Loret Charles, 40, appeared before Sangre Grande 1st Court Magistrate Avason Quinlan on January 18 but was remanded into custody to reappear in court on February 15. Timothy, 38, was stabbed multiple times in the chest at his home at Pine Avenue Extension, Valencia.

He was transported to the hospital by ambulance but died at the Sangre Grande District Hospital on January 11.

“What this means,” Brent Salvary, director, portfolio management at KSBM Asset Management said yesterday, “is that they can consolidate TCL’s accounts with theirs and therefore they can take all revenues, profits and expenses and put onto their books with a line item which reduces the amounts not owned by Cemex. This has the effect of pumping up Cemex’s profits.” Cemex gave notice of meeting the condition in advertisements in yesterday’s papers.

It also said other conditions which remain to be met include getting a foreign investment licence, which the company said has already been applied for.

The ads continue: “In the meantime, rights of TCL shareholders to withdraw any acceptances tendered by them remain unchanged and are set out in the Amended Offer…” It continues that the offer period continues until Tuesday.

Meanwhile, accounting firm, Ernst and Young (EY), has valued TCL shares at between TT$5.60 and TT$6.18 per share in a January 18, 2017 Fairness Opinion requested by the board of cement and building supplies manufacturer.

However, they have refused to make an assessment of whether this is a fair price for the shares and have advised shareholders to obtain advice from investment professionals or lawyers.

The company’s board has also directed shareholders to do the same, even though it has told them, outright, to reject Cemex’s amended offer made through its subsidiary, Sierra Trading.

The amended offer made on January 9, saw the offer price move from $4.50 per share in December, to $5.07 earlier this month. All shareholders, except those living in Barbados, also had the option of being paid in US dollars for their holdings.

However, EY said in its opinion, after having considered historical and current financial data, as well the Cemex offer that, “the estimate of fair market value per ordinary share based on the income approach is TT$5.13 per share and that based on the market approach is TT$6.64, leading to an average of TT$5.89 per ordinary share. “Our conclusion of the estimate of fair market value per ordinary share would be expressed as TT$5.60 to TT$6.18…” Cemex is seeking to acquire 132,616,942 shares which will give it 79.4 percent of TCL. The company currently holds 39.5 percent.

At a very young age he fell in love with the national instrument and became a professional musician. However, he was unaware that his talent and love for the national instrument would present him with an extraordinary opportunity.

He moved to America in the 90s and at the age of 60 he was invited to play at a birthday party for billionaire businessman Donald John Trump, who was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States on Friday at the White House, Washington DC. Jordan recalled his unforgettable memory where he interacted face-to-face with the esteemed businessman, now President.

He told Sunday Newsday that the meeting with Trump was took place in October 1996 at the birthday celebration for Trump’s fourth daughter’s, Tiffany Trump, in Malibu, Florida. Tiffany is the daughter of Trump’s second wife Marla Maples.

Jordan described this opportunity as “extraordinary” and says he is a fervent supporter of Trump and his successful career history.

He said he along with four others were contacted to perform at the party through an “associate company”.

“When I meet him I was trying to get a phone to call my girlfriend, who at the time was pregnant with my son. I told him (Trump) I was trying to get a call cause my girlfriend was pregnant and he goes, ‘Oh I’m going to be a godfather or uncle’ and I told him, ‘yeah’.

That was the end of that conversation and we preformed right after,” Jordan said.

Trump’s fascination of him and the national instrument sparked up another conversation.

“He took a picture and a little play of the pan, you know just messing around hitting couple notes.

“Basically he wanted to take out a picture of me because he heard I had performed with Tony Bennett on his show with the Pan Am North Stars steelband when he was on tour, and one of the guys told him I was on that show and that’s when he wanted to take a picture with me.” He spoke highly of Trump, saying, “He is just a businessman he is not prejudiced, just as in business you need to be crude in order to survive also because the business in America is brutal, every man for themselves.” He congratulated Trump on his victory in the US presidential election last year. “I am a supporter and I will vote for him anytime, he isn’t about politics he’s all about business and he recommended that I open a business of my own and I did that. I think he will implement his business and success skills in his term in the White House. The man wants to enhance the wealth of his country using his business skills and you can’t blame anybody for that.” Jordan said he presented Trump with a token after their conversation.

“After taking out the picture and after his daughter’s party I gave him that pan,” he continued.

The man is a gentleman too. All they saying about him they don’t know him they never met him so all they saying is what they see from the outside looking in and they were never once on the inside looking out,” he recalled.

Jordan plans to contact with Trump and is certain the US President will remember him by the 20-year-old photo and the token he hoped Trump still has

Judging for the first four of eleven South and Central bands began on Friday evening, with judges going around to each panyard.

Garvin Williams, leader of the single pan band Super Vibes, of La Romaine, said, “We were practising five songs, but then members boycott me for not being paid from last year.

But after the payment came, Panorama was back on, but we only got notice on Monday, so we had to finish the tune in four days.

We finish the tune in four days with the goodness and the strength of all the people in the community that love the band and love the pan.” Super Vibes is competing this year with the popular 2017 hit, Full Extreme, by Ultimate Rejects.

The song was arranged by Hudson Henry.

The short notice was felt by the three other competing bands, including Vistabella- based Shades in Steel playing Burning Flames’ “Showdown”, Gasparillo’s Highlighters Orchestra playing “Fete” by Super Blue, and Jah Roots from Point Fortin playing “Sixty Seven” by Kitchener.

Leader of Highlighters Orchestra, Federico Gay, said the band was not able to put in all the elements of Jason Farrell’s arrangement of “Fete” as they would have liked, but they pressed on for the love of the instrument.

Sixty-seven single pan bands have registered to participate in this year’s competition which spans several days in Trinidad and Tobago.

Preliminary judging for the East will be today and tomorrow followed by judging for the North from Tuesday until Thursday.

Finals for the single pan category will be on January 29.

Ferdinand of Demerara, Wallerfield was last seen on January 11 leaving her mother’s workplace at Agape Training Centre, Pro Queen Street, Arima. She is of African descent, 5 feet, 3 inches tall, of slim build and was last seen wearing long black jeans, black sandals, and a brown top. Anyone with information on her whereabouts can call 800-TIPS or contact the police at 555, 999, 911 or any police station.

Why write in anger and despair while everyone is cool with all that is wrong? This discussion at a family gathering brought the suggestion that I “lighten up”, and sometimes write like a story I had shared at an extended “old talk” and laughter session.

Why not? So here goes.

Back in the 1960s I was attending the University of Houston.

When I left Trinidad I was keen on horse-racing, regularly attending the sport at the Savannah, Union Park and the Arima tracks.

At the beginning of my third year there, I took a class titled Business Law (Introductory, my attorney friends!). The professor was a much-feared man, for he was a strict disciplinarian, and set stern rules—like if you arrived late you could not enter the room. Big deal to Americans maybe, but if you had been schooled in the British system of the 1950s, like most people my age, he was no terror. He was always immaculately dressed, had wavy grey hair, spoke with a deep, clear non-Texan accent. It was said that he was part of the prosecution team who jailed Al Capone in Chicago, but no one dared to ask him about that.

He and the study text had two recurring words and phrases. Every land dispute was over a parcel of land called Blackacre, and the value of the land was always described as the Sum Certain.

For Christmas that year, the International Students’ Office organised a bus excursion from Houston to Mexico City. Two nights and three days with guitar music on a Greyhound bus we sang and laughed our way south.

I had to bribe border guards because “Trinidad y Tobahgo”(sic) was apparently not on Mexican maps. We arrived at our hotel to be met there by fellow students resident in Mexico City, and began planning our adventures and tours. A poster board in the lobby advertised horse-racing at El Hippodromo.

I organized about eight of us for a day at the races.

The exchange rate was so in our favour, we found we could easily afford a private box, with Mexican students as waiters/hosts and placers of our bets. We lost small sums all day long, following our hosts’ kind tips and fuelled by endless cerveza and margaritas.

As I looked at the programme for the penultimate race my eye fell on a horse named “Sum Certain”.

I read on down, there was a horse named “Dark Terrain”! If Dark Terrain is not Blackacre, you tell me what it is! Our hosts beg me not to bet on those rank outsiders, as the Odds Board showed.

But I insist. I know about caprice and this one is sure. Forecast reverse and each horse to win and to show.

And they are off and running, Sum Certain bolts to the front, and leads by several lengths all the way to the far turn. Dark Terrain trails the pack by several lengths.

Forget him! As they turn for home, the whole pack begins to close on Sum Certain, jockey on the whip, but the horse has little left. We all “hand riding” hard to help. Can he hold on? But to no avail. In the very last pace, Sum Certain is pipped at the post. Oh NO! By Dark Terrain! Where he come from (sic)? Bacchanal in our box! People want to know where we get that magic. We return to our hotel in triumph, those who went for culture (pyramids, museums and the like) are amazed at what we achieved. We had planned to be on the streets, Mexican style for Old Year’s Night (New Year’s Eve to non-Trinis), which was two nights away. But we upgraded to a proper dinner with champagne and everything, tumbling out into the streets with our champagne just before midnight, all courtesy of Dark Terrain and Sum Certain! Upon our return to classes— the semester was not yet over—I approached Professor Irwin after the first lecture was over. He looked forebodingly at me, as if questioning my boldness: “Yes Mr O’Connor?” I told him that I needed to thank him. “Thank me, Mr O’Connor? The semester is not yet over, and neither you nor I know your grade.” I politely agreed, and told him my story. He listened without interruption and said, “I hope you get more out of this course than that”. Then– was that a flicker of a smile?—he added “congratulations, Mr O’Connor, I would have done the same!” I suppose that I will have to “return home” next Sunday, as horrors upon horrors mount?

For far too long governments have neglected schools that aren’t considered ‘prestige’, and this neglect results in the fostering of the same criminals that have taken over our country.

In this state of increased crime, many people are wondering where all of these criminals came from so suddenly. It seems as though Trinidad and Tobago woke up one day to find criminality as ubiquitous as oxygen. This may surprise you, but there were no “Jack and the Beanstalk” magic crime beans dispersed across the country that sprung up overnight. Not at all; these were slow growing crime beans that have now flourished into what we are experiencing every day.

I recently had the most delicious lunch at a Tea House on the compound of St Joseph’s Convent (SJC) in Port-of-Spain, and as I walked through the yard, I was blown away by the school’s pristine condition. Now, when I compared SJC to the dilapidated state of several other secondary schools, there was a glaring disparity.

Basing my perception on the exterior alone, I can tell that the environment at SJC is conducive to learning, whereas many others, especially what we previously referred to as “Junior Secs” and Composites are in such a state that those children are at a clear disadvantage.

A cursory survey of blue-collar, and even those blue-uniformed criminals highlights a similarity that is really not surprising: the majority of them attended schools not considered to be ‘prestige’.

And the reality is that students at a Junior Secondary (call it whatever you want to call it), Composites and other regular secondary schools are neglected and do not receive the necessary funding to equip a school with everything required to teach at the same level of the ‘prestige’ institutions. There are schools with poor ventilation, lighting and sanitation, while others are so well-maintained, one would think it is located in a firstworld country.

It is highly unlikely to find a CIC or QRC graduate sitting in jail for a blue-collar crime, but you would find many of my brothers who attended Junior Secs all across the country populating the prisons in disproportionate numbers.

Doesn’t anyone realise that there is an obvious disadvantage for these students, thus more effort should be placed on their educational development? Or is it that the prestige-educated oligarchic dictators think that only they deserve to be successful? Where a person attends or attended school is extremely important.

This is not news; everyone knows that there is a greater chance of success in life if one attends a ‘prestige’ school, which is not always based on educational achievements, instead, in some cases, it is based on the perception that ‘prestige’ students are automatically much more intelligent than a non-prestige comparator.

Apparently students get a “good” education at a prestige school, which seems to imply that the others are bad? And if that’s the case, why not work towards making all schools good? I want to point out here that attending a ‘prestige’ school does not make anyone superior to a non-prestige graduate because as a former college boy myself, I have seen that many of the delinquent students came from privileged backgrounds with business empires waiting for them to inherit.

How some of them ended up there in the first place is beyond me.

There must be an equal playing field for all students regardless of social status or home address and it should start from the primary school level. Why should schools like SJC resemble American college campuses while other primary and secondary schools look like abandoned buildings? At some point, a Trinbagonian government will have to address this imbalance. The pipeline that runs straight into a prison cell from an underfunded school can be disrupted by politicians who care not just about their children who attend ‘prestige’ schools, but also about those students who go to school every day to learn in deplorable conditions. One would never see SJC or Fatima parents and teachers protesting over bad smells or rodent infested classrooms, but at least once a week there is at least one group of students, parents and teachers somewhere clamouring for attention to have their school repaired.

As a society, we have failed our students. We ignore these schools and their students and watch them fall by the wayside or into the police service, and then complain about those same students who are now full-blown criminals.

Crime is our fault and until we accept that fact, we will remain in this situation for a very long time.

He didn’t invent the term, of course, or even pioneer its use, but it’s an extremely handy concept to have at your disposal if you’re an abrasive, bullying lout who inevitably attracts unfavourable coverage in the media.

Where the expression “no smoke without fire” used to be the bottom line when it came to rumours, the injured party now has this get-out-of-jail-free card, casting aspersions on the integrity of whoever has something on you.

In this age of instant communication, we demand proof, with a new bottom line that says, “If there are no pictures, it didn’t happen”. So even if you’re the kind of person of whom the world at large would happily believe any and every bad thing, we don’t accept unsubstantiated material.

Donald Trump has already played both sides of the street with this, throwing smears around the world about Hillary Clinton, and then dismissing claims about his private life as being, if you’ll pardon the expression, trumped up. Because the respected American-based world news service CNN chose to pass on allegations about him, he attacked the company with the sort of arrogance that is destined to become no longer breathtaking but wearily commonplace.

Mud sticks, and so it will to CNN unless it comes up with incontrovertible evidence of this or any future attack on the President’s character.

The metaphor needs refining, though, when it comes to Trump himself, because much of the mud thrown at him has indeed stuck, but apparently it hasn’t affected him.

Maybe this is proof of the theory put forward by British writer and professional eccentric Quentin Crisp, whose apartment was so filthy that an interviewer felt moved to mention it to him. “There is no need to do any housework at all,” he replied.

“After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.” Similarly, when a public figure’s reputation becomes irreparably tarnished there is a tendency for us to laugh, at least until he or she does something stupid and harmful so publicly that it can’t be denied. It’s either laugh or do something about it, and if we can’t do that legally, we’re stuck with him.

The ability of computer-savvy criminals to spread disinformation by means that only other techies can recognise as false is a new terror that could affect any of us. If they can get your Facebook account to send offensive material to your friends, causing reputational damage and embarrassment, how much more alarming is the prospect of not being able to believe what we read about important world affairs? Admittedly, to a certain extent the media has brought this upon itself. In the relentless battle between newspapers, websites and TV and radio stations to grab our attention, all manner of deceptions and sleight of hand have become commonplace.

In print, the miniature acts of deception often come in the form of misleading headlines, which may or may not be due to technical restrictions such as the width of newspaper columns, which limit the number of words that can be used.

Take, for instance, the hypothetical large-type announcement “Pistorius murdered”. It would probably mean the disgraced South African athlete had been found guilty of murder, which he already has been at least once. But at a glance it also suggests some new news: for a fleeting moment it sounds like he has himself been bumped off.

The German-based email provider GMX likes to keep its users entertained by celebrity-oriented “news” while they cruise past on their way to check the mail. Last week it gave users the following piece of gossip: ‘George Michael played snooker “every night” during rehab’.

The use of inverted commas, aka quotation marks, tells us this is a direct quote.

So somebody actually said that not only did George Michael play snooker while getting his drug habit cleaned up, but he did it “every night”.

Well knock me down with a feather — that explains everything.

What it really tells us is that there is someone there — probably not the writer, but an editor or one of the tech people — who will do anything to make us read this piece of drivel.

This sort of thing may be merely playing with words to try to win a bigger audience, but it is symptomatic of the world’s current malaises: the blurring of the boundary between truth and fiction. One of the pillars of the free world is a free press, able to speak the truth without fear of censorship or reprisals.

And if we can’t even believe what honourable people are telling us, we really are in trouble.

Several persons have commented in the press that a consistent wage policy has been wanting through successive governments. One reason is we always seem to come to the bargaining table as enemies. As today’s second reading tells us: “I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’” The seed to this impasse is our underlying philosophy: the opposing party is no good; they have never done anything well; they have wasted all the money. If the bane of one government is the Toruba stadium, then the bane of the other is the highway to Point Fortin. I exist to undermine and pull down the other. There is nothing good about the other that is praiseworthy. This is the background to discussions on FATCA as well as other national issues.

But, the results of the US elections are a timely warning to us. We need to remember that too far east is west, and so attempts by the other side and particularly by the world press to demonise Donald Trump only served to buttress the victory of the same and which now carries with it the ominous possibility of the death of Obamacare.

Similarly, our prevailing political philosophy does not allow us to ‘big up’ the other side, even rarely.

We are telling our young population there is no ‘middle ground’.

Of course, political parties are not supposed to be bosom buddies; nor are unions called to be ‘chummy chummy’ with governments, which explains why the practice of having ex-union leaders become ministers of government has never worked. A respectable distance must be kept for the purposes of objectivity and not selling off to the government of the day. Whatever our political persuasion — especially in the current atmosphere where there is talk of devaluation of the US dollar to TT $10 and the forecast of negative economic growth for 2017-mediation and compromise must be part of important negotiations.

In Jamaica, once pleadings are closed in the High Court, the parties must sit down and open themselves to what grace brings. For both sides to benefit there must be dying on both sides or, put more positively, both must come out winners.

There is another important point. Politics was once a branch of moral philosophy, ie, it is a way of seeking the good for the whole, or at least the majority, mindful of the concerns of the minority.

‘Politics has its own morality’ is not the most noble thing we can say about politics; about what successive popes have called a “sacred” function.

Rather, we need to see a convincing search for the common good in our politics so that unions and others may follow the lead and steady the Trinidad and Tobago ship across treacherous waters.

Duke seems fully charged up and energised on the campaign trail, swinging at the People’s National Movement (PNM). We will have to wait and see if the new axe of the PDP, chipping away at the mighty 60-year-old PNM, will be enough to win this election.

The fascinating thing about campaigns of this nature is the strategic approach by parties based on specific circumstances.

For any political science student, this THA election will definitely shed some light on the implementation of political marketing campaign strategies.

The PNM is currently the totalitarian title-holder of all 12 seats in the THA. The party has the budget to run a full-scale election campaign and this is coupled with incumbency.

Additional variables include the control of central government, control of local government, a new political leader in Tobago, and a stalled national economy.

All these variables combined at any rate is usually a conclusively favourable position for a political party contesting an election.

The election campaign resembles the 2013 PNM campaign when it won all 12 seats with a remix of the then flagship song “PNM coming”. The reality is that this campaign is not set in the same circumstances as 2013 so the same approach will not yield the same results. Pollsters, analysts, stakeholders and members of the PNM would all admit that another 12-0 victory is out of the question this time around but the PNM is still tipped to win.

Duke is using his currency as Public Services Association president to tell Tobagonians he will “fight for a better Tobago.” The PDP is committing to make all employees working over seven years permanent, building 1,700 homes and lobbying the Government to increase the Tobago entitlement from the average low of 4.3 percent to the maximum 6.9 percent. Duke claims Tobago lost $18.215 billion because of the low allocation received over the past 16 years of the PNM THA.

The “countryman”, as he was recently labelled by the PNM, has employed the best political marketing campaign strategy when low on campaign funds.

This strategy is to directly call out your opponent and use every form of free press available to plead your case.

The people of Tobago will decide if Duke being charged up is enough to energise the electorate to vote for the PDP instead of the PNM.

Ronald Huggins St Joseph