The “Calypso Spikers” saved their best game for last as they started with high intensity and maintained that level from the start to finish.

The hour-long final saw TT overpowering the host team 25-12, 25-16, 25-10. TT ’s most experienced player Krystle Esdelle led the way with 14 points including 10 spikes and three aces.

Also contributing was Channon Thompson who retained her Most Valuable Player award this tournament with 11 points. Darlene Ramdin and Sinead Jack chipped in with 10 and nine points respectively.

Suriname defeated Guadeloupe for the bronze medal 3-1 (25- 15, 24-26, 25-17, 25- 22). The tournament`s top scorer Surinamese Sandrina Hunsel led her team with 31 points while Leslie Figere-Turiaf top scored for Guadeloupe with 19 points.

An elated TT captain Renele Forde said, “It feels great to be champions once again, it was a smooth final. I`m really proud of the team and their efforts because we played like the best in the Caribbean.” After collecting her MVP award for a second consecutive time Channon Thompson said, “It feels great but a pleasant surprise, I anticipated winning the best server award gaging from my performance throughout the tournament. I am happy, thank God of course, and my team for supporting me and I’m really happy to have contributed towards the ultimate goal of winning. None of the individual awards would have been possible without each other.” The 23-year-old Francebased player continued, “Special mention to the coach and technical staff for their guidance also to the Minister of Sports Darryl Smith for his words of motivation before the final match as well as the public Trinidad and Tobago for their fire, enthusiasm and support from Grand Prix straight to CAZOVA.”

TT will host one of the three groups of the FIVB Round Three elimination later this year. The first group will be staged in Canada from September 26-30; Trinidad and Tobago will host the second from October 4-9; while the third will be held in the Dominican Republic from October 11-16. The top two teams in each group will qualify for the 2018 World Championship that will run from September 29 to October 20.

Special Awards for TT players: Most Valuable Player/ Best Server/ Best Outside: Channon Thompson Best Blocker: Sinead Jack Best Opposite: Krystle Esdelle.

Vendor Indira Romero explains how it started, “For the past five years, we have been selling our products at the market on a Sunday. We cater to two groups of customers – those who want to grab and go and purchase things like coconut bake, buljol, tomato and baigan choka on the way to the beach. And those who would like to sit, meet new people and enjoy good family entertainment and great food. One of our vendors suggested the concept of Christmas in July last year during the slow vacation period, and that’s how this idea was borne.” Patrons at the market were greeted by the rhythmic sounds of live music by Ernesto Garcia, who Romero describes as a “very human and down-to-earth person who loves to help and entertain.” The excitement continued as DJ Kari D entertained with parang and other popular Christmas and Latin favourites.

“We encourage youth entrepreneurship – there are children who come here to sell produce with their parents, including special kids all the way from Gasparee Island who sell their handmade jewellery. Did you know our DJ is only 12 years old?” Romero says gleefully, pointing her out.

Romero, who is an art and language teacher by profession, explained how she began selling her all-natural bread. “After my mum suffered a massive heart attack a few years ago, I wanted to find a way for her to still enjoy pastelles etc, so her doctors advised me to make small changes to her diet.” She now uses only100 per cent cold pressed virgin coconut oil in lieu of butter and margarine.

She uses 100 per cent organic white flour and whole wheat and also makes different varieties of bread such as rosemary, beetroot, oatmeal, passion fruit, pineapple, chadon beni, mango, tangerine and orange.

She explains that they are the first group of vendors in TT to operate a market that is not owned, organised and promoted by anyone.

“We are able to function without funding because of a group effort and we are very grateful to the owners of the San Antonio Green Market for the opportunity to operate as a community of entrepreneurs,” Romero says.

“I believe we have been successful in managing not only our own individual micro-businesses, but a group business.

We pay rent and do not have a marketing department or budget for advertising or printing flyers.

Every single vendor is responsible for spreading the word to the public that we are here every Sunday and our product is a unique ‘one-of-akind market’.” The vendors began selling food items and have since diversified their offerings, ranging from moringa powder to bath and beauty products, from all-natural cocoa based lotions to home-made wine and coffee and cocoa brewed on site. Some of the vendors are at the Green Market every Sunday.

In order to cater for a larger crowd at bigger events and festivals, the Breakfast and Brunch Sunday experience partners with restaurants such as Taryn’s Restaurant and Mr Isle’s Catering.

“The behaviour of a vendor is different when they don’t have to report to management.

Everyone takes a greater pride and responsibility in beautifying their space and keeping it clean.

We work together in harmony and respect one another. We have learnt the needs of our customers because it’s our business, our face and our product. It’s not only about making money on the day, but creating leads further afield, fostering entrepreneurship and providing a unique offering to the public,” Romero says. For more information call 392-4966, email at jaammromero@gmail.

com or visit Facebook: Breakfast and Brunch Sunday Experience.

But this time, it was not that one special drink that makes it all okay, but rather the sushi. And not just any sushi, but the newly revamped Hyatt Regency Trinidad sushi experience. The hotel’s newly constructed sushi bar gives its customers the chance to enjoy custom sushi while overlooking the waterfront.

The bar was opened earlier this year in February but all of the elements were not fully in place.

According to Hyatt Regency’s Marketing Communications manager, Neemah Persad-Celestine, “This was not the sushi bar.

The sushi bar was on the other side,” she explained the bar’s new configuration to members of the media who were treated to the Hyatt’s new sushi experience on July 28, at Wrightson Road, Port of Spain. She said it was not really a sushi bar but a place where the hotel “made it happen.” “But sushi became so popular, that it continued and we never moved it from anywhere else. So recently, we finished our renovation and upgrade (of the hotel) …but this is the brand new sushi bar dedicated to sushi.” Persad-Celestine said one of the new features of the revamped sushi bar is its opening hours.

The bar would usually open Monday to Saturday, from 5 pm to 10 pm. Now, the bar will open from 1 pm on Fridays, with an aim at making the 1 pm opening an everyday thing.

Persad-Celestine explained that the new construction gives patrons the chance to sit, be more comfortable and see things properly. “Before we did not have all of that.” The hotel’s recently appointed executive sous chef, Anthony Rattigan, who has 20 years working with the Hyatt chain and four months in TT , said the team tries to craft rolls unique to the Trinidadian palate. Over the world, he said, one would not find a lot of spicy rolls but that was something found in TT .

Rolls such as the dynamite roll were to appease the Trinidadian/ Caribbean taste. But if spicy is not your thing, the Hyatt staff tones it down just for you, adding to that intimate, one-on-one experience. The ingredients used are indigenous to TT and if you are allergic to something or have a particular preference, just tell your chef and they would create something just for you. Rattigan said the adjusted time was done to accommodate the large volume of people in the hotel and from surrounding offices who requested sushi for lunch.

Eliseo Caliguia, sous chef, heads the six-member team.

And it is a team that is always seeking to offer something new to its customers, changing the menu to add new and exciting items such as the Andre Caribbean roll and the newly added spicy udon noodle soup.

Listed as one of the hotel’s favourites, the Andre Caribbean roll was named after employee Andre James, who was the hotel’s employee of the year four years ago, and in 2015 won the Caribbean employee of the year award from the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association. Not only was a roll named after him but the hotel will soon name a suite after him in honour of his achievement. The menu is revamped every three to six months to keep things new and exciting. And when you’re finished with the sushi roll just suited for your palate, wash it down with one of the hotel’s signature drinks for that one-on-one sushi experience.

Speaking at the SRFP’s smoke ceremony at the community’s centre in Arima yesterday, Hernandez said at the launch of the celebrations recently he was asked how much it would cost to host the celebrations in October and his response was $3 million.

Yesterday he said the community expects to spend much less since they may get venues and services for free and stressed that the community was not asking the Government to give them the estimated $3 million.

“We are asking the government to assist to whatever extent that they can,” he said. Hernandez also called on corporate TT to support the venture. Other fund raising efforts include bar-b-que, t-shirt, bookmark and limited edition stamp sales.

“All of these will add to the revenue pool to make up the funds needed to carry out our celebrations and various planned events.

This is a one-off holiday. It is not an annual event like what all the other major ethnic groups have,” he said as he also called for support from the wider community.

According to his adopted mother, Iesha Jackman Archer, the 22-year-old man was inspired to go from block to block, preaching against violence.

Archer, who on Monday spoke to reporters at the Forensic Science Centre in St James, is now taking up her son’s mantle and calling on gunmen to stop the violence.

“These people don’t want to stop this killing!” said the mother.

“I forgive the people that did this to him, but what goes around comes around. Revenge is God’s own and His only.” Archer told Newsday her son was a witness to a murder last year.

He was questioned, but did not give up the killer, and was himself locked up in relation to the crime. Harrichand was released from prison about two months ago, but he came back a changed man, his mother claimed.

“He said he got a vision that told him to go to the criminals and tell them to stop killing each other. He would start going in places that he should not go because he is a Muslim – areas that I and all would not dare go – and preaching to the gunmen,” she said. At about 11.15 on Saturday last, gunshots were heard along St Paul Street, and Block Eight, in Laventille. Residents called the police and when they responded they found the bullet riddled body of Harrichand lying on the roadway.

Maybe the mayor is not paying attention to the condition of Port of Spain. Maybe he is too busy playing the piano.

There are vagrants everywhere walking among people like nobody’s business, some of them half naked with their private parts exposed, others with raw sores eating away their flesh.

And it seems like no one is concerned about the vagrancy problem.

Some streets are full of human faeces — between Duncan Street and Independence Square, on Henry Street, the bottom of Charlotte Street, Nelson Street. This is outrageous and unpleasant.

This is the capital. We have foreigners coming to our country and it is a shame to see the condition of the city. Mayors come and go and it seems not one of them knows how to handle the vagrancy problem.

Sweden has no vagrancy problem.

The mayor should do some research and see what the government there does and get some ideas. Because the vagrancy problem is getting worse. The problem can be solved. This would be good not just for Port of Spain but for the country. And we can honour Penny in some other way.

MODICIA MARTIN via email

In his absence, President of the Senate the Honourable Christine Kangaloo will act as President.

Kangaloo was sworn in yesterday morning at the Office of the President.

Both days are important to remember but there is a particular significance to linking our national heroines and heroes with that moment in history when we decided to embrace nationhood fully. How that has worked out for us thus far calls for a deeper analysis for another day, but the sentiment that the President seeks to engender in us is in fact our independence; our ability as a nation to define our path in our own best interest quite separate from the dictates from the political ties of a former time. I have no doubt my mother, a West Indies Federalist to the end, would approve.

The problem is we have allowed so much to clutter our vision for ourselves; we are running forward to 2020- or now 2030- carried along by the cheering rhetoric of politicians without pause to take stock of where we are going or, for that matter, what we are running from.

As significant days go, July 27 has claimed a place in the history books of Trinidad and Tobago for the events of that and the ensuing six days. The 1990 attempted coup was clearly a stock taking moment. The Commission of Enquiry some twenty years later by no means satisfied the imperative of stock taking.

The question for contemplation really is whether the state of the nation at the time was so beyond democratic remedy to lead the perpetrators to believe their actions were justified, or was the coup just a dramatic, and ultimately foolhardy, way of dealing with their particular vexation with the government of the day? That can be debated ad nausea but as Wesley Gibbings quite insightfully points out in a recent article, the facts as recalled by some have become the dominant narrative and so embedded that it is hard to imagine there is space for other perspectives. All of human history is like that though, based on the record of those who had a voice at the time of the retelling.

Despite the irony, one can hardly disagree with Abu Bakr’s public sentiments about the state of criminality in the country, which is indeed far worse now than it was when he led the assault on the democracy back in 1990. But does that mean we are likely to experience another attempt at a violent take over? Not necessarily.

I would imagine that there are intelligence personnel from this and other countries closely monitoring the situation in Trinidad particularly given the upheavals taking place in Venezuela. Many factors have to be in place before the kind of “civil disturbance” feared by some could come to pass, not least of those a unifying political agenda to bring together all the disparate criminal groups.

Are there groups out there that, along with busying themselves with the violent claiming of turf for quick economic gain, have aspirations of taking over the reigns of governance? If so, are the groups unified enough to be of singular purpose? It is hard to imagine at this point, however, that being said, there are worrying signs that the “haves” and “have nots” are being defined along ethnic lines which raises the specter of racially motivated criminality. Whether this is the case or not, the fear that one could be at risk just for belonging to one ethnic group or other has already begun to take hold. When did it come to this?

Deenish Benjamin and Deochan Ganga challenged their convictions based on their mental capacity and the appellate court was asked to consider whether Benjamin, 36, and Ganga, 35, had the mental capacity to participate in their trial and to give police confessions to the crime.

Delivering a 43-page judgment, Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Appellate Judges Rajendra Narine and Prakash Moosai dismissed their appeal and held that both men were fit to stand trial for the murder of their cousin Sunil Ganga.

Benjamin and Ganga were convicted and sentenced to death on December 4.

Sunil died on July 12, 2003, after being beaten and hanged in a shed behind his Penal home, next to Benjamin and Ganga’s home.

During the trial, Sunil’s wife, Roseanne, testified she saw both men entering the shed before her husband’s death.

It was the State’s case that both men confessed while under interrogation from police, but they both denied that while on trial, claiming they were mistakenly identified by Roseanne.

In their ruling, the appeal court judges refused to quash their convictions and order a retrial but instead commuted their mandatory death sentences to life sentences with a minimum term of 30 years.

They may be released in 2033 as they have already spent 14 years in prison.

“We have considered the fact that both appellants were young men at the time of the commission of the crime and are still relatively young.

We are therefore minded to leave open the possibility of release,” Moosai, who wrote the judgment, said.

During the hearing of their appeal in February 2014, British mental health experts Drs Tim Green and Richard Latham were called as defence witnesses and claimed that the duo should not have been put on trial due to their learning disabilities.

“Notwithstanding an undisputed finding of mild learning disability, a legitimate criticism that can be levelled against the experts is their failure or omission to interview Benjamin’s family/or friends (and Ganga’s for that matter) to provide objective verification for a significant component of their diagnosis,” Moosai said in the ruling of the experts’ testimony.

The cousins were represented by Keith Scotland, Daniel Khan and Asha Watkins-Montserin.

This was the statement made by Wayne Chance, head of non-profit organisation Vision on a Mission yesterday during his feature address at the Mothers’ Against Drug Abuse sixth annual Echoes of Hope function at Green Meadows, Santa Barbara Boulevard, Santa Cruz.

Chance said despite celebrating Emancipation yesterday, many people were imprisoned whether by physical bars or by any situation that would confine or restrict them from living their lives the way they saw fit.

Chance said that some people are not willing to pay the price that comes with freedom.

“Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King knew that they had to pay a hefty price for freedom. They paid the ultimate price for others to be free. Sometimes when you are fighting for freedom you may not even be the person that enjoys the comforts of that freedom.” Chance continued by relating several trials that he had to endure during his life to experience the freedom that he has today. He said he had been jailed for a decade and still had to fight and sacrifice to ensure that he did not have to go back to prison.

“When I was in prison for those ten years I had to change so many attitudes and habits that I had just to attain freedom. But when I got out of prison I made a promise that I would not go back. It was a journey.

When I got past those prison gates I realised that I had another prison – on the outside – that I had to overcome to truly be free.

At first, I had to live in conditions that were worse than in prison in order to be truly free. Because sometimes even when you are freed from your prison, you really don’t demonstrate the freedom that you truly have. I had to pay a price to make sure that I would not be imprisoned again, and today as I stand before you I can say that I am proud to have paid that price.” Mothers Against Drug Abuse is a Non-Profit Organisation which highlights and educates children about the dangers of drug abuse, whether it is a legal or illegal substance.

The organisation has been going from school to school teaching children what drugs does to the human body.