Located at 51 Cornelio Street, studio is Esdelle’s latest contribution to the music scene and will serve as the venue for a weekly series of live concerts featuring the top musicians and performers in the genre.

“In this quarter we are honoured to partner with Clive “Zanda” Alexander,” said Esdelle, “to present his work.

Themed “KaiSoca @ the Jazz Studio”, the upcoming calendar of events includes both concert presentations and workshops, which offer a collection of arrangements and compositions rooted in the kaiso genre and its derivative, soca.” Described as “a living icon of Kaiso Jazz”, Alexander will perform two sets at 7.30 and 9.30 pm. He previously performed at the studio on November 18.

His manager and CEO of QLife Promotions, David Dyer explained that Alexander is embarking on a new and exciting chapter of his long-standing career: “We are about to go into studio with him to record all of his works which have only been scored in the past and these arrangements will be used by young musicians enrolled at the UTT , Dyer said.

“Zanda’s passion is to teach and work with the youth and to teach them improvisation and a level of musicianship, which is lacking badly – while striving to preserve his own legacy in the annals of history as well.

We are currently in negotiations with a number of international festivals interested in booking this living icon of kaiso jazz and his Lagacy Ensemble, but will also be presenting him at a number of events over the next few months…” Zanda recently returned from a visit to South Africa where he spent four months visiting his sons (Tshipi and Zolani) and four grandchildren.

“It was a spiritual and phenomenal experience,” he said.

“In terms of reuniting with where we came from as a people and to see what South Africa has achieved coming out of apartheid.

In 25 years, what they have accomplished and the opportunities of what they were denied are astounding.

As a people they are aggressive and in positive pursuit of their aspirations.” Ticket price is $100 each.

“We are thrilled to be here. Thank you for organising this. It is such a lovely way to end our Sunday!” said a mother who brought her two children to event on December 4.

The popular movie Frozen was shown on the night, much to the delight of the almost 600 patrons, which included many families. Part of the excitement for the children included a “Sing Off Competition” of the theme song from the movie; the first and second place winners were presented with hampers, courtesy Vemco Ltd. The next four instalments of Family Nights Under the Lights are : •December 10: Rio Claro, Koskeros Panyard – 5 pm •December 11: Botanic Gardens – 6 pm •December 17: Palmiste Park – 5 pm •December 18 : Botanic Gardens –6 pm Santa and Friends will be there before each movie which include one-and-a-half hours of fun for the children, including face painting and balloon give aways.

Admission is free.

Organisers than sponsors: BPTT; Atlantic LNG; Courts Trinidad; Caribbean Bottlers; Massy Distributors; Blue Waters; Massy Stores; Nutrimix; Chuck E Cheese’s; Alstons Marketing Company Limited (AMCO); Flavourite; Mano’s; Digicel IMAX; Vemco; Island Properties Owners Association and Mode Alive.

Vendors include Alicia Hernandez, Zest Cake Bar, Ginger and Spice, De Lujo Bags by Jhodi, Happy Curls, Happy Girls, Wreaths by Miss V, Accentuate – Precious Pieces by Nichola, Bene Caribe, Mother Daughter Cakes, Sonja Dumas, Kimlin Pinder, Barbara Remy, Ariann Mieka Photography, Sharon Jobity – Goldenicon, Haute Wire, Michelle Ramsay- James, Oui! Scrubs, Tessa Alexander, Immortelle Beauty Ltd,The Happy Hippy, Adele Beckles, Cute As A Button, Anna’s Handmade Candles, Just Soleil Mobile Nail Tech, For You Exclusively, Kimo’s Closet, Jendayi Sikelela, Avagale Rajkumar, Daphne Pierre- Smith, A Splash of Colour, The Mosaic Artists, Fruitful Desserts and The Old Hilarians’ Association.

There will also be breakfast, beverages and other foodstuff on sale.

For updates on vendors and other information, please check the Facebook event page Hilarian Market.

On Sunday, “Carols Under The Stars” will be mounted by The Bishop Anstey High School Choir’s at 6 pm.

Tickets are available at $150 from members of the choir, the school’s office (623-6591)or 739-6926. The concert will feature the BAHS Choir and Steel Ensemble, the Holistic Music School Band, Voces de Promosa and alumna, Danielle Williams.

Mary Could Dance celebrates 20 years as TT ’s most awarded and acclaimed play with ten Cacique Awards.

It launched its 20- year celebration at the newest state-of-the-art theatre, the Government Campus Plaza, Auditorium (GCP) to appreciative and captivated audiences which included many first-timers to ever see the play.

As 2016 comes to a close, the final two special performances of Mary Could Dance closes the theatre season at Cipriani College, Valsayn.

These performances take place tomorrow and Sunday at 8.30 pm and 6.30 pm respectively.

Mary Could Dance features everything from exotic dancing, to cat fights, to romance, to the antics of the scandalous pimp/bar owner mule as the play takes you on a journey and a night of theatre that you will not forget.

In a statement, Regis noted that her decision to write a book on a significant segment of Trinidad’s mixed population was based on the 2011 census which showed that douglas accounted for 7.7 percent of the 22.8 percent mixed population.

“This percentage surpasses that of all other minority ethnic groups which account collectively for 1.4 percent of the Trinidad and Tobago population yet the existing scholarship on the group is cursory and spattered,” Regis stated. She added that the book was necessary as the dougla population continued to grow and “add new dimensions in an already pluralised and stratified social order.” Regis noted that the book would provide a new perspective and a better understanding of the language used by douglas in specific contexts although pointed out that while most individuals shared the same language in Trinidad, douglas would often use terms linked to their parent group based on their socialisation practices.

In his review, Dr Brinsley Samaroo said the book “opens up a whole new area of research on an increasingly important sector of the national community.” “Because of the absence of proper information and analysis our douglas live in a confused space not realising their potential as agents of national unity,” Samaroo wrote. The book is available on Amazon US and at the Market, the Normandie, St Ann’s.

“It was the car they wanted. It was the car they killed him for.

Knowing him, Norris would not have gone in that remote area to drop off any passenger. It had to be robbery and nothing else. He was not a criminal. Norris was a very good man,” a relative said yesterday.

Mendoza, 44, also called Norrisman lived at Poui Road in St Mary’s Village, Moruga with his wife Christie, and their two children. He plied the St Mary’s Village/Princes Town taxi route with his blue station- wagon. Police reported that at about 10 pm on Wednesday, officers observed a blue Nissan Wingroad abandoned at the side of the road along a bushy area at Second Branch Road, Fifth Company in Moruga. On looking inside the vehicle, the officers saw blood stains on the driver and front passenger seats as well as a trail of blood leading to nearby bushes. Because the place was not properly lit with street lights, the officers had to use flashlights to manoeuvre through the bushes. Several feet away, they found Mendoza’s body lying face down. He was handcuffed. The body was removed to the Forensic Science Centre for an autopsy.

Relatives described the victim as a hard-working family man. “Norris was a fun-loving man. He also did construction work. This had to be a robbery. I believe they (killers) went to dump the body but same time saw the police vehicle and fled,” a relative said. No arrest has been made and investigations are continuing.

These images of fiery power and floral delicacy symbolise the historic energy agreement signed this past Monday between the governments of Trinidad and Tobago (TT) and Venezuela.

It is an agreement which allows TT and Venezuela’s energy companies, National Gas Company (NGC) and PdVSA (Petr?leos de Venezuela, SA) and international giant, Royal Dutch Shell, to work together on the delivery of natural gas from fields offshore Venezuela’s north eastern coastline to Trinidad.

The pipeline will run from Venezuela’s Dragon gas field to the Hibiscus Platform, owned by Shell, on to land at Trinidad’s Point Lisas Industrial Estate where the gas would be processed and sold.

TT will be given priority in purchasing the gas.

It was an occasion which had TT Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro dancing around in a conga line with folk dancers, after the signing ceremony following hour-long private talks at the Presidential Palace in Caracas.

“The objective of today’s signing was to identify the resources in Venezuela, identify the processes by which we’ll bring those resources to market, identify the agencies and all the protocols involved in giving life to a particular project (Dragon gas field),” Rowley revealed to local media on Monday evening, at the VIP Lounge, Piarco International Airport, on his return from the day-long Official Visit to Venezuela.

“We are talking about an agreement between the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Government of Venezuela,” Rowley added, “to bring Venezuelan gas by specific identification of pipeline and platform, and specific usage in TT.

In short, we now have a project and the Government-to-Government heads of agreement that’s been signed today, and the heads of agreement between the operating agencies (NGC, PdVSA, Shell).” Rowley also told members of the media corps who had accompanied him on the visit that “the existence (of the) Hibiscus platform,” which Shell now owns thanks to its acquisition of British Gas (BG) earlier this year, “has been a major impetus in putting this project together.” Rowley explained that the “confidentiality aspects” of the agreement meant he was unable to provide the media with certain details. This was also due, the PM added, to the fact that some details “are still to be worked out at the level of (the) heads of agreement of (the) operating companies.” However, he did quote from page five, article two of the agreement, titled Obligations of the Parties, “so that you as the media in TT can be properly apprised of exactly what we have agreed to today (Monday).” “The parties (Governments of TT and Venezuela) agree to take reasonable steps to facilitate: (a) The development, construction, operation and maintenance of one or more pipelines from the Mariscal Sucre region in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Republic of TT, including a pipeline from the Dragon field to the Hibiscus platform, known in the agreement as the pipeline; (b) The delivery of gas from fields in the north-eastern offshore area of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, known as the Mariscal Sucre region, to the Republic of TT; and (c) The sale of natural gas volumes to the domestic gas market of TT, as a priority, and international markets.” Rowley noted that, as of December 5, “these companies are authorised by both governments to proceed to operationalise that project.” When Business Day asked if the government-to-government agreement included a specific date by which gas from Venezuela’s Dragon field would be piped to TT; which Rowley previously noted is located “to the north of us here, just beyond the Bocas”, the PM said a date of 2020 was included but efforts are being made to achieve an earlier start date.

“In preparation for the decision that the development of this project should proceed, one of the things that was taken on board is TT’s need for gas up to 2031.

And also, our immediate need, our short-term need and medium-term.

The plans are, in the agreement, we look at latest 2020 but today (Monday), what the President (Maduro) agreed to, and we in TT agreed to, is that if it could be done in 10 months, it should be done in five months.” “So in fact, while the analysis of the static situation is a 2020 deadline,” Rowley continued, “we are working towards a much earlier date. Therefore, what we are looking at for TT is not an immediate gas supply to our shortfall situation but treating with a worsening situation in the near to medium term.” “If we are able to have the pipeline works and the platform works and so on done in 24 months, then that would be a tremendous improvement but in the meantime, we could look towards the gas utilisation because we now know that there will be gas at some time, which is a situation that was of great concern to us when the opposite was beginning to loom as true,” the PM said.

Rowley was accompanied on his official visit by a high-powered delegation that included Energy Minister Franklin Khan, Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Dennis Moses, Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Stuart Young, Petrotrin Chairman Professor Andrew Jupiter, NGC Chairman Gerry Brooks and Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier General Rodney Smart.

The only persons to make official statements during the trip were Rowley and Maduro. While the PM answered questions from the TT media upon the contingent’s return to Piarco Monday evening, Maduro declined to take questions following the signing at the Presidential Palace.

He did however speak for just under 17 minutes about many things, chief among them, how this agreement will allow TT to commercialise the Dragon gas field would be of mutual benefit to both countries.

“Venezuela is the country of opportunities to invest in oil, gas, and other areas. We have 15 engines that we are developing in a new strategic vision, 15 powerful engines of the economy. We are going to work together, we are going to be good partners, we are going to look for new roads, if we had any problems in the past. We are going forward. So you are invited to work and all the international companies that want to work within this vision, welcome.” Referring to the “clear (economic) difficulties” facing the Venezuelan people, Maduro said, “all of these investments are necessary for our country, as well as being of mutual benefit (to TT). These are very necessary for our country because these incomes (will provide) a new system of income collection.

International co-operation for economic stability and the development of our nation, it is very important to be on top of these projects. It is very important,” Maduro reiterated. Speaking about the Dragon gas field, he said the “regulatory framework, the constitutional and legal framework.

are clear and all investments in Venezuela are guaranteed their success, present and future.

“We also celebrate this partnership with Shell to develop this project and we also ask them in the same way to accelerate everything,” Maduro stated.

The empty container was found abandoned in Carlsen Field shortly after the discovery of the missing container was made.

According to reports, AS Bryden imported the cheese which arrived in the country last week.

However, when officials of the company carried out the necessary transaction to clear the container and after doing so, attempted to retrieve the container, discovered that it was missing.

A report was made to the Port security department and investigation was initiated to ascertain how persons were able to leave the compound of the Port Authority without the necessary documents to give clearance to leave the compound.

Newsday understands that no official report of the missing cheese was made to the police and the matter is now in the hands of the Customs and Excise Department and the Port Authority. Investigators believe that persons used false documents to remove the container containing the cheese from the Port and then moved the items to a place in Central where the Cheese packages were removed and the container dumped at Carlsen Field.

Investigators now believe that the cheese will be sold to unscrupulous business people at bargain prices.

Sources within the Customs and Excuse department said that they intend to search several business places where they believe the cheese packages are being kept. Sources within the Port Authority security department confirmed to Newsday that security officers who were on duty on the day the container of cheese went missing have been interviewed as part of the ongoing investigation.

Responding to a question from Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee on this issue in the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister said, “We will still expect that the arrangements in place will permit small medium and large businesses to survive within the context of our circumstances.” Rowley said regardless of the size of the users of foreign exchange, “this conversation has to be rooted in the fact that there has to be an understanding that foreign exchange in TT is not at the level that it used to be.” The Prime Minister said people would be burying their heads in the sand if they did not accept that foreign exchange is being, “bought and sold outside of the banks in TT.” He attributed this to a tinkering in April 2014 under the then People’s Partnership (PP) government, “with the distribution of foreign exchange that first took us down the road to the creation of a black market in this country.” Regarding Lee’s question which spoke about a huge demand for foreign exchange by businesses during Christmas and claimed there was a prolonged shortage of it, Rowley found such as statement to be strange in the second week of December. He said the bulk of the foreign exchange required for the Christmas trade, “would have been occurring before and spent as far back as October.” Asked by Tabaquite MP Dr Suruj Rambachan about businesses putting up signs saying they are buying foreign exchange, Rowley said as far as he was aware foreign exchange is supposed to be handled within certain regulatory arrangements. The Prime Minister said any breaches of the law in this regard would be dealt with by the relevant agencies.

Group Chairman Issa Nicholas, at the ceremony to mark the construction of the facility, said there is a dire need for parking facilities in the city.

“That is the only way we could have people come to the offices and get them to stay. Otherwise we will have empty buildings with no offices in it,” he said.

The modern parking facility, he said, will provide for 200 cars.

The entrance will be on Abercromby Street while the exit will be through Chacon Street.

It is scheduled for completion by July 2017. Nicholas, who has already built four car park facilities, said that two years ago, he bought the land adjacent to his office building Nicholas Court and decided to use it to ease up the problem of parking in the city.

Apart from parking spaces, he said, “it will add to the lively atmosphere of the commercial surrounding area.” In brief remarks, Minister of Planning and Development Camille Robinson-Regis said that though simple, the ceremony was “of great significance” to the capital city which needs revitalising.

Noting that parking was an issue for the city, she said, the investment was timely.

“On each occasion Mr Nicholas and his team have made an input into changing the landscape of Port-of-Spain, it has been very effective and significant for Port-of-Spain,” she said.