The company has been in existence since 1974 and they have produced an extensive portfolio of brands which have become an undisputable favourite of the snacking public and have found favour with customers all over the world.

The company’s manufacturing facilities are in Trinidad and they have distribution outlets in Jamaica, Barbados and St Lucia that send their products to more than 20 countries worldwide, reaching as far as Taiwan and Ireland.

The Hero CPL has a wide-reaching presence in the Caribbean, and so do Sunshine Snacks, which makes it an even better fit as a partnership.

Jamie Stewart, Commercial Director of Hero CPL said: “We very happy to welcome Sunshine Snacks nuts into the Hero CPL fold. Nuts are a great healthy snack for both players looking for energy and fan’s enjoying the game – we look forward to a power-packed CPL.” (CPLT20.COM)

Today, we highlight the gorgeous purple gallinule (Porphyrio martinicus).

What makes this bird so beautiful? Imagine a blue chicken. The waterman, as it is known in rural areas, is primarily purplish-blue and green in its appearance with boldly contrasting yellow legs and white tail feathers. Equally contrasting is the light blue area (known as the frontal shield) just above its red beak. The overall combination of colours makes for a stunningly attractive bird. Of course, the younger birds need to remain camouflaged from predators and so are drab brown.

But despite its beauty, not many people know about the purple gallinule. This might have a lot to do with its choice of habitat.

Gallinules favour densely vegetated freshwater areas where they can quickly hide if they perceive a threat. If you take an early morning drive through suitable habitat, such as the former rice-producing areas of the South Oropouche Lagoon, you are likely to see several gallinules perched atop the marsh plants (only to stealthily retreat into cover on your approach).

Sometime they fly awkwardly, low to the ground, from bush to bush. If the bush happens to be on the other side of a road, this sometimes puts gallinules in the path of oncoming traffic and it is not uncommon to see the occasional roadside corpse as a result.

But don’t let these weak, short flights fool you – when gallinules set out to fly longer distances they are quite capable. This has helped the purple gallinule to establish a presence from Florida right down to Argentina. If you cannot see them, you are likely to tell there are gallinule about by their curious calls which could be described as a nasal clucking (sound is a useful way for animals that live in dense vegetation to keep in contact with one another). The gallinule’s diet of seeds and water plants means it is usually never far from vegetation.

The waterman’s vegetarian diet, unfortunately, sometimes results in it going after the farmer’s garden for more exotic fare such as ochro, bodi or plantains.

Why are they so cautious? Such a plump bird makes for an attractive target and gallinules are regularly hunted during the open season (and occasionally poached during the closed season). In times gone by gallinules were even considered an agricultural pest and large numbers were killed. Thankfully, this mass culling has since ended.

Besides the waterman, Trinidad and Tobago is home to two other species of gallinule. The common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) is very similar in shape and size but is dark slate grey. Unlike the waterman, it is often seen swimming like a duck and can be found in similar habitats throughout the country. The other gallinule is the ultra-secretive azure gallinule (Porphyrio flavirostris), which is a bit smaller than the purple gallinule and is light blue in colour.

This species is rarely detected and only reliably seen in the eastern rice growing districts such as Kernahan and Plum Mitan (occasional sightings have been made elsewhere on both islands).

While the gallinules populations are robust at the moment, they are vulnerable to one major threat – habitat loss. Old rice lagoons, swampland and other marshlands across our country are slowly being backfilled in the name of “development”. These birds depend entirely upon these areas to survive and the continual loss of freshwater wetlands will place significant pressure on the populations of waterman and other wildlife that utilise this ecosystem.

As a nation we need to ensure that these habitats are preserved so that future generations may continue to experience this true beauty of the marshes.

For more information on our natural environment, contact the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club at admin@ttfnc.org or visit our website at www.ttfnc.org and our Facebook or YouTube pages. The club’s next monthly meeting will be held today at St Mary’s College, Port-of-Spain.

Lecture: The Stick Insects of TT by Avion Phillips.

They have amassed their wealth by supporting each other and circulating the income they generate within their communities.

They buy from shops owned by members of their community and use the services provided by members of their respective communities.

If they own shopping malls, they give the best spots to their own and charge them a lower rent than other tenants.

Those outside their communities that want to open stores, are forced to use their designers and their tradespeople, pay their exorbitant charges and accept their crappy work, without complaint.

When they hire a security firm, doctors, lawyers, engineers, they use their own. They buy from each other and build up each other and by so doing, the entire community becomes wealthier.

In contrast, African- Americans are the poorest income group in America because they do not support their own. They spend 98 per cent of their income in white-owned business making the white folks richer while they continue to struggle to put food on the table. In TT , we who comprise the 99 per cent, operate like the African Americans.

We make no concerted effort to create wealth within our own communities.

This why I say that instead of being castigated, Mr Mario Sabga, should be praised for opening our eyes.

To me he is a national hero. His comments ought to spur us to take corrective action so, we can finally begin to enjoy a larger slice of the pie. He has let the genie out of the bottle and it is up to us to make damn certain that it does not go back in.

Unlike Mr Roget, I am against the call for a boycott of businesses owned by any group in the society.

The so-called one per cent did not wake up one morning and amass their wealth. We twiddled our thumbs and allowed them to do so and it is we and we alone who have to power to change that.

I am therefore calling for all members of the 99 per cent community to join hands to support 99 percent owned businesses and services. I am in no way calling for anyone to be anti-one percent but for all of us to be pro-ninety-nine percent.

If we don’t seize this opportunity, we will continue to struggle economically and for this, we will have only ourselves to blame.

J Johnson Arouca

“Trust that the issues will be dealt with assiduously and most diligently if they are as serious as claimed,” Stewart told Newsday. He said the prison officers should have confidence in new Commissioner of Prisons William Alexander to do what is required.

Ceron Richards, the POA’s president, said the association is hopeful the safety concerns at the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca would be addressed.

“There has been failure with some of the gates and there is no alarm system at the prison,” Richards said.

“Officers are very concerned.” He said although the issues have been “on the table” for a while, the POA will remain “ever vigilant.” Richards also said some officers at the prison have gotten ill because of stress. He said the unsolved safety concerns have aroused an atmosphere of fear with the officers and their attendance and performance have been “undermined” as a result.

Calls made by Newsday to Alexander went unanswered yesterday.

It is now spreading like an epidemic and Ancel Roget seems to have caught the same disease, which we can dub “The lack of proper leadership syndrome”.

Roget’s call to boycott about 120 businesses from the “one percent” is sad and shows his inability to lead and to understand what is really needed now for our declining economy and the future of labour.

The potential disruption on the thousands of people who depend on their weekly and monthly wages from these businesses to help them make ends meet for their families will be mind boggling.

Roget did not even consider the effect such a boycott will have on the minimum wage workers who depend on their precious jobs for their livelihoods.

Why is Roget seriously peddling this senseless and ill-conceived message to the labour movement? A boycott could never help this country or these workers or even the trade unions.

What the country needs now more than ever is strong leadership to unite and support business owners and employees to prevent further decline as we go through this economic downturn.

We all, as employers and employees, have to face this crisis head-on and support each other.

Neil Gosine via email

The TT team arrived in the US on Monday for a live-in training camp ahead of their opening match in the CONCACAF Under-15 Championship against Costa Rica on Sunday .

TT got off to a quick start yesterday with an opening goal from Fatima College forward Justin Araujo-Wilson in the first minute of play .

He had the simple task of a close-range tap in on an assist by San Juan Jabloteh’s Josiah Edwards .

However, Tampa Bay equalised in the 12th minute .

“It was a good encounter for the young boys to get the legs going .

We have just a few days left before our first match against Costa Rica so everything in between now to then is about managing the boys carefully and ensuring we do things in the right manner before the start of the competition,” said TT coach Russell Latapy .

TT have been drawn into Group B alongside Costa Rica, United States and Canada .

TT will open their campaign on August 13 against Costa Rica and will play Canada a day later before closing off the group stage against the US on August 16 .

The other countries taking part include Group A – Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama; Group C – El Salvador, Bermuda, Martinique, Cuba; Group D – Haiti, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Curacao; Group E – Puerto Rico, Belize, Barbados, Guadeloupe; Group F – St Lucia, Suriname, Guyana, St Kitts/Nevis; Group G – Aruba, Cayman Islands, Bonaire, Saint Martin; Group H- Antigua/ Barbuda, Grenada, Dominica, Sint Maarten; Group I – Bahamas, US Virgin Islands, French Guiana, St Vincent/Grenadines; Group J – British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos .

Yesterday, Richards won his semi-final easily clocking 20.14 seconds in heat two. Finishing behind Richards was Japanese Abdul Hakim Sani Brown in 20.43, while Jamaican Yohan Blake was third in 20.52. Brown qualified for the final but Blake missed out. The first two in each of the three heats and the next two fastest athletes qualified for the final.

Kyle Greaux unfortunately will not join his countryman Richards in the final. Greaux was eighth in 20.65 among the nine athletes in heat one, which was won by American Isiah Young in 20.12. Today’s final will run off at 4.52 pm TT time with Richards running in lane seven.

In the final lanes two to nine will be occupied.

The other finalists are Great Britain’s Nethaneel Mitchell- Blake (lane two), South African Wayde Van Niekerk (lane three), Young (lane four), Ramil Guliyev of Turkey (lane five), Isaac Makwala of Botswana (lane six), Brown (lane eight) and American Ameer Webb (lane nine).

Double Olympic medallist Keshorn Walcott will line up in Group B of the men’s javelin qualification today, among 15 competitors. Group A will also comprise 16 athletes.

And Semoy Hackett will aim for a place in the final of the women’s 200m when she competes in heat two of the semi-finals today.

Dan declined to state the cost of the procedure. While such surgery is usually done for weight-loss, he said stomach-reduction surgery may offer the benefit of curbing diabetes in patients, and is thus recommended by many diabetes associations worldwide. However, he also said this surgery also can cause a lot of sudden metabolic changes to the body.

For example, the surgery increases the sensitivity of the pancreas, whereby a person can be exposed to a precipitous drop in their blood sugar level.

Dan said TT has the most deaths from non communicable diseases in the Caribbean. Further, TT’s rising tide of obesity makes it the world’s third most obese nation, with a quarter of deaths due to heart disease.

Earlier Dan spoke of robotic surgery, which he said can be carried out over the internet by a surgeon who is separated by miles from the surgical blade, each even possibly being separated by the Atlantic Ocean. He listed the advantages of robotic surgery as being the greater precision and great flexibility of the wrist motions, plus the 3-d, high definition images. “It can work in really difficult spaces,” he said.

However Gill said the disadvantages were the equipment’s initial high cost of $1 million, and the $1 million annual cost of maintenance.

He traced how surgery had evolved over years from procedures that left large scars, to those using multiple small points of entry called ports), to single port surgery, to natural orifice surgery (using mouth, anus, vagina or stomach), and to robotic surgery.

According to a media release from the Police Service, Naresh Hendrickson, aka “Narie”, of 36 Damian Trace, Tabaquite appeared before a Chaguanas magistrate charged with attempted murder, two counts of possession of a firearm, two counts of possession of ammunition and three counts of shooting with intent.

The victim was shot at and wounded during an argument with Hendrickson at her home.

He then fled the scene into a forested area. He was subsequently arrested by members of the Central Division Operations Unit and Central Division CID in Rio Claro.

He was charged by PC Haresh Bachus of the Brasso Police Station and ASP Richard Smith of the Central Division CID on Tuesday.

Approximately 30 power boats including last year’s defending champion Paramount will be vying for bragging rights of the fastest boat to reach Store Bay on August 19.

In an interview, Collier explained after the withdrawal of the competition’s main sponsor, Carib, the race is expected to be as exciting as any during the past 49 years.

He stated, “Seeing that there is no sponsors, they would just race to Store Bay on their own which would not require much funding and they will go for bragging rights.

“What I am saying is that the prize is not all that important. I think the bragging rights is what is important in the Great Race since they race for little to no prize money.

“The prize money that we normally get can’t even buy the gas to travel from Trinidad to Tobago.

With the withdrawal of the sponsors the racers decided to go on their own race to Tobago and that’s it.” Collier continued, “All I can say is when it was moved from Store Bay to Scarborough it was the biggest crowd that the competition ever had in history and it was moved because of the conditions at Store Bay.

“When we moved it to Scarborough we tried to make it a family affair using the whole of the Esplanade where persons could have seen the boats coming in closely.” He pointed out, “I know there would be a lot of people who would be disappointed but what we have to think is, in terms of if all those people at the Esplanade would (have) come out and supported it financially, I don’t think it would have been moved at all.

“We keep depending on the big sponsors when a lot of the (businesses in Scarborough) benefit from it and they never come out and say ‘here look something to put towards the event to support it’.” He said none of the racers have withdrawn from the race because of these changes.

He further stated there is no major effect from the changes made this year.

Collier added that the Sargassum seaweed stacked on the shores of Scarborough had nothing to do with the relocation of the finishing point of the Great Race competition.

“It’s just a matter of the Association not having the finance to do what they wanted to do.

“There will be no other major changes, as far as I gathered.

“It will start on time and it will go down to Plymouth, pass on the outside of Store Bay, pass Store Bay circle and come back to Store Bay.”