Through a partnership with CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD), customers will be able to access a variety of Caribbean films, from an extensive library every month on Flow On Demand in eight Flow TV markets.

John Reid, CEO of Cable & Wireless, the operator of the consumer brand Flow, said: “This is certainly a historic moment for Cable & Wireless/ Flow and our partners CaribbeanTales, as together we will deliver high quality, relevant Caribbean content that gives audience a refreshing perspective on Caribbean life.” CEO and founder of CaribbeanTales, Frances-Anne Solomon, said, “We are delighted to extend our relationship with Flow to a wide regional audience who will now enjoy the best films from the greatest filmmakers across the Caribbean.” In 2013, CTWD launched its own VOD platform, CaribbeanTales- TV, with ongoing global streaming of its catalogue. Now, with Flow’s extensive VOD reach across eight countries, this new partnership makes the catalogue’s content more widely accessible to Caribbean audiences.

The VOD partnership was launched in February with four compelling films celebrating Trinidad’s iconic Carnival. Last month, the spotlight was on International Women’s Day (March 8), with four award-winning films by and about Caribbean women.

There were two feature films: What My Mother Told Me, the ground-breaking, multiaward winning, dramatic narrative by CaribbeanTales CEO Frances-Anne Solomon — one of the few films directed by a Trinidadian woman that deals with the survival strategies of middle-class Caribbean women. The other feature is Bahamian filmmaker Maria Govan’s Rain, a young woman’s coming-of-age story. The two documentaries are: The Solitary Alchemist, directed by Mariel Brown, chronicling the life and work of Trinidadian artist Barbara Jardine; and Candice Lela- Rolingson’s Positive and Pregnant, a seminal film about a woman who becomes pregnant and is HIV positive.

April’s theme centers on the iconic Caribbean instrument developed in the backyard and streets of Port-of- Spain — the steel pan.

This month’s titles are: Atiba Williams – Pan Prodigy, Trinidad and Tobagonian director Christopher Laird’s film about the youngest person ever to arrange for a steelband; Panomundo Part 1 – The Evolution of Steel Pan, the first of a two-part documentary by Charysse Tia Harper about the history of the steelpan and its global influence; Let’s Play Pan by Canadian director Ian Jones, which explores the evolution from the skin drum to the steel drum and its introduction to Toronto; and also the Frances-Anne Solomon- directed Heartbeat Season 1 Episode 9 – Ian Jones, where Jones talks about How The Steel Pan Is Changing Lives.

In his lawsuit, filed by attorney Chantal Paul, Duntin says he was not given a reason for his non-promotion and when he sought meetings with his commanding officer, there was no response. In September 2014, he first filed for judicial review against the defence council of the CG and the Attorney General.

That application was dismissed on the ground that an alternative remedy was available via the Defence Force’s defence council. In matters involving public servants, a person must exhaust seeking redress from all bodies established under the Constitution, before filing for judicial review.

After the lawsuit was struck down, Duntin wrote to the Defence Force’s defence council requesting intervention in relation to his promotion. In another judicial review filed last November, Duntin stated that in July, he received correspondence from the defence council which informed him that a meeting would be held at which his petition on the issue of promotion and non-payment of salary would be discussed. He contacted Yolanda Morris, who was named in the council’s correspondence as the person to contact. Duntin stated in his lawsuit that she told him his petition was not considered by the council, when it met. Duntin stated he received no correspondence from the CG regarding his issues of promotion and back pay. Based on that, the November judicial review was filed on the ground that Duntin has petitioned for redress but it is not being considered by the defence council. Yesterday, the lawsuit came up for hearing in the San Fernando High Court before Justice Devendra Rampersad. The matter was heard in Chambers and adjourned to May 26.

The announcement was made yesterday during FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s official visit to this country where he paid courtesy calls to President Anthony Carmona and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

At a media conference at the Ato Boldon Stadium yesterday, Minister of Sport Darryl Smith revealed that the TT FA will, after 109 years of existence, have a home to call their own.

The previously talked about TT FA Technical Development Centre will also be constructed at the venue, and Infantino, Smith and TT FA president David John-Williams turned the sod to start the venture.

John-Williams later confirmed that the entire project will be funded by FIFA, the global governing body for football.

“We’re finalising (plans) to make the Ato Boldon (Stadium) the next home of the TT FA, the next home of football,” said Smith. “They will be moving their offices here within the next week. They’ll have full access to the Stadium with regards to training.” Infantino was decked in a white t-shirt and blue short pants, in preparation for a subsequent friendly match at the Stadium between a FIFA XI and a Government XI which finished 5-0 in favour of the former.

“I was told (to) come here to play a football match and now they put me to make a speech,” joked the FIFA president.

However, he pointed out, “I’ve seen the passion in the country for football. We have to put football as a high priority. We have to be accountable for what we do.” Earlier, upon his arrival to this country at the Piarco International Airport, Infantino expressed his willingness to assist in the growth of football in the CONCACAF region.

The 47-year-old, who was elected FIFA president on February 26 2016, said: “We have a new FIFA now. We have a new CONCACAF (and) a new Trinidad and Tobago Football Association.” FIFA was embroiled in a major corruption scandal in 2015 when several officials were indicted by the United States Department of Justice for a number of charges, including wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

Then FIFA president Joseph Sepp Blatter was subsequently banned from partaking in any FIFA activity for eight years.

Infantino said he is keen on improving the image of football, especially in CONCACAF.

“We’re working in a clean, transparent (and) open way,” said Infantino. “We are accountable for our actions. We want to focus on the game of football because it has been lost a little bit. It’s important we come back to our core mission which is development.

“We are doing a lot, we are investing a lot,” he continued. “We have increased the investment in the CONCACAF region, on a yearly basis, from US$19.5 million to US$60.5 million, more than triple our investment in the region. We’ve increased the number of teams participating in the World Cup, as of 2026, in CONCACAF (to six teams).” This is Infantino’s second visit to Trinidad. “The last time that I came was as a candidate for the FIFA presidency (on January 2016) trying to convince my friend David to support me and support my vision and my plan for FIFA,” he said.

The Government also weighed in on Duke’s so-called day of resistance, saying the Public Service was in no way affected and that it was business as usual across the country. However, Duke said the success of the protest should not be judged by numbers alone as he claimed the PSA made its own checks and found that 30 percent of public servants stayed away from work.

Checks by Newsday, with several Government departments, revealed normal staff turnout.

The Ministry of Public Administration stated in a release that there were no significant reports of absenteeism. “Checks revealed no unusual absences or reports of disruption to the normal operations of the Public Service despite calls for a day of resistance,” the release indicated.

It added that Minister of Public Administration Maxie Cuffie congratulated public servants for doing their duty and ignoring calls to disrupt work. “This is especially welcomed in a period when the country’s productivity is being called into question and its reputation is at stake, especially as we seek to invite much-needed foreign investment.

What is even more encouraging is that the attempted disruption was ignored despite its proximity to the Easter holiday long weekend,” stated the release.

Duke said the day of resistance should be measured by its objective and the authorities did feel the impact yesterday of the resistance.

He said when Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley returned from oversea he would have known that yesterday was the day of resistance, adding that the day was only one of many “lashes” to come for Government.

He said the next day of resistance would take place around July/August when schools close for the mid-year break. However, he said that between now and then the PSA intends to speak out against rising food prices and “every single thing” that is keeping public officers down. He said the economy is closing in on many people.

Duke said workers are paralysed by fear over a wide range of issues from crime to transport to the fear of losing jobs. He said workers are dissatisfied with their wages; the barbaric and hostile conditions under which they work and the state of crime.

He said the spate of crime is too much.

“People are building cages and locking themselves in from the outside world. We are saying no to that. The citizens of this country must not live in fear, they are working hard, they have elected a Government. The Government should be staying here and taking charge of crime rather than running off to play golf or joy-riding.” Duke warned that he is descended from a slave who was a fighter and said he and other PSA officers are prepared to fight for public servants and to go to jail if necessary. Duke later led the handful of marchers in the trade union chant, “we shall overcome”, speaking to them with a megaphone.

Duke said there are 10,000 vacancies in the public service and this had been confirmed by the Director of Personnel Administration and the Chief Personnel Officer, but Government is refusing to fill these vacancies as it cannot afford to pay wages.

The funding, according to a letter addressed to attorney Gerald Ramdeen and signed by CLFA chairman Dr Maritza Fernandes also said, a document from Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital in Italy, submitted by Shannen’s parents, showed that the toddler will be admitted to the hospital on May 2, and that the total cost of 158,000 euros has already been paid in full by the family.

She acknowledged that Ramdeen also mentioned that payment has already been made.

However, the Children’s Life Fund Act, she said, “does not allow for reimbursements but rather it provides a detailed upfront application, assessment and approval process at Sections 18 and 21, premised on specific legal criteria.” Meanwhile, Shannen’s mother Michelle Luke told Newsday yesterday, “to be honest we did not expect anything but if we had gotten anything, we would have been grateful.” She did not expect anything, she said, because of the haste with which the CLFA called on her on April 4 to put through her application and based on the processing time.

Luke said as soon as she and her husband had been given an admission date by the paediatric hospital on January 2, they wrote the Ministry of Health on January 17 seeking assistance from the Children’s Life Fund. She said they received no response. After the matter was raised in the Parliament in late March, she said, she received a telephone call from the CLFA on April 4. By then, she and her husband had mortgaged their home and embarked on a fund-raising drive. There was no way, she said, she could postpone the date for the bone marrow transplant after waiting for almost three years to have it done.

Since Shannen’s medical condition was diagnosed, Luke said, she and her husband began saving for the medical procedure.

“We made the sacrifices. People rallied around us. We got a lot of prayers. I am trying to save my child. We are moving on,” she said. Ramdeen wrote a letter to Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh on February 6, seeking his intervention on behalf of Shannen’s parents on their application. The letter was forwarded and received by the CLFA the following day.

Prior to this, Fernandes confirmed that Shannen’s parents’ application for grant funding under the Children’s Life Fund Act was received by the CLFA on April 4. “You will appreciate the Act prescribes a comprehensive application, assessment and approval process regarding an application for grant funding,” she said.

After outlining the application process, she said, the application was lacking essential supporting documents such as medical reports. She noted also that based on the application process, a beneficiary departing the country on an airplane may take between one to three months.

Fernandes assured that all applications are treated with urgency and sensitivity in keeping with the Act.

In observance of Palm Sunday which starts Holy Week, Taylor rode on the back of a donkey to commemorate the day Jesus Christ rose one to enter into Jerusalem.

But social media critics described Taylor’s act as a shameless display of animal cruelty after a photo of the event at the St Charles RC Church in Tunapuna was carried on the front page of another newspaper yesterday.

The priest has re-created the Palm Sunday scene for years in his previous parishes. The donkey was being pulled by a rope which was tied around its mouth.

Social and political activist Phillip Edward Alexander re-posted the picture on Facebook.

He described the image as “Animal cruelty in the name of religion.” Over 60 people commented on the post.

While a few commentators joked that they saw nothing wrong with Taylor “riding the prime minister”, the majority of commentators were serious in their outrage.

“I’m so angry by looking at this pic, look at how the a** (the priest) tie the animal’s mouth,” commented one person. “What an idiot – and these are the people being looked up to,” wrote another.

“Terrible. We need stricter laws for animal abuse” and “We really have to wonder which one is the real donkey,” said two others.

Donkey lovers certainly were in the majority yesterday, but there were a few people in between who questioned their outrage.

One man said “the sad part is that most of your grandparents or great grand parents may have ridden on donkeys. They would be ashamed to hear the rubbish you all are speaking.” Alexander answered the detractors by posting an article from a Canadian website which described ways in which people could determine whether or not a donkey was in distress. “The donkey is actually trying to communicate his distress. Ears back and down: there is something wrong.

Do NOT approach,” wrote Alexander.

Newsday reached out to several animal rights activists for their position on the issue. The Trinidad and Tobago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals declined comment as their spokesperson was not present at the time. Activist and hairdresser Jowelle de Souza, however, joined the outrage by saying, “Words can’t express how I feel about that situation, however, the jack** is him.” Also contacted for comment was activist Nalini Dial who did not understand why people were up in arms. “Is it that he is overheavy or something? From the photograph he is quite small. Aren’t donkeys meant to be ridden? People are just making a big thing out of nothing.”

Proponents of the death penalty normally avow that the measure is required to deter others from committing crimes. However, this argument has been problematic because some studies suggest capital punishment does not deter. Yet, these studies are limited to specific times and locations outside of Trinidad and Tobago. A comprehensive study of the possible impact of hanging needs to be conducted locally so that policy can be tailored to suit national conditions .

However, assuming the death penalty does not deter, the issue need not end there. For there is a serious reason why the State may want to appear to be implementing the law as it stands when it comes to punishment .

The perception is that the country is undergoing an endless spate of murders. Many of these murders remain unsolved. However, anecdotal patterns have emerged. In some cases, one person is murdered, and the week later a suspect in that murder is himself murdered. Recently, it has been claimed that people believed to be tied to a high-profile killing were themselves targeted in revenge attacks. It seems retribution is being enacted in the streets .

It is hard to ascertain if these accounts are true in the absence of judicial resolution of individual cases .

Yet, the palpable fact of the subsequent murders involved is incontrovertible .

And they have a chilling effect .

The effect of this perception of the reach of extra-judicial killing is this: it acts as a direct challenge to the authority of the State. It sends a signal that vigilante justice is the modus operandi. It opens the door to anarchy, weakening the State’s ability to organise and administer itself .

The dangers of such a situation – which we appear to be in – cannot be underestimated. The very idea of a society under law and order is being affronted .

In this context, an argument may be advanced stating that the State must abide by its own laws and must act as a counter to the informal system of rule by violence which has taken grip. To not implement hanging in a situation where vigilantes are taking the matter into their own hands allows them to take primacy in communities, already plagued by fear .

Some may argue, however, that the genie is already out of the bottle and there is little the State can now do to reassert its authority. Yet, we feel the State has little choice .

However, if this argument is accepted, it must be conditional upon far-ranging legal reforms and protections .

In the first place, the law as currently formulated is far too archaic to be regarded as relevant to a post-millennium society. Hanging itself is an outdated, some would say barbaric, method of capital punishment .

In nations where capital punishment is administered, it is done using techniques that are far more humane, such as through lethal injection .

Secondly, if the State does feel compelled to implement the death penalty, it must move with speed to distinguish between offences of varying severity. Categories of murder must be devised so that the death penalty is reserved in only the most serious of cases .

For now, as this debate ensues, we do not say definitively that the death penalty is the answer to the country’s crime problems. In fact, we lament the lack of adequate information and surveys on the attitude of the population on the deterrent impact (if any). However, we feel the discussion must examine the delicate matter of the State’s authority and the need for it to be preserved. It may well be that, when all things can be considered, the State may want to avoid the death penalty precisely in service of that authority

At the most recent of his many press conferences since losing office, Gopeesingh insinuated that since Education Minister Anthony Garcia was a woodwork teacher he couldn’t be a good minister of education. Of course, this was more a condemnation of himself than the current minister.

But class is class. Garcia never once indicated that the education system was left in such a mess because it was run by a gynaecologist who didn’t know his toe from his knee when it came to education.

Besides the goodly doctor though, many other non-educators have been offering prescriptions, which unfortunately either reek of ageism or sound as if reality is not a concern.

One commentator suggested that students should not be suspended because when they are, the parents are “burdened” to make arrangements for their children’s out of school hours.

How is it a “burden” when parents have to look after their own children? Maybe if a little more care is taken with parenting, these children will not now be a “burden” to their own parents.

This same commentator suggested that instead of suspension children should be made to clean up school grounds, paint walls, and scrub washrooms. In the first place, what washrooms? In our schools we have toilets, plain and simple. And which principal or supervisor or minister of education will be so “farse” as to ask people’s children — bully or not — to come in and clean toilets? The schools will get so many pre-action protocol letters they will be spinning for the rest of the decade and those who don’t spin will be suspended by the Teaching Service Commission.

Another contributor writing in the Express has all the answers.

She is certain that the education system is failing because of mass training of teachers, an over-burdened and ancient education system and tired and burnt-out teachers. Did all of this happen during the last 18 months? In fact, it is the current minister who took away some of the “over-burdening” that Gopeesingh had imposed on the system.

I think the Express contributor forgot to advise the previous minister.

Quite recently one of Newsday’s esteemed commentators made some disappointing comments.

Apart from the fact that Sharda Patasar’s ignorance of the ministry’s policies with regard to the handling of violence and indiscipline in school was obvious when she recommended to the ministry its own policy, already in place, her comments reeked of ageism.

The young woman used her piece to pour scorn on the less youthful members of our society, among them the minister of education who, according to her, sat in windowless rooms probably suffering from senility.

I am just one not-so-young citizen who holds many degrees and who still contributes meaningfully to our nation. I felt let down by one I held in high esteem and one whose writings in your newspaper I never missed.

According to reports, police were informed of the theft of a gold-coloured Nissan Tiida at 9 pm Sunday near Valpark Shopping Plaza in Valsayn. An All Points Bulletin was issued and a mobile search for the vehicle was conducted.

Port-of-Spain police eventually found the vehicle and attempted to intercept, but the driver sped off and a chase ensued. During the chase, police later said, shots were fired. The chase continued along Wrightson Road, until the driver lost control and crashed into another car near Peakes at the Foreshore.

The driver then got out of the car with gun in hand. Police officers on the scene, seeing the gun, shot and wounded the suspect. He remains warded in stable condition under police guard.

The girl said when she refused, the relative pestered her and a short while later, she agreed to let him have his way. They went to another room where the assault took place.

On Saturday, the girl informed another relative about what had transpired and she was taken to the Maraval police station where a report was made. She was medically examined by a District Medical Officer and officers of the Child Protection Unit were also informed. An arrest warrant has been issued for the family member who has gone into hiding.