Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions has launched a tele­vi­sion se­ries-Diplo­mat­ic En­coun­ters, Re­la­tions with the States. The first episode fea­tures Span­ish Am­bas­sador to T&T Joaquin de Aris­tegui and is of 20 min­utes' du­ra­tion. Di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Min­istry, Gideon Hanomans­ingh, pro­duced the se­ries which is not quite ready for air­ing. The se­ries was launched by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts on Sun­day and host­ed mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps.Sr Aris­tegui, who de­liv­ered a short ad­dress, said Spain is ho­n­oured to be the first fea­ture in the se­ries. He said his­to­ry had been com­plex re­gard­ing the dis­cov­ery of this coun­try.

The am­bas­sador said he re­cent­ly re­turned to Spain on va­ca­tion and was hap­py to note that in its mil­i­tary mu­se­um, there was a sec­tion ded­i­cat­ed to T&T. Asked when the fea­ture will shown, Hanomans­ingh said it still has to be sort­ed out. He said: 'We want­ed to launch it first." Ram­bachan said the se­ries will give diplo­mats an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fo­cus on what they wish to achieve and what they had achieved. He said it will al­so high­light the work of em­bassies. "It is al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go to tell its sto­ry to the diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ty." He said as a re­sult of the diplo­mats' pres­ence in the coun­try over the past months "a lot has hap­pened." Ram­bachan said ties had strength­ened with In­dia, South Ko­rea, Nige­ria, Japan and Latin Amer­i­ca.

"You would be sur­prised to know that we have been mar­ket­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go as a place where stu­dents or peo­ple who want to be trained in oil and gas tech­nol­o­gy can come to Trinidad to be trained and we are re­ceiv­ing the first 100 stu­dents from Nige­ria very ear­ly in the new year," he said. He added that in­vest­ment mis­sions from Japan and South Ko­rea will be vis­it­ing T&T next month. Hanomans­ingh said he, along with Ram­bachan and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, will be at­tend­ing the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Perth, Aus­tralia, from Oc­to­ber 28 to 30.