Named the Caribbean Steel Pan Connexion (correct spelling), the band consisting of Andre Robbley, Kwesi Paul, Carlon Morris and Terry Guischard left the country yesterday to spend 49 days promoting TT’s national instrument in the Central Asian country. The team was the only one chosen by Caricom to represent the Caribbean at the show.

The team’s manager, Israel Mc- Leod said the men were all professional universtity-qualified musicians who have received an opportunity they have always dreamed of with hopes that more doors like this would open up to them in the future.

The team’s leader Robbley is the lead tenor with the Desperadoes Steel Orchestra for the last 30 years while Paul plays with Pandemonium Steel Orchestra and Phase II Pan Group. Morris is the lead double tenor also with Desperadoes and Guischard plays with NLCB Fonclaire.

McLeod said the group first found out about the expo through an advertisement on Facebook asking for all steel pannists to submit an audition fee and contact information.

She said this invitation came from Caricom and they had to submit a seven-minute video highlighting local music including calypso, soca, and, just to show their diversity, threw in a version of Ave Maria.

“We submitted a proposal which described each of the musicians and their experience, our repertoire and the number and types of pans that we would propose to be used for a trade show like this.

“Caricom would have identified a sponsor company in Kazakhstan to partner with and out of whatever submissions they received, we were the successful group. I don’t know how many other parties would have submitted, but I don’t think it would have been that many, maybe about two others submitted.

Israel said this was the first time that steelpan was being introduced to Kazakhstan and this was the only group in TT representing the Caricom in the trade show. However, she bemoaned the fact that TT was the last group to arrive in the country, when other reprsentative countries had arrived for over a month.

“It has been going on for a while so, we are really going to show up and show off what we have to offer,” she said during a telephone interview yesterday, while she was clearing their steelpans at the Piarco International Airport.

McLeod said she could not say what was the keep back, but was grateful that they were finally on their way.

The manager said the pannists were very excited for this opportunity to showcase their talent, and also the culture of their country.

“Besides pulling out our hair this morning they are very excited.

They are musiciians, they don’t have another option such as plumbing or going into IT or things like that. They are trained and qualified at university level as musicians, so this is the opportunity that they have been dreaming of, to be self sufficient as musicians and to have doors open up. They are also looking forward to more opportunities coming out of this arrangement,” McLeod said.

What environmentally unconscious authorities are we dealing with in this 21st century? Please note, correct attitudes and mindsets in managing our public green spaces are severely lacking. Third world.

CL KONG via email

Joseph, 48, of Upper Seventh Avenue, Malick was before Justice Maria Wilson in the Port of Spain Fourth Criminal court charged for shooting Stewart, 21, at Cocoa Road in Febeau Village, San Juan on September 29, 2002. A 12 member jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the guilty verdict.

Senior State attorney Anju Bhola prosecuted.

According to evidence, Joseph went to bathe at a spring at Laventille Road in San Juan. Stewart and a group of neighbours were already at the spring when Joseph arrived. After being told to wait his turn, Joseph became angry and started to argue with Stewart and his friends.

“Anybody that want to live better run,” Joseph said as he drew a gun from a bag he was carrying and began shooting at the group.

Stewart was shot several times while his friends managed to escape and reported the incident to police. Stewart’s friends were placed in protective custody and testified against Joseph at the trial.

They claimed to have known Joseph before the incident and were able to point him out at identification parades.

Joseph claimed he was assisting in campaigning for that year’s general election at the time of the incident. At the time of the murder, Joseph was on bail in relation to a charge that he shot at police Constables Jason Boney and Marlon Maslier at Seventh Avenue, Malick on July 24, 2001.

After passing the sentence on Joseph, Justice Wilson praised Senior Superintendent David Abraham for his comprehensive investigation which was performed while he was a Sergeant in the Homicide Bureau of Investigation

According to reports at 5 pm, the woman decided to visit her mother Christiana Lewis when she discovered Lewis’s body lying face down in a house. Officers of the Sangre Grande Police Station and Homicide Investigations Bureau were alerted and a party of officers led by Snr Supt Nelson and including Insp Ken Lutchman, Sgt Harper, PC Sankar, Siew and WPC Kiray visited the scene along with a district medical officer.

The daughter told police she last saw her mother alive last Friday.

Investigators said the wooden house where Lewis’ body was found was ransacked with food and clothing strewn all over the floor. The victim was not known to be suffering from any illness and police suspect she may have been sexually assaulted.

The body was removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for an autopsy to be done.

The murder toll for the year stands at 272

The conditions were hot but, at the end, the duo finished in a main sprint, with Whiteman taking sixth place and Cole ending in ninth position. Gold went to Thomas Bostock of Isle of Man in 1:32:28, Samuel Culverwell of Guernsey snatched silver and Mathew Oliveira of Bermuda rounded off the top three.

The event had a start number of 33 entrants with the cyclists covering a distance of 65 kilometres on a 9.3km circuit, therefore seven laps were covered to complete the course.

TT ended the Games with five medals — two gold, two silver and one bronze. Winning gold were the girls beach soccer team and Adell Colthrust in the boys 100m event.

Boys javelin participant Tyriq Horsford and the boys beach soccer team took silver, and swimmer Jeron Thompson copped bronze in the boys 50m freestyle.

And for its leaders, Chief Ricardo Bharath Hernandez and Carib Queen Jennifer Cassar, the one-off holiday granted to the community on October 13 signals a renaissance for a group almost forgotten.

Its significance is so meaningful to the group, that preparations for the holiday have already begun, with an almost concluded calendar of events. The calendar includes educational/learning opportunities, DNA testing, the unveiling of a totem pole and the sod turning for the first building at the First Peoples Heritage Village.

Bharath Hernandez said to Newsday, at a visit to the community’s office at Paul Mitchell Street, Arima: “What we are doing is going out to the communities, meeting with the people and getting them involved.” He said there were currently 900 First Peoples in TT with 200 of those being members of his community.

The group is also expected to host a ceremony at the Red House, where skeletal remains and artefacts belonging to First Peoples were found, and host a procession up Frederick Street and then to a day of activities at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain.

He said nine countries are expected to attend this year’s celebrations, including the US and Canada. Seven regional partners would attend this year’s celebrations as well.

But the global connections with other First Peoples have always existed, he said. “In terms of the global partnership, that has been taking place for quite a few years.

For quite a number of years, we have been interacting with the region because there is an organisation called the Caribbean Organisation of Indigenous Peoples and its members include Guyana, Suriname, Dominica, St Vincent, Puerto Rico and TT.” TT is currently the chair of the organisation. “During this week of activities we will take the opportunity to discuss what is happening in the region as each country will have an opportunity to report on the development of the first peoples in their respective country…” Bharath Hernandez said what appears to be a renewed interest in First Peoples culture began since the 1970s.

“From the 1970s there seems to be a reawakening of indigenous people at that time…it happened here in Trinidad and at the time it was happening we were not aware of what was happening globally. I like to term that an inspiration from above…” “I think one of the reasons for that besides the divine intervention…the dominance of First Peoples and other ethnicities, the colonial power was that seemed to be so heavy on other countries seems to be lifting away. And that could come through education and the modern technology that we have.” He said as people became more educated, they became more empowered and what was happening today was a result of that empowerment and education.

However, he believed that the new interest in First Peoples culture today could little impact TT .

He said the society was steeped in the direction of the economy and money and doing “all things for this mighty dollar and advancing through that.” This, he said, was a vast difference to the way of life of First Peoples.

He said even among the indigenous communities, the way of life was changing because of what people expected.

“What people expect for advancement, that power is also reaching into indigenous communities and they want to follow the same pattern. Most people want cellphones and other things and that is making its way into indigenous communities…” Bharath Hernandez said it was important to preserve the traditional ways since it provided a certain peace of mind and impacted positively on health.

While Bharath Hernandez and the other older indigenous peoples’ fight to preserve their culture, getting youth involved posed some difficulty. “It is a challenge but we cannot give up.

We have to continue to engage the youth through education.

Through educating them on the different aspects of indigenous life and the benefits to humanity…” He said there were many youths in the community but not many were involved in the organisation. The organisation needed to do more to reach out to them, he said.

This, Bharath Hernandez said, was the reason for requesting the national holiday. “The whole reason for the holiday was so the whole country could stop and reflect on the reason for the holiday.

We don’t expect everyone will be involved in the activities some people are happy for the holiday not to go to work… but that some would stop and say we have a holiday. Why? Because of the First Peoples, their contributions of the past, their present situation and their vision for the future. We do have a vision for the future that would help the country as a whole.” The holiday provides an opportunity for all those interested in wanting to know more and learn more to attend one of the events, he said.

Despite local and global economic trends of falling energy prices, and the urgent need to reduce public spending, the ministry said, Government has provided continued access to tertiary education through means testing and adjusted loan ceilings to help those who may still be unable to meet necessary costs.

Effective August 2017, only programmes and institutions accredited by the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago will be eligible for funding under the GATE Programme.

However, the ministry said, “this policy has not yet been effected, hence it cannot be said that ‘some public institutions are not accredited but access GATE funding’.” Policies governing the GATE programme have been carefully implemented after extensive consultation and review, the ministry said.

From the inception of the GATE programme in 2004 up to the 2015/2016 academic year, the ministry said, Government spent over $6.3 billion covering programmes that ranged from technical and vocational training to PhD studies.

Government spends substantial sums in support of tertiary level education through national scholarships, Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) and the Financial Assistance (Studies) Programme.

Though the HELP Programme increased its ceiling from $25,000 to $35,000 for students studying locally, the ministry said, only three percent of the student population has accessed the loans in the past.

The quota system the People’s Partnership government introduced in February 2015 for students enrolled in medical programmes at the University of the West Indies Mona and Cave Hill campuses was rescinded by the current PNM Government in December 2015.

In respect of St George’s University, Grenada, only ten students were funded in 2015/2016 with no further intake.

While Government continues to adhere to the mandate of the 2000 Dakar commitment to Education for All, it is important to note that tertiary education participation increased from approximately eight per cent in 2002 to the estimated 65.23 per cent in 2015. The targeted tertiary participation rate of at least 60 per cent by 2015 has been exceeded. The current level of tertiary participation, the ministry said, “compares favourably with the rate for developed countries.” Giving a background to the current situation, the ministry said, Government is experiencing significant reduction in revenues and foreign exchange earnings as a result of the falling prices of oil and gas. The price of oil has fallen from a high of US$128 in early 2011 to a low of US$30 in 2015 and currently selling for about US$48 representing some 63 percent decline from 2011 to 2016.

When the GATE Programme was established in 2004, oil prices ranged from US$40 to US$50 a barrel. The subsidy for both postgraduate and undergraduate programmes at that time was 50 per cent of tuition fees. In 2004, students who were unable to pay 50 per cent of tuition fees, were able to access full tuition on completion of a means test. As oil prices increased in 2006, Government introduced free tertiary education at the undergraduate level.

While governments in developed and developing countries have over the last decade reduced public funding of tertiary education due to constrained economic circumstances, Trinidad and Tobago is the only country in the English-speaking Caribbean which currently provides free tertiary level tuition support at the undergraduate level.

In 2016, the GATE programme the review of the programme to ensure sustainability of funding found that most of the recipients are from families which fall in the middle to high income groups.

The re-introduction of means testing in 2017/2018 was identified as one of the adjustments that should be made to the GATE programme.

This was the message coming from the floor and presenters at a CL Financial/Clico symposium held yesterday at St Mary’s College Centenary Hall, Port of Spain. At one stage, there was cross talk between persons with differing views that interrupted the forum.

Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who is representing a group of shareholders, presented an overview of Government’s petition to wind up CL Financial, claiming insolvency, to recover billions of dollars owed to taxpayers from the 2009 financial bailout, and the appeal by Government on the judge’s dismissal of an application for a provisional liquidator.

If the appeal, which is due to be heard tomorrow morning, is deemed urgent, he said, “from the moment that decision is made, it could have disastrous effects on the assets of the company.” If it is not deemed to be urgent, that will be the end of the liquidator, he said.

CL Financial shareholders are also due to meet later in the day to select two directors who would then outnumber the government directors. CL Financial has been under Government control since 2009 until recently when Government and the shareholders agreement was not renewed.

Maharaj said he does not know on what basis Government has filed the appeal because CL Financial has already paid $7 billion debts and has shown that it can pay its debts.

He said that both auditing firms PricewaterhouseCooper and Enrst and Young have advised against liquidation.

Describing Government’s opposition to attorney at law John Jeremie representing shareholders as “dictatorial”, he said, “the Government controlled board is not resisting the petition. Government companies are now calling in debts that are owed to trigger insolvency, and you have a situation where the Government does not want the shareholders in the court to put forward the views of the shareholders.” He could not understand, he said, why Government was holding on to CL Fanancial, when similar conglomerates which were folding in the US and the United Kingdom at about the same time, and were bailed out by their governments, have long since been handed back to their original companies.

In his presentation Clico Stakeholders Alliance David Walker said that when in 2009 he spoke against the set of agreements which have “led us to this position” there was no response from the authorities.

The agreement putting us in this “bad position”, he said, “was not something that happened. It was designed.” As a nation of laws, he said, to not to give owners access to their company would be a travesty of justice.

While liquidation will put policy holders, especially those in the Eastern Caribbean at a disadvantaged because they have not been compensated, Walker said, the only option is to return CL Financial to its shareholders who have been promising to pay all their debts.

Grenada’s Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago Dr Patrick Antoine in his contribution said that 90 percent of policy holders in Grenada have not had “a single cent” from the bail out.

The current debate on whether the company should be returned to Lawrence Duprey and his cohorts, Walker said, is grounded on a misunderstanding of the facts.

The feat follows his gold medal and world record breaking performance in the men’s javelin F44 event on Tuesday. Stewart’s first heave of 18.34 metres was enough to give him the gold medal and the world record, but the Tobagonian was eager to put distance between himself and the rest of the field. His second attempt was 18.02m, before he fouled his third attempt.

He set the new world record on his fourth heave with a 19.08m effort, followed by 19.01m on his fifth heave and 18.88m on his final attempt. Jorg Frischmann of Germany held the previous world record of 14.21m for the past 20 years.

Adrian Matusik of Slovakia copped silver with a 15.99m effort, while Ibrahim Ahmed Abdelwareth of Egypt earned bronze with a 15.65m effort.

According to the World Para Athletics website Stewart said, “This was a dream come true. I finally had an opportunity to do the shot put in a championships, so I’m really happy. The javelin is a hobby, but this is what I can do when I train for it.” Stewart said his goal was to break the shot put world record, but he did not expect to surpass the record by that distance. “I wanted to break the world record to write my name in the record books, but I didn’t think I’d break it by so far.” The TT athlete did not get on the podium in the men’s discus F44 event, but he has plans to win that event in the future. “I had to settle for fifth in the discus, but I’m going to come back and win that too.” Nyoshia Cain got bronze in the women’s T44 100m earlier in the competition, as TT ended the championships with three medals — two gold and one bronze.

Jabari Knights (men’s 100m T54, men’s 200m T54) and Carlos Greene (men’s discus F11) also represented TT .

The TT world championships team will aim to continue the momentum at the 2017 London World Championships from August 4 to 13.

Bassarath scored 327 runs and took 23 wickets for an average of 20.43 per wicket to edge out teammates Brandon Williams (363 runs/18 wickets) and Aaron Banwarie (267 runs/23 wickets at 16.26 runs per wicker) for the prestigious prize.

He pipped fellow outstanding cricketers Brandon Williams (363 runs/18 wickets) and Aaron Banwarie (267 runs/23 wickets at 16.26 per wicket) for the top award.

The trio was joined by Evans Metoo (35 wickets at 14.28 per wicket) and Wasim Ali (407 runs at 29.07 runs per innings) in the “Five Cricketers of the Year.” The awards function attracted a packed hall and was chaired by president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) Azim Bassarath, a resident of St Mary’s Village, who was instrumental in the formation of the village team.

Among those who attended were Gowrie Roopnarine, chairman of the Princes Town Regional Corporation (PTRC); Kelvin Mohammed, chairman of the South East Zone of the TTCB; PTRC Councillor Nello Ramdhan; Dr Allen Sammy, first vice-president of the TTCB; Parasram Singh, president of the TT Umpires and Scorers’ Association, and Zaheer Ali, a nominated member of the TTCB.

Ali, a former outstanding youth cricketer, who is now a police officer and heads the Zaheer Ali Foundation, delivered the feature address in which he urged the cricketers and all who were present to join in celebrating the achievements of the new club.

He said that everyone associated with the club must share in their short history to date which he said reflected their desire to take their ideas a step further through its flawless execution and demonstrated that the members and supporters were determined to make a difference in their small community.

Ali, who is now a qualified attorney- at-law, said that in future the club should make a special effort to encourage more girls to take an active role in the club with a view to fielding a female team which he said will greatly assist in the promotion of the game and opportunities for the fairer sex.

He also complimented the club officials for their laudable initiative in meeting regularly and engaging in creative consultation which he said formed the foundation of a highly effective organisation.

Chairman of the PTRC Roopnarine congratulated the club for its efforts and pledged to do whatever he could to enable President’s Associates to acquire a playground to practice and host home matches in the TTCB competitions. They currently compete in Division Two of the South East Zone where they were runners-up this past season.

He also hailed the initiative shown by Bassarath, who is an alderman in the PTRC, to promote sports in the district, evident by the hosting of a sports day which was the first in 14 years and was deemed a great success.

Roopnarine said that he looked forward to Bassarath organising a cricket competition under the aegis of the PTRC in the near future, despite the fact that funds are scarce but he expressed confidence that the plan could materialise.

In her address, general secretary of the club Ashley Roopnarine gave a detailed account of the club activities during the past year which was highlighted by two fund-raising events which were well patronised.

Also attending the function were general secretary of the TTCB, Arjoon Ramlal and third vice-president Patrick Rampersad while former Comptroller of Customs Amar Samaroo also graced the proceedings .

HONOUR ROLL Five Wickets in An Innings: Brandon Williams (5 for 29 vs Poole United); Evans Metoo (5 for 31 vs Cedar Hill; 5 for 48 vs Poole United; 7 for 63 vs Tableland); Renny Jangeesingh (5 for 2 vs Tristar)

Best Bowling in an Innings: Evans Metoo (7 for 63 vs Tableland)

Most Promising Player: Inzimam Mohammed

Most Disciplined Player: Naresh Ramsamooj Members of St Stephen’s College, Princes Town, winners of the national secondary schools senior girls champions – Kasean Edwards, Patrina Gosine, Korina Gosine, Shenica Marshall Members of Barrackpore West Secondary, national

Under-16 girls champions: Diana Mohammed, Shannon Mohammed, Nayaar Bassarath

Member of National Under-17 team: Nicholas “Sancho” Ali Academic Excellence award for placing in the first 200 in SEA Exam – Isabel Mohammed

Most Wickets: Evans Mohammed (35)

Best Bowling Average: Evans Metoo (14.28)

Most Runs: Wasim Ali (408)

Best Batting Average: Wasim Ali (29.07)

Highest Individual Score: Fyzal Hosein (95 vs Poole United)

Five Cricketers of the Year: Brandon Williams (363 runs/18 wkts), Evans Metoo (35 wkts at 14.28 per wkt), Wasim Ali (407 at 29.07 per innings), Faoud Bassarath (327 runs/23 wkts at 20.43 per wkt), Aaron Banwarie (267 runs/23 wkts at 16.26 per wkt)

Cricketer of the Year: Faoud Bassarath

Club Member of the Year: Zulficar Terry Ali.