The game will mark the unveiling of the National Under 15 Team, under head coach Russell Latapy as they engage in preparations for the 2019 FIFA Under 17 Men’s World Cup qualifying campaign.

“This match will provide us with a good opportunity to have the boys in a game environment as obviously they are eager to play as we have been engaged in training sessions for a good part of this year already,” Latapy told TT FA Media.

“The preparations have been ongoing and the interest and the willingness among the boys to put in the effort and take things on board in training has been commendable,” the former Porto player added.

This year the Republic Bank National Youth league runs for three months and is the TT FA’s approved National Youth League. More than 100 clubs are expected to play in the league. Latapy’s Under 15 team comprises of players who were selected during a nationwide screening event a couple months ago at the Carapichaima East Secondary School.

The Republic Bank National Youth League kicks off April 22 at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain.

The National Under 15 team is looking ahead to the 2017 CONCACAF Boys Under-15 Championship at IMG’s world-renowned campus in Bradenton, Florida, August 13-19.

The three-day affair pedals off at 5pm at the Arima Velodrome both today and tomorrow, and will be continuing at the National Cycling Centre in Couva on Easter Monday. Yesterday marked the official launch of the event as the Trinidad and Tobago Cycling Federation (TT CF) scheduled a press conference at the cycling facility in Couva, where the foreign athletes got the opportunity to view the arena for the first time.

President of the TT CF, Robert Farrier, encouraged the athletes to enjoy the experience and make the tournament a memorable one by battling with passion and sportsmanship.

“Always put your best foot forward, race hard, be fair, take back great memories and enjoy the beauty of Trinidad and Tobago,” he said. Participating countries over the Easter weekend include Antigua, Argentina, Barbados, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Great Britain, Guyana, Ireland, Jamaica, Suriname, USA, Venezuela and host country Trinidad and Tobago. Top cyclists for Trinidad and Tobago in the Grand Prix include Olympian and national record holder in the Flying 200m Njisane Phillip and multiple national champion Quincy Alexander. Also representing TT are in-form riders Teniel Campbell and Jabari Whiteman. Among the internationals scheduled to compete are two-time Olympian Hersony Canelon from Venezuela, Angie Roa of Colombia and Eoin Mullen hailing from Ireland.

Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Darryl Smith, was present yesterday to launch the event, where he expressed optimism that the Easter Grand Prix will be a big part of sports tourism in the future.

“This tournament is the initiation event in our continuous sport tourism drive towards establishing our facilities as the main hub in the region to generate top cyclists,” he said.

The Minister also encouraged citizens to take the opportunity over the long weekend to support the local athletes as they take on world class competition on the cycling track.

Admission is set at $50 for adults and $10 for children under 12 years. Entry is free to the morning session on Easter Monday.

TT Squad: Njisane Phillip (captain), Quincy Alexander, Teniel Campbell, Jabari Whiteman, Lorenzo Orosco, Joshua Alexander and Keron Bramble.

He was speaking at a Howard University Open Day held at the Success Laventille Composite School on April 7. bmobile was a proud sponsor of the event which was hosted by i95.5 FM as part of its ongoing Laventille Nights Series.

Addressing the room full of students, parents, guardians and teachers, Dr Frederick spoke about the importance of having the support of parents, family and a good network of the right friends and mentors. He also shared his life journey of dreaming big and studying and working hard to achieve his academic and career goals, despite having financial challenges and sickle cell disease.

Two Howard alumni, Sheldon John who grew up in San Juan and Carlton Serrette, who lived in Morvant, also shared their individual life stories of being accepted to Howard despite their humble beginnings. Assuring the audience that Howard University offered an environment that will not limit them but unleash their potential, Dr Frederick stated that he invited the two alumni to speak because some persons at a previous open day held in Laventille thought that because he was from a different neighborhood, they could not have the same opportunities as he did. “Trinidad and Tobago has one of the best education systems in the world and you have to apply yourself every day to take advantage of this opportunity and get a good education. Your educational pursuits do not start when you apply to university. It starts from before”, he said.

Hassel Bacchus, TSTT’s Acting Chief Technology Officer, discussed the importance of the use of technology in education for the advancement a society. “Technology is what enables us to dream bigger and go further. Under the leadership of our CEO, Dr Ronald Walcott, we are transforming TSTT into an agile broadband company so we can deliver the services Trinidad and Tobago needs to allow its citizens to reach their full potential. We are making a multi-billion dollar investment to bring our entire nation to a point where it is, and you can benefit from, a fully-enabled ICT society.” Bacchus continued, “When you marry technology and education you get really spectacular results. Together, they provide the three E’s: 1. They are enablers of individuals and society; 2. They encourage entrepreneurship; and 3. They are equalizers. With the advance of technology today, there is nothing that you cannot figure out, produce or do, regardless of where you live or where you are in life. It’s no longer about who has and who doesn’t have. Technology levels the field.”

The event also attracted prospective Howard University students from all over Trinidad and Tobago. Cyril Ann Hunte, 25 and Aphea James, 19, travelled from La Brea and Bon Accord, Tobago, respectively. “I always had an interest in Howard University because it reflects what I stand for as young, black woman growing up in today’s society. I wish to study political science and law at Howard and needed to find out more about their scholarships and financial assistance. It was a really great experience because the two alumni who spoke made us realize that they were just like us at some point in time but they were able to get into Howard and improve on their lives. I felt inspired”, said James. Hunte has been performing and teaching theatre arts since 2009. “I believe that doing a Theatre Arts-Acting degree at Howard will expose me to invaluable experiences that will equip me to excel in my field and make a difference. I am glad that I came today because I learned that there are no scholarship age limits that would give preference to a younger person now leaving high school over an older person like myself.”

School principal, Hamida Baksh and Tony Lee, i95.5/RED President, welcomed the open day participants. Stephen Weeks, US Embassy Public Affairs Officer, discussed the steps a student should follow to become eligible to study in the United States, as well as tips to lower the costs of attending a foreign university or college. The afternoon session then closed with a question and answer segment with the Howard University President.

TT earned three gold medals, one silver and one bronze at the Bahamas Open, while grabbing three gold and two silver at the CARIFTA Judo Championships which took place simultaneously.

At the Carifta Championships, Luke Walker (junior male -73kg), Giovanni Lopez (infantile male -60kg) and Latesha Gill (junior female -70kg) all won gold, while Gabriella Wood (junior female +78kg) and Xavier Jones (junior male -90kg) both earned silver.

The TT team came second overall out of six teams at the CARIFTA Championships, achieving the second highest number of points from wins – second only to the host country.

TT were also privileged to have Walker awarded “Best Ippon” among all the male competitors.

At the Bahamas Open, Chad Warrick (senior male +90kg) and Xavier Jones (junior male -90kg) both won gold.

In the senior male below 73kg category, it was a clean sweep for TT with Jelanie Boyce copping gold, followed by Reinaldo Novoa and Walker.

However, while acknowledging Roget’s statement “was unhealthy”, Rowley said, “this is still a free country and leaders choose to lead their followers the way they see fit. At the end of the day, it is Trinidad and Tobago in the boardrooms from where I have just come.” “Lead in a way that is beneficial to the national well-being,” Rowley urged leaders, at every level.

“Fortunately it will fall to the worker as to where they are being led,” he added saying that Government must ensure the best decisions are made for the wider national good.

Asked several times, in an interview yesterday morning aired on CNC 3’s The Morning Brew programme, if Roget’s comments had any impact on the country’s investment climate, Rowley said, “I think BP was as disappointed as we were, because every single day we need to be attracting foreign investment to this country.” Workers have a responsibility, he said, to influence their leadership, to understand what the reality is, and what the current circumstances call for.

BP’s decision to build the Angelin platform outside of Trinidad and Tobago, he said, was taken a long-time ago and it was one of the reasons he met with top executives in the US, to see if he could get them (BP) to change their mind. Their decision, he said, was made after the contractor for the earlier Juniper project did not meet deadlines.

Rowley said it was a matter of concern when investors are picking up their plants in South America and taking them to North America where gas is more available in terms of volume and price. In TT, he said, plants are closing because of a lack of gas.

“That is not the kind of environment that attracts investment in the gas industry.” On discussions with Exxon Mobil in Guyana, Rowley said his discussions was based on TT having an oil refinery with a capacity to produce 168,000 barrels of oil a day. “We are only producing 72,000 barrels. If we can get oil from Guyana to be refined in our refinery, it puts us in a better position,” he said.

During the last Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Guyana last year, Rowley said, he spent some time with Guyana’s President David Granger and his senior Cabinet members discussing the issue. TT’s public and private sector is saying to Guyana, the prime minister said, that they want to be a part of that country’s oil industry arrival and its operations.

On the issue of a Petrotrin committee looking at the overall operations of the problem plagued State-owned company, Rowley said its deadline to submit a report has been extended from June 1, and will now be given until December. Noting that many things are going wrong at Petrotrin, Rowley said, “Government will not be hesitant to make decisions which might be unpopular, if those are the recommendations, so as to put the company in the best position.”

The murders took place in 2005 and 12 years later, 41-year-old Anand Baboolal, also known as “Son”, went on trial.

Justice Althea Alexis- Windsor ordered that he suffer death by hanging for the murders of 26-year-old Ria Ramlochan and Ishmael Timothy Ragbir.

The child was stabbed 14 times and one of his ears was severed.

The State led evidence that Baboolal committed the murders on a day unknown between August 10 and 13 at Ramlochan’s Solomon Street, Mayaro home.

He was arrested at a camp behind a sawmill along Tabaquite Road, near New Grant. He and Ramlochan were in a relationship and he used to visit her.

The State, represented by attorneys Shabaana Shah and Chantal Hospedales, relied on a confession which Baboolal gave to police in the Rio Claro Police Station. He told the police Ramlochan was stabbed during an argument but gave no account of how Ishmael was stabbed and ended up in the river. The State called 12 witnesses including Supt Moses Charles and Insps Alexis Garcia, Azam Hamid and Fitzgerald George.

Baboolal, who was represented by attorney Rekha Ramjit, did not testify but called, as a witness, a doctor who said he examined Baboolal on the day he was arrested.

Shah told the 12-member jury that Baboolal has nine convictions for larceny which he committed between 1998 and 2002 in Mayaro.

The jurors began their deliberations at about 1pm yesterday after receiving directions in law from Alexis-Windsor. They returned three hours later with the verdicts.

Baboolal was asked if he had anything to say before sentence was passed on him.

He replied in the negative.

He also disclosed that notwithstanding energy multinational BP’s decision not to fabricate the platform for the Angelin project in La Brea, “we did extract a commitment from BP, to give serious consideration for some of these construction projects to be directed to La Brea, at the earliest possible opportunity.” Rowley updated the House of Representatives on his discussions with BP and other energy multinationals in Houston between March 29 to 31. Responding to Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s query as why these discussions could not have taken place in TT, Rowley said, “the question makes absolutely no sense!” “This is not a discussion between TT and Trinidadians. This is a discussion between the leadership and decision makers in board rooms abroad…so I had to go there to meet them.” Stressing he had no power to bring any of them to TT, Rowley said Persad-Bissessar has clearly shown the country how the PP created major problems in the energy sector, through its actions and inactions.

Reminding MPs that the first gas contract with Methanol Holdings Trinidad Ltd (MHTL) expired on April 14, 2013, Rowley said, “NGC did not negotiate a contract for the MTHL M-iv plant but rather, kept rolling over on a month-to-month basis, while experiencing an increasing shortage of gas.” He said failure to deal with gas shortages from 2011 to 2015, “resulted in billions of dollars in claims for gas curtailments being made against the NGC.” He said MTHL, Caribbean Nitrogen Company, Nitrogen (2000) Unlimited and Point Lisas Nitrogen Limited made respective claims of $2.6 billion, $682 million, $686.6 million and $543.9 million.

The Prime Minister said this resulted in NGC being unable to provide 36 percent of the natural gas it was contracted to supply. He said this led to production in the Starfish and Dolphin fields both dropping to zero. However, Rowley said the Energy Ministry and NGC have successfully negotiated with Shell for, “100 million cubic feet per day until December 31, 2017.” Noting that Government’s responsibility to the population mirrors the responsibility BP has to its shareholders, Rowley said BP was informed that even as TT seeks to re-establish itself as a place to invest in the hydrocarbon business, Government would not have agreed to a 100 percent tax write off on capital expenditure in one year, as happened under the PP.

In a statement sent to the media yesterday, the club said it was inspiring that the paper pushed crime stories aside and published the article written by Darcel Choy and Janelle De Souza.

“In our minds, it brought the plight of our sick and disabled children in society to the nation’s front. (This allowed) decision makers to place the highest priority to decisions taken regarding the health and well-being of our children, all driven through care and love for each other.” The organisation said Rotarians in various clubs, members of the public, employees of organisations and companies across the country responded to the call when the story was published.

Contributions made through Republic Bank Limited, as well as funds raised elsewhere have totalled $190,490.15 to date.

“President Michael Ibrahim anticipates that by April 20, the date scheduled for handing over to Shannen’s family, our financial goal of $250,000 will be achieved.

“As a result, we are asking those who wish to contribute to this worthy cause to donate a minimum of $20.”

The saga over the inter-island ferry reached a new low on Tuesday.

Without adequate advance notice, the schedule of daily trips was drastically curtailed to allow one vessel to be placed offline. While some effort was made by the Inter- Island Ferry Service to inform people that this was the case, many turned up unaware of the changes.

Several things went wrong. Aside from the question of inadequate notice, it seems offline activities were not taken into account when tickets were offered for sale in the first place.

How robust is the planning by the ferry company in this regard? Also, when it became apparent that there were people who were labouring under the impression that they would be able to board a ship and catch a vessel, there seems to have been little effort to correct customers.

They should have been told, on site if not in advance, that there would only be two sailings and that there had been an overbooking.

Efforts should have further been made to ensure the situation did not degenerate by the offering of full refunds as well as the holding out of alternative means of getting passengers across to Tobago. In the case of United Airlines, when it removes passengers from overbooked flights it must offer a 400 per cent refund and another flight.

What was offered to those unable to sail on Tuesday? In the end, costly mistakes were made. The damage to the company’s goodwill is not to be underestimated.

We lament the chaos that ensued as a result of poor planning and miscommunication.

The deeper issue is the lack of a lasting solution to the problem of the air and sea bridge between Trinidad and Tobago. Should we seriously consider privatisation of the current arrangements? Should they be opened up to multiple vendors who would be forced to compete for customers and, thereby, treat customers like people and not like cattle – to borrow the phrase used by the chairman of the Inter-Island Committee, Donna Hadad.

Privatisation could put the management of these things in the hands of skilled, competent people. At the same time, to do so might place a vital national service in the hands of unpredictable market forces.

All of this is a bad omen for a ferry service which has been in the news lately given uncertainty over how a reduced fleet will service the needs of the nation come April 22 and beyond.

The task of finding a replacement for the MV Galicia to service cargo transport needs will fall to the newly-appointed board of the Port Authority, according to Minister of Works Rohan Sinanan. Yet, it is disturbing that an interim plan is not already in place.

The State must do better. It must start servicing the needs of its citizens seriously.

Last week his death was widely reported in all the British media.

Howe left TT for Britain to study law but became a thorn in the side of the establishment, first as a British Black Panther member in the 1960s when West Indians suffered as British people struggled to come to terms with the many children of the Empire in their midst.

His older partner and mentor was another admired civil rights activist, Trinidadian John La Rose, founder of New Beacon Books and later the George Padmore Institute in north London, still a centre of West Indian intellectual life.

The two led a change-making campaign for justice in 1981 after 13 Caribbean youngsters died in New Cross, London, in a fire suspected of being a racist attack, and the police mishandled the investigations.

They also started the Race Today Collective, the Race Today magazine, and the now defunct International Book Fair of Radical Black & Third World Books, with Jessica and Eric Huntley of Bogle- L’Ouverture Publications.

Howe first became well known for defending himself in the Mangrove Nine Trial in 1971 and irrevocably turning the national spotlight on police racism. Trinidadian Frank Critchlow’s Notting Hill restaurant, The Mangrove, was a funky place for Trinis and liberal whites but the police considered it a drugs den and raided it repeatedly.

The two men led a march to protest police harassment that ended in violence; they were arrested, charged and tried. Howe unsuccessfully demanded an all-black jury but dispatched his white lawyers and succeeded in proving to the judge that police racism was the issue. A media-frenzy, two-month trial led to acquittals and fame.

It was through the media that Howe reached a wide public. He edited the seminal Race Today magazine and wrote a weekly column for the left-wing New Statesman for many years, always offering a unique insight into public matters.

The Bandung Files, his well known television programme with fellow civil rights activist Tariq Ali, had a refreshingly different current affairs agenda from the BBC and ITV, and won them a dedicated viewership and much respect.

When diagnosed with prostate cancer, which affects higher numbers of black men, Howe turned that too into a campaign for them to be tested. He took on battles at every turn, often falling out with friends for ideological and also personal reasons, as he did eventually with La Rose. My only interaction with him was at a public event, and it was confrontational. I remember saying almost nothing in response.

I never got to know him because I found him menacing. He used his bigness and ferocious intelligence to intimidate people and to get his way.

Yet, I am sure he was a warm and funny man with a typically infectious Trini love of life, and English people finally embraced him and admired him.

Everyone in the UK owes him some gratitude for the important role he played in strengthening the social fabric of the country.

I personally thank Howe, his wife Leila Hassan and the Race Today Collective “family” for caring for the great CLR James during his final years.

An older cousin to Howe, CLR lived upstairs the Collective offices on Railton Road in Brixton among his books and modest possessions, not in luxurious comfort, yet his needs were looked after and he happily received visitors and friends there, eager to share his long memories, his theories and politics.

CLR James will be remembered in a series of events — readings, discussion, film and an extempo debate — at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest on April 27 at the National Library and Old Fire Station, starting at 9 am.