain order.

“The extraordinary overlap between human and chimpanzee genomes does not result in an equal overlap between human and chimpanzee thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and emotions; there are considerable similarities but also considerable differences between human and nonhuman primate brains. “From Monkey Brain to Human Brain” uses the latest findings in cognitive psychology, comparative biology, and neuroscience to look at the complex patterns of convergence and divergence in primate cortical organization and function.” This is the essence of the work published by ‘Stanislas Dehaene’ who I had the chance to listen to yesterday thanks to the internet. He also published earlier another book: The number sense: how the mind creates Mathematics.

“But how then did the brain leap from this basic number ability to trigonometry, calculus, and beyond? Dehaene shows that it was the invention of symbolic systems of numerals that started us on the climb to higher mathematics, and in a marvelous chapter he traces the history of numbers, from early times when people indicated a number by pointing to a part of their body (even today, in many societies in New Guinea, the word for six is” wrist”), to early abstract numbers such as Roman numerals (chosen for the ease with which they could be carved into wooden sticks), to modern numbers. On our way, we also discover many fascinating facts: for example, because Chinese names for numbers are so short, Chinese people can remember up to nine or ten digits at a time–English-speaking people can only remember seven. Dehaene also explores the unique abilities of idiot savants and mathematical geniuses, asking what might explain their special mathematical talent.” I rejoice now because I have arguments to my belief and accepted general saying in my younger days that Chinese are better in maths. No, it is not a racist statement,the differentiation is cultural from educational methods. I understand and accept that my statement is a general statement and may be statically valid with large variances.

Cancer seems to be nibbling away the health of a number of people close to me. Last Saturday, my dear friend, a co-founder of Toastmasters in Mauritius told me that his wife Suzanne has relapsed in her illness; they are rushing to Singapore for help. My wife mahjong’s mate’s husband is suffering from cancer. A second degree cousin Nicole married to my university mate is undergoing treatment for cancer in Singapore. Nicole & Maurice being away in Singapore keep a blog to log in their experience. A friend broke the news to me yesterday: Philippe Chan Tin, a primary school mate may be dying soon of this dreadful and painful cancer. Is it because of my age period that the occurrence is getting closer to my entourage? Or is it the style of living the cause? Is it the polluting environment we are living in? What ever it may be, it is worthwhile taking advices to run away from this disease. Prevention should be the name of the game. I take this opportunity to salute the wonderful work done by a group of volunteers to alleviate the pains of Cancer suffers in setting up a palliative care center which operates at couvent de Belle rose.

There is a hoax email circulating the internet. As is the case very often all is not hoax, all is not true. I do believe that a more healthy living style should help. Nicole is undergoing an alternative cancer treatment in conjunction with the traditional chemotherapy.

What ever may be the case, when faced with an incurable disease, anybody would attempt any available cure. For us who are apparently free from cancer what should we do to save us from catching the evil?

See the official sites JHU

The hoax mail

*** Cancer Up-date ***

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHN HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY.

Cancer Update from John Hopkins

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.

3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage , like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells , tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size .

However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells . Sugar substitutes like Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts.

Table salt has a chemical

added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork.

Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day.

Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water- best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become purified and leads to more toxic build-up.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells.

Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

(PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT) CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL, U. S)

Je suis heureux de lire que l’expertise mauricienne en matière de taille de diamant trouve place au soleil au Canada. Cette expertise trouve sa genèse dans la création de la première entreprise LSP (Lagesse Sussens Poncini) implantée à Floréal dans les années 70. La taille de diamants est ensuite reprise par Monsieur Denton avec MauriDen qui nous arrivait de l’Afrique du sud. Par aillieurs, le fils Sebatien Denton est un nomine pour l’entrepreneur de l’annee 2007. Je suis heureux d’avoir été un observateur curieux dès le départ de cette industrie à Maurice. En effet, par intérêt, et par ma fonction dans le domaine du transport aérien, je pensais à l’époque que la taille des diamants, et la fabrication des objets de valeur, convenait à l’île Maurice, où le bas coût de main-d’œuvre, couplé avec l’impact du coût de transport minimisé par le volume restreint transporté était idéale. L’occasion me fut presentée à cette époque d’évoquer avec les experts d’Air France Cargo sur le sujet pour ma thèse de fin d’étude à l’université et j’ai eu le plaisir de me rendre compte de la portée d’une telle activité en Israël. Plus tard, avec l’oncle Charlie, j’ai également suivi avec grand intérêt une aventure similaire dans la taille des pierres précieuses, importées de Tanzanie. MauriGem n’a pas malheureusement pas fait long feu pour manque d’approvisionnement régulier.
Comme les nombreux fils ou filles du sol qui pendant des années ont aidé à l’industrie sucrière en Afrique, aujourd’hui nos compatriotes aident à la transformation des pierres brutes en produits finis à l’étranger. Au Botswana, en Australie, au Congo et autres pays miniers, on pourrait bien trouver des débouchés pour nos artisans. Les pays producteurs voulant garder le plus- value dans le pays d’origine. Nos artisans d’une source d’apprentissage de Floréal se trouvent ainsi disséminer dans le monde : Inde, Thaïlande, Canada, Australie et Brésil.
Non, ce n’est pas une perte pour notre mère patrie Ile Maurice. J’ai vu et revu de nombreux mauriciens aidant financerement la partie de la famille restée au pays, et plus tard, au crépuscule de leur vie rentrent au bercail pour un climat plus clément et une retraite bien méritée.
C’est le cas de nos ‘infirmiers’ en Angleterre des années 60-70, nos artisans sucriers depuis plus de six décennies. Pourquoi pas nos immigrants de maintenant ?

La semaine dernière, j’ai eu le grand plaisir d’assister à un séminaire sur l’évolution du contexte énergétique mondial par le conférencier Daniel  Ratard.

Qui est le professeur  Daniel Ratard et quel est son parcours ?

Docteur en Sciences (Chimie) РUniversit̩ de Paris VI
Ph.D (Houston -Texas)
Expériences en entreprise : 30 ans d’expérience dans le secteur de l’énergie
Directeur de Gaz de France (infrastructures de transport Région Est)
Vice Président d’une société américaine (PeTech.)
Expériences en situation de formateur ou conférencier :
Charg̩ de cours РFacult̩ des Sciences de Tours.

 

Il débuta une séance passionnante avec un premier postulat :

L’époque d’une énergie abondante, bon marché et n’intégrant pas les coûts externes est vraisemblablement terminée.

En bref, qu’avais je retenu des 7 heures d’écoute du brillant et savant conférencier ?

Après un exposé de divers quartiers, entre autres les organismes internationaux d’études  sur les réserves mondiales du Pétrole et les énergies fossiles, il conclut que pour les prochaines décennies:

PETROLE: Incontournable,  GAZ NATUREL: Fort accroissement,  CHARBON: Reste une composante importante de l’offre, NUCLEAIRE: Futur déterminé par les coûts et l’acceptabilité sociale, ENR: Développement subordonné à l’intervention des Pouvoirs Publics. La maîtrise de la demande d’énergie devient primordiale.

 Que devons nous faire ?

Nous devrons oeuvrer pour mettre en place une transition énergétique. Il n’y a pas de solution « miracle »: Le mix  énergétique devra regrouper un ensemble de solutions mais les technologies de substitution (non émissives en carbone), ainsi que le nucléaire, sont loin de pouvoir répondre à temps au défi climatique, La contribution des énergies renouvelables restera marginale.

Il conclut avec les mots suivants: Cette transition s’imposera et sera d’autant plus difficile que nous aurons tardé à l’anticiper. C’est maintenant progressivement ou plus tard très brutalement, mais il est illusoire de croire que nos choix futurs ne seront pas «inconfortables »

Ma conclusion : L’énergie coûtera de plus en plus cher. Economiser à tout prix !