The heart­beat of love, uni­ty, and con­scious­ness will pulse stronger than ever as Hari Fest III re­turns for its third and most ex­tra­or­di­nary in­stal­ment in 2025.

He is one of the last of the bards whose voice was raised in ca­lyp­so in the 1970 surge for Black Pow­er. At 84 years old, clear-sight­ed and an­a­lyt­i­cal, Broth­er Valenti­no told me how he came to be recog­nised as the “Peo­ple’s Ca­lyp­son­ian” back in the “Roar­ing Sev­en­ties”.

With a new in­ter­im ex­ec­u­tive led by Richard Forteau and pow­ered by sup­port from An­gos­tu­ra Lim­it­ed, Pan­land Lim­it­ed, the Min­istry of Cul­ture, and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), this year’s Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val (LSF) promis­es to be a spec­tac­u­lar show­case of T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

ANSA McAL Lim­it­ed served as the of­fi­cial spon­sor of the Women in Lead­er­ship (WIL) 2025 Net­work­ing and Cock­tail Re­cep­tion, host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies – Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness (UWI-ALJGSB).

It was a night of mu­sic, mem­o­ries, and mag­nif­i­cent per­for­mances on Ju­ly 26, as the lega­cy of the Mighty Spar­row was ho­n­oured in grand style. The South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) came alive for Thank You, Spar­row—a star-stud­ded mu­si­cal trib­ute to the Ca­lyp­so King of the World, Slinger Fran­cis­co ORTT.

Colom­bian Am­bas­sador to T&T, Sid­ney Bush Howard, has de­scribed his two-year tenure in the coun­try as “ex­tra­or­di­nary,” high­light­ing the deep­en­ing of ties be­tween Colom­bia and the wider Caribbean.

John­ny Black­man is a T&T-born so­ca record­ing artiste who hails from a large fam­i­ly of 14 chil­dren. He grew up liv­ing mod­est­ly in the town of Pi­paro, and is proud to be the son of the late award-win­ning mu­si­cian Ras Shorty I (Garfield Black­man).

Care­nage-born Chris­t­ian and de­vo­tion­al artiste Jaron Nurse will share tonight’s stage with award-win­ning Amer­i­can-based gospel artiste CeCe Winans.

Pana­ma’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Javier Martínez-Acha Vásquez, has reaf­firmed his coun­try’s com­mit­ment to build­ing a more in­te­grat­ed, re­silient, and fu­ture-ready Caribbean. Speak­ing at the 31st an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS), held at the Pana­man­ian Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain on Ju­ly 29, Min­is­ter Vásquez out­lined a vi­sion of sol­i­dar­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and co­op­er­a­tion.

Tal­ent­ed teen pan­nist and as­pir­ing me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer Kai Caruth of Bish­op’s High School (BHS), To­ba­go, was ho­n­oured with the 2025 Nevin Roach Award for steel­pan ex­cel­lence on Ju­ly 4. The award was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the school’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, where Caruth al­so of­fi­cial­ly com­plet­ed his stud­ies, re­ceiv­ing his cer­tifi­cate from An­gli­can Bish­op Rev­erend Claude Berkley.

A pow­er­ful new ad­di­tion to T&T’s cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al cal­en­dar has been launched—Di­vine Har­monies, a na­tion­al Gospel Choir com­pe­ti­tion, is set to de­but on De­cem­ber 6 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, start­ing at 5 pm.

British pro­fes­sor and hu­man­i­tar­i­an Dr Ab­h­nash K Bains, founder and CEO of Ishka­ma Glob­al Change (IGC), vis­it­ed T&T in Ju­ly to co-host a pow­er­ful, mul­ti-na­tion­al event in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA).