PHILIPSBURG — According to a police report issued by the office of Police Spokesman, Chief Inspector Ricardo Henson, on the morning of Thursday, June 21, at approximately 7:35 a.m. the first call came into the emergency dispatch center via 911 stating that heavy smoke was coming through the roof from the interior of Carrefour Market (the former Le Grand Marche supermarket) on Bush Road and that the building was burning on the inside. Immediately several police patrols and fire Department were sent to the scene to investigate what was taking place. On the scene the investigating officers realized that the…
Author: The Publisher
by Chris Morvan I was talking to a friend about traffic the other day and mentioned someone who works in the Little Bay area but lives in Cupecoy. “He must be crazy,” I found myself saying. “Even on a good day that’s a half hour drive.” “That’s our island way of thinking,” she reminded me, and she was right. When you live in a small place you quickly forget how far some people travel to work in cities. Some unfortunates are resigned to spending an hour each way on the train, with fares adding up to many thousands of dollars…
Introduction. Curacao and Dependencies comprising of Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire together with St. Eustatius and Dependencies comprising of St. Eustatius, St. Maarten and Saba were Dutch colonies from 1815 until 1828 and then from 1828 until 1845. For economic reason the two sets of colonies were merged with Suriname between 1828 and 1845 to form a single West Indies colony with its headquarter in Paramaribo. In 1845 the Dutch reverted back to the term Curacao and Dependencies, now also including St. Eustatius, St. Maarten and Saba. This system remained in place until 1936. A few years later, in 1951 the…
PHILIPSBURG — Two suspects, J.L.La P. (41) and M.J.P. (42) were arrested this morning on charges of bribery in an investigation dubbed “Albacore”. This investigation is being conducted by the National Detectives of St. Maarten with support of the Police Force of Sint Maarten and overseen by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The investigating team carried out a search at three locations this morning: a home in Sucker Garden, a home in Saunders and at the office of the Ministry of Justice on A.T. Illidge Road. Various administration documents and data carriers were seized. J.L.La P. and M.J.P. are being held…
PHILIPSBURG — According a recent announcement by the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten on March 28, 2018, the National Ordinance Actualization and Harmonization Supervision Ordinances Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (A.B. 2018, no. 5) came into effect on St. Maarten. This ordinance brought along changes in several supervision ordinances of the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten (CBCS). The CBCS was among other things, granted more supervisory power to perform market conduct supervision. Market conduct supervision aims to ensure orderly and transparent financial market processes, proper relationships between market participants and the exercise of…
With this raging debate about insurance and the dreaded state of being ‘under-insured’ according to the conclusion of various insurance companies here on St. Maarten in the aftermath of hurricane Irma and the subsequent claims for damages that were filed, we at StMaartenNews.com thought it worthwhile to look into an interesting topic that has been discussed by many people ever since complaints about being considered under-insured hit the airwaves and social media. Self-insurance as an option to consider
by Chris Morvan You can tell when the World Cup is on because suddenly the world goes Brazilian. People who you know for a fact have never been within 1,000 miles of Rio de Janeiro have got that distinctive flag flying from their car. And why do these people feel the need to declare such an unwarranted allegiance? Because Brazil are always good and are quite likely to win the tournament again. Distinctive flag, did I say? With the greatest respect to whoever designed it back in the 19th century, it looks like something a teenager knocked up on his…
It snuck back in quietly, but Dollarization is back on the political agenda. With Ferrier’s announcement that we have just two years worth of guilder banknotes left, the decision will have to be made the coming months whether to opt for a Caribbean Guilder (with Curacao), a St. Maarten Dollar or go with the US Dollar or the Euro. Money is still on everyone’s mind, but we are still not seeing any flowing. Now it is even threatening to dry up. Yesterday, we published news that APS is discussing launching a St. Maarten Investment Bank. We have a suggestion for…
PHILIPSBURG – National Ombudsman in the Netherlands Reinier van Zutphen and St. Maarten’s Ombudsman Dr. Nilda Arduin have joined forces to come to the rescue of citizens who need post-hurricane help and do not get satisfactory attention of the government. At a joint press conference at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in Cupecoy, Arduin and Van Zutphen explained how the office of the Ombudsman is able to help citizens in need in the face of the 2018 hurricane season that got underway on June 1. “When governments are involved and they come across people who are…
By Hilbert Haar Actions speak louder than words; that thought came to mind during the seventh annual Governor’s Symposium, this time with climate change as its central theme. The time to act is now, I heard. The sea level is rising and if we wait long enough we’ll see all our beaches, the airport, the cruise port, Philipsburg, Simpson Bay and other low lying parts of the island disappear under water. The Lowlands will become a separate island. Useless to say, with no beaches to go to, the strip in Simpson Bay swallowed by the sea and Philipsburg a no-go…
