Nedd-Reid’s lawyer Keith Scotland yesterday issued a pre-action protocol letter to TUCO, a day after the organisation in charge of the competition made the decision to disqualify her. TUCO late Wednesday upgraded Lynette “Lady Gypsy” Steele to a full-fledged finalist after she challenged her exclusion from the list of finalists.

Scotland in his letter to TUCO, acknowledged that Nedd-Reid was a citizen of St Vincent and has resided in TT for over 15 years.

He demanded that Nedd-Reid be reinstated in the finals by midday today. If TUCO fails to do so, Scotland says his client will approach the High Court for an injunction forcing the organisation to reinstate her.

He also said Fya Empress has been registered with TUCO since 2007, and participated and won several titles in this country. “Our client is the 2007, 2009 and 2010 Tobago Soca Monarch; 2012 National Calypso winner and the 2014 Tobago Calypso Monarch and has participated in numerous competitions governed by your organisation.

Our client has been married to a TT national since 2002 and has applied for Permanent Residency since in or around 2004,” Scotland wrote.

He said Nedd-Reid was never advised of a requirement that she must be a national to belong or participate in TUCO’s competitions.

“Our client first registered with your organisation in 2007 with her St Vincent Identification Card and informed your organisation of her place of birth. Further, she voted in (TUCO) December 2017 election using her St Vincent Identification Card, which was accepted by your organisation,” Scotland wrote.

“We contend that by virtue of our client’s long, undisturbed and frequent participation within your organisation, our client now has a legitimate expectation to participate in the National Calypso Monarch Competition 2017.” Lady Gypsy claimed Nedd-Reid is not a TT national and was therefore not qualified to compete.

Lady Gypsy’s lawyer Gerald Ramdeen gave TUCO 24 hours to disqualify Nedd-Reid, quoting Rule 2.7 of TUCO’s adjudication handbook, which states only T&T citizens over age of 16 are allowed to participate in the competition.

Lady Gypsy narrowly missed out on a place in the final, placing 16th in last Saturday’s semis with her rendition of “Plight of my People”. She was listed as first reserve and will now compete due to the disqualification of Nedd-Reid, who placed eighth in the semis.

Fya Empress, who sang “Guilty” to earn her a place in the finals said she had been a financial member of TUCO since 2007 and was never banned from participating in competitions.

She also won the TT Calypso Queen competition in 2012.

Both women earned 430 points and were crowd favourites. Thomas’ costume was a bird with a long red neck and white wings that extended and retracted, with bright, multi-coloured plumage at the back. Omalo’s Sheera, The Ice Queen from the band Antourage Productions was the larger than life face of a white tiger with black stripes, which many thought would finally earn the veteran masquerader the Queen of Carnival crown.

The rules state that in the case of a tie, a judge chooses which costume/ portrayal was better, which, in this case, was Thomas for de Nebula. Interviewed shortly before midnight on Tuesday at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of- Spain where the junior and senior competitions were held, Thomas said her first time on the big stage “was great.” “I am appreciative of everyone in the team that made it memorable for me.” She intends to “bring back the crown” in 2018. On her selection as Paparazzi’s queen, Thomas said, “I knew I was a newcomer but I just wanted to bring home the title for the Eustace family. I’m not going to lie, (the costume) was definitely heavy…I’ve been going through months of trying to gain weight and fluctuating to get into the costume and it was all worth it.” Rose Marie Kuru-Jaggessar’s Fancy Indian portrayal, Queen Chirapaq __ A Tribute to Esther Theodore from the band Lionel Jaggessar and Associates was third with 426 points. His face still covered in silver paint from his portrayal of Crypto, Lord of the Galaxy, Eustace told reporters, “It is great to carry on the Eustace tradition.” While “the expectation was there” that he would retain his title, Eustace said, “It was a lot of work to keep the momentum going.” This included modifications to Crypto to increase the movement of the animal’s hind legs from what the judges saw during the preliminary round last Thursday. Eustace earned 431 points to secure victory.

His costume was designed by Hayden Joseph and cost $120,000.

It took three months to build.

Thomas’ costume cost was designed by Marcus Eustace and also took three months to build but it cost 50 percent less – $60,000.

Earning 415 points, Eustace’s brother Curtis Eustace placed second with Falconidae, D Desert Prey. The falcon’s tongue was a serpent which moved in and out of the beak, illuminated by red lights while the eyes and face were lit in green against large black and silver- gold wings. Third place, with 409 points, went to Keston Benthum for Nibinabe – a large male figure in shades of blue with white, green and silver. The costume depicted the importance of water as the source of life.

There was one mishap when the support stilts on the golden pheasant costume Argus Le Grand: All Eyes on Me, collapsed during Glen Dave Lakhan’s performance. The larger than life bronze and gold pheasant, with aquamarine and iridescent colours, was a sight to behold before its collapse. Lakhan tried to carry on but the weight of the bird proved too much for him, as the back of the costume dropped to the stage.

Natalia keeps Jnr Queen crown Natalia d’Abreau retained her title as Junior Queen of Carnival with Egypt’s Beauty, a costume of yellow feathers with gold adorning the upper wings and accents of red, purple and blue. The judges awarded her 432 points. Like the seniors, there was a tie among the junior queens but for second place __ African Butterfly, portrayed by Jeremiah Walters, and Candelabrum portrayed by Ariya Lyder-Baptiste, who both scored 416 points.

In the end, Walters’ white winged-butterfly with accents of gold, orange, red and black, perched atop flowering branches, took second place while Lyder- Baptiste’s costume placed third.

The Junior King of Carnival was also highly competitive with one point separating the winner Samuel Jackson from Ryan Sooknanan.

Jackson earned 438 points for his portrayal of Samuel Star, D Mystical Blazing Fireman, with Sooknanan on 437 points for the multi-coloured Wings of Africa.

Clad in a fancy fireman costume with orange-red wings, Jackson danced with a cane to a live performance by soca artiste Devon Matthews. Third place, with 401 points, went to Denzil Forde for I Am the King of the Deep – an octopus with fish swimming past his tentacles.

Among the crowds of revellers will be thousands of teenagers who themselves are now subject of a keen debate in the media as to how much they should be taught about sexual matters or not be taught.

The Ministry of Health last week told a parliamentary committee that 300 children of school age were infected with sexually transmitted diseases between 2012 and 2015 (and a handful were born with AIDS/HIV). That news provoked an immediate reaction from Education Minister Anthony Garcia against any call for a wholesale distribution of condoms in schools. National Parent Teacher Association president Zena Ramatali likewise did not support any wholesale distribution but voiced her great concern over an apparent lack of any human and family life education (HFLE) programme in schools.

One would have thought that the country would have had a uniform and well thought-out HFLE programme rolled out to the young pupils progressively over the years. This could start with simple ideas of “good touch/ bad touch” and “stranger danger” at lower primary levels, human anatomy and procreation at upper primary/lower secondary levels, and controversial issues in sexuality at upper secondary school.

Lessons at all levels should be underlined by a message that sexuality is not a toy nor a game but a matter to be approached with the greatest responsibility.

We urge a middle path between those who don’t wish for a society of ostriches whose heads are buried in the sand and oblivious to the realities of teen experimentation, and those who don’t wish their youngsters to be exposed to a barrage of messages that a condom is the panacea for all. Youth including of school age should be given as much factual information as possible and be told that divergent views exist on a range of sexuality issues, whether contraception, abortion and gay rights/homosexuality.

They should be taught the adage, “If you can’t be ‘good’, be ‘careful’,” whose TT public health equivalent has largely been manifested as the slogan, “ABC — Abstain, Be faithful, Condomise”.

Both sides in the current debate are deeply motivated by wishing the very best for their children, who must be protected from their own mistakes and from predators. With such goodwill all around we are confident that common ground can be found to have our youngsters informed so as to be able to make wise and responsible choices as they progressively develop over the years into sexual beings.

Meanwhile, with Carnival on our doorstep we urge the wider population to heed the public health warnings that will be issued by agencies such as the Ministry of Health. Last year’s data from UNAIDS indicates that 11,000 TT nationals are living with HIV. Other data reveals that HIV transmission in female teens is a whopping seven times the rate among male teens.

Great strides made against the virus include waning discrimination, plus an increase in testing and in the awareness of how it is contracted and combated by drug therapy (although not fully eliminated). Over the years hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in the thrust against AIDS/HIV led by the HIV Coordinating Unit of the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Health, backed up by UNAIDS.

However, the ultimate responsibility rests on the individual, who we again urge to make wise choices amid the headiness of the Carnival revelry

In this period when the air is full of music, of all sorts, we need to pace ourselves or we get music burnout. The people who programmed the marathon 18-hour steel pan competition for the Panorama semi-finals have never heard of burnout and exhaustion, of mental and emotional fatigue.

There is no word to describe the foolishness of subjecting us to dozens of bands from morning to night, dulling our senses and turning the pan’s sweet notes into a din and our eager ears into cloth. It was always true that an excess of anything is ruinous. Remember your Shakespeare where in Twelfth Night the bard remarks that even with love, “Surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.” Panorama is the highlight of my Carnival but I, very sensibly as it turns out, missed the semi-finals, as I was to have an early morning start. But even without that inconvenience, it is hard to imagine lasting so long as to be still in the Savannah at 3 am to hear my favourite band play. And, I cannot imagine that there was anyone much remaining to hear the top big bands at that hour.

What is the point of the crush? It would make more sense to split up the goodies over two days, so that each category of band could attract a decent size crowd. Or, reduce the number of bands that go through to the second and third rounds.

These are elementary observations, so why do they elude the organisers? Apart from the lack of professional know-how it reveals, it makes clear that the organisers have no respect for the pan players or the pan fans.

I once complained that every cultural event in TT is too long, including theatre productions and music concerts, no matter how wonderful the performances.

It was explained to me that Trinis like it so because they expect to get their money’s worth, so, for them, the longer the better.

A typical example of overkill is the recent evening of “Afro Calypso and Latin Jazz Fusion” that would have been perfectly exquisite had it been 30 minutes shorter. The show stealer was the amazing Grammy award-winning pianist Arturo O’Farrill and his jazz band, with a front line comprising trumpet, sax and the finest trombone; a groovy bass guitarist, drummer and ace percussionist completed the line-up.

Their music was so rich and textured, a five-part movement of one composition taking the audience into realms of ecstasy, that they alone, with the one and only Arturo Tappin, who preceded them, would have been enough for the cost of my ticket. But Sean Thomas, the show’s producer, over-egged the pudding by opening with calypsonian Mr Shak — a nod to the Carnival season, no doubt, but the element that was surfeit.

To go off track here, I am glad that Mr Shak performed, because it reminded me of why not all calypso travels well: it is simply too didactic; too many words that leave no space for the music; too many ideas and arguments and sledge-hammering of the poor audience.

The one recent exception to the normal “make them pay for coming” rule was jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles’ highly creative “Carnival – The Sound of the People” Queen’s Hall concert that thrilled and certainly left the audience wanting more.

The appearance of traditional Carnival characters that accompanied his very original musical odyssey through tamboo bamboo, tambrin, steel and iron bands offered a real experience of the Carnival tradition with great style. Catch him and his friends on Carnival day.

Enjoy!

“In 2017 we want to turn around the crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago and I believe that prayer is a key component to lead us, the police in taking control,” Williams said during an inter-faith service at the St Therese RC Church in Rio Claro.

He said while the season of Lent is approaching, he will not ask for a day within that period since they (police service) do not want to align themselves with any one religion.

Williams related that he has was in Laventille on Tuesday night interacting with a community that is healing, from the loss of one of its members, shot dead by police.

“We spent several hours in dialogue with the community to facilitate a way going forward,” Williams said, adding that crime was definitely on the decrease in Laventille since there was no murder reported from the area for February.

He noted that Laventille falls under the Port-of-Spain Division and reports indicate this division has the lowest number of murders in recent time.

He told the officers assigned to the Eastern Division that society places its trust in a Police Service that must operate in a professional manner. “Policing is a noble profession,” he said. Seventh Day Adventist pastor Clive Dottin said Williams has been acting for far too long and is deserving of the full, substantive position.

“You all know it is only I could say this and get away in the country,” he joked. He added that the real commissioner of police is the Master above. He urged police not to ‘sell-out’ fellow police officers.

“Do not make the job of honest police officers hard or impossible, and put your own colleagues in a dangerous place,” he advised.

He also told police officers not to underestimate the ability of the youths in the communities, as they can easily be persuaded in the right track. Spiritual Baptist Leader, Bishop Roger who also spoke at the inter-faith service made an appeal to the acting commissioner to bring back community policing.

He also called on the religious leaders and police to work hand in hand with the various village groups to prevent crime. Father Glyn Jemmot of the Rio Claro RC Church asked the Eastern Division officers for forgiveness saying while they are making an attempt to reach the rural districts of Rio Claro and observe how the people live and to find out why there is crime in certain areas, the church and other religious bodies have failed in doing this.

Pastor Stephen Mahabir of the Open Bible Church in Rio Claro also addressed the congregation . He told police officers that the people are faced with a ‘Goliath’ in terms of crime but the Biblical David, though a youth, was able to defeat the giant, because he had God on his side. Imam Zainool Baksh in his discourse called on the police and citizens to live good lives and adhere to the laws of the land. “If you cannot obey the law made by man then you will not obey God’s laws,” he advised.

London’s lawyer Keith Scotland, in a pre-action letter to TUCO, accused the organisation of breaching its own rules and has threatened to take the matter to court if TUCO does not respond to his demands.

Scotland said that in the odd 12 years his client has been performing in the competition, there has never been any mention of the timing of contestants on stage for the semi-final round.

London performed in position four at Calypso Fiesta last Saturday at Skinner Park, San Fernando. He said he objected after being told of the time stipulation at a meeting with TUCO on February 17. London said he was told by a member of TUCO’s adjudication committee that while there would be a clock at the venue, there would be no timing of contestants.

Scotland said that at the end of the competition, the Master Score Sheet revealed that London placed 17th which excluded him from competing in Sunday’s final. He said the score sheet showed he was penalised four marks for exceeding the time limit.

London’s score was 385 on the master sheet but in the individual judges sheet, his score was 389.

“This would have caused him to tie with two other contestants, namely Anthony Hendrickson (All Rounder) and Lynette Steele (Lady Gypsy) both finalists,” Scotland said.

Scotland said the situation with London was untenable and according to TUCO’s tie-breaker rules, as stated in Clause 3.3, reliance would have to be placed on the reserved judge’s score to determine which contestant out of the three who tied would ultimately be contender in the final competition.

A third suspect who is 29 and from San Juan, was detained hours after the incident.

All three remain in custody.

They are expected to be placed on identification parade today.

Newsday understands that officers of Northern Division went to two houses in San Juan and detained the suspects.

A quantity of jewelry, stolen from the home of WPC Natasha Coyah was recovered at the home of one of the suspects.

Sources revealed that a police officer assigned to a police station in North Eastern Division will be questioned in connection with the abduction.

According to reports, the female officer who is assigned to the Malabar Police Station spent Sunday afternoon at the home of her son’s father and at 10 pm, was entering her Sangre Grande home she was accosted by three men, who ordered her inside and demanded cash and jewelry.

Following the robbery, the WPC and her son were ordered into a silver-coloured Nissan Tiida car by the men.

On reaching Cunaripo, the driver crashed the vehicle resulting in the bandits fleeing the scene leaving behind WPC Coyah and her son, who were unharmed.

The WPC alerted residents who contacted police and a 29-year-old suspect was detained a short distance away.

Police reports revealed that several loud explosions were heard at Chrissie Trace and police officers who were on routine patrol responded .

When officers made a check, they discovered the body of Garvin Julien on the ground .

A District Medical Officer was called to the scene and the body was ordered removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James .

Julien, who lived at Bhagaloo Street, is believed to have been shot dead by a rival gang member from Unruly ISIS .

Police investigators told Newsday that due to an increase in murders in Enterprise, instructions were given for round the clock patrols in several areas in Enterprise including Bhagaloo Trace .

Police believe that although the patrols were close by, the killers still carried out the ‘hit

On this occasion, one fake news site reported that Richards died in New York where he was said to be receiving medical attention while another site claimed the 85-yearold had passed away in California.

This created some consternation among the population yesterday, with members of the public calling Newsday to seek confirmation of Richards’ death. However, when contacted by Newsday yesterday afternoon, the former president’s daughter Maxine Richards said, “No, it is not true.” Last November, Richards was also said to have died in NY but the family debunked that report, with his wife Dr Jean Ramjohn-Richards, laughing as she told another newspaper, “He’s in good health generally and we’re going out to dinner tonight.” In recent months, a number of websites have posted fake news online on the death of several heads of states and governments, including Guyana’s former president Donald Ramotar.

Also, there have been numerous confirmed sightings, if these fake websites are to be believed, of Elvis, Big Foot and Genghis Khan.

Bankers Association of Trinidad and Tobago (BATT) Vice President Nigel Baptiste.

said there is a considerable amount to be afraid of regarding the view of local banks by correspondent banks in the light of: anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing; and “coming on the seemingly widespread international view of Trinidad and Tobago with respect to a breeding ground for ISIS fighters”; and the general failure to institute much needed improvements to other basic regulatory frameworks such as the Insurance Act, Gambling bill and amendments to the Financial Institutions Act.

In a New York Times article this week it was reported that US authorities are concerned that this country has become a breeding ground for extremists close to the United States.

It was also reported that terrorism was one of the issues discussed between Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and US President Donald Trump during a recent telephone call.

Baptiste also expressed concern about the delay in the passage of the Tax Information Exchange Act.

“Our backs are now up against the wall at a time when this matter is possibly the least concern of the general public.

But…contrary to what MX Prime asserts, if the economy falls down because of this issue, rest assured, the jamming will stop.”