PHILIPSBURG – On Monday, January 15th, almost immediately after the new Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Jorien Wuite, was sworn in, the Minister and members of her cabinet attended a stakeholder consultation session at the University of St. Martin (USM) regarding the Ministry’s Resilience Plan (MRP). The plan, formulated in collaboration with UNICEF representatives, MECYS Policy department heads and the policy advisor of staff bureau in response to the devastation caused by hurricane IRMA, has as its main objectives: to establish a foundation for a sustainable recovery plan and to improve disaster responsiveness before, during and after disasters…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG – The Court in First Instance sentenced two men who robbed the Scotiabank in Simpson Bay on June 9 of last year to five years of imprisonment on Wednesday. A third man received a 4-year sentence. The court pronounces its verdict against the remaining suspects three weeks from now, om February 7. Shaquille Akim Every, 24, and Dillon Jones, 23, were on the receiving end of the 5-year sentence. Nikhal Xavier Otto, 25, was sentenced to 4 years. The public prosecutor had demanded 8 years against Every and 6 years against Otto and Jones. The fourth defendant, Sheldon Elroy…
GREAT BAY, Sint Maarten (DCOMM) – All Public Transportation Permit Holders needs a “Confirmation Letter” to obtain their 2018 license plate. Effectively immediately all public transportation permit holders can request a confirmation letter. Additionally, the 2018 confirmation letter has a new format. As of 2018, contrary to previous years, there will be no separate vehicle inspection carried out by the “Control Unit” to obtain this document. All Public Transportation Vehicles must have been Inspected or Re-inspected after September 2017 at the Motor Vehicle Inspection Center located on Soauliga Road (opposite the Little League Ball Park). The documents needed to request and obtain the confirmation letter are:…
PORT ST. MAARTEN – Based on one-on-one meetings that Port St. Maarten Cruise Business Unit has been having with cruise line executives, MSC Cruises has confirmed that it will be returning to the destination on March 28 with MSC Opera. MSC Cruises will be making 29 port calls for 2018 bringing in approximately 115,000 cruise passengers. The port calls will also include the newly inaugurated – December 2017 – MSC Seaside which sails out of Miami, Florida and will make its inaugural call on April 4. Destination St. Maarten will be the first port of call for many of those…
Philipsburg — Detectives of the KPSM continue to reach out to the community for information in connection with several ongoing criminal investigations. The latest request is in connection with the ongoing investigation of a shooting which took place on December 21st 2017 opposite the West Indian Village in Dutch Quarter. During this shooting a male victim was shot I his leg by an unknown assailant. After committing this act the suspect fled in a private vehicle. Detectives have spoken to several witnesses however more information is necessary to shed more light on this investigation. Anyone in the community who have…
Dear Editor, I note with interest that persons of very different political hues (The Patriot and Russel Simmons?) are putting their minds to the question of the characteristics and personality of the most suitable candidates the voters should consider for our upcoming election. We regularly read of the need for young fresh “untainted” candidates who would not be tied to the apparently “corrupted” establishment. If we studied the experience over the past seven years we have already had numerous of such younger persons who have succeeded in being elected but in practice their performance has not resulted in the anticipated…
Philipsburg — Last Sunday the Simpson Bay Lagoon clean up event organized by the Sint Maarten Nature Foundation and Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) received a massive turn out with more than one hundred volunteers coming together to make a difference for the Simpson Bay Lagoon. The collaborated event was initiated through the ‘A Bit at a Time’ initiative of Mason Chadwick; with volunteers already showing great on-going effort in cleaning up the Simpson Bay Lagoon. ‘We removed wood, fiberglass, zinc, boat parts, garbage, plastics and various other objects from the entire coastline from Dinghy Dock Bar up to…
Philipsburg — Students from the Gulliver Middle School in Miami, with the Support of Hollywood Casino, joined forces with renown Ocean Cleanup Organization 4Ocean and the Sint Maarten Nature Foundation in cleaning up beaches and wetlands in Sint Maarten. The Students organized the cleanup activities especially experiencing the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma and on their own initiative traveled to the island with representatives from 4Oceans to assist the Nature Foundation with its ongoing beach-cleanup campaigns. 4Ocean is a global movement that allows anyone from anywhere to join and help in ocean trash removal efforts worldwide. With overwhelming response from…
PHILIPSBURG – The action Book Storm, initiated by several librarians in the Netherlands to support the damaged Philipsburg Jubilee Library, has become a nationwide initiative that ends at the end of January. All Dutch libraries support the action through FOBID – the Forum of Dutch Libraries. At the end of December, Book storm had generated €4,850; the royal library will more than double this amount to €10,000 ($12,000) and transfer the funds to St. Maarten at the end of this month. There have been initiatives across the Netherlands to help the library. The Bijlmer Park theater in Amsterdam organized on…
PHILIPSBURG – All political parties are good to go for the February 26 parliamentary elections. On Tuesday afternoon, the Central Voting Bureau approved all the necessary paperwork during a brief public meeting at the parliament building. The Central Voting Bureau examined all the documents and related information parties submitted on Nomination Day. With the exception of the submission of the United Democrats, which was flawless, the bureau found discrepancies with all other parties. While these discrepancies are seemingly details – a wrong address, an incorrect date of birth, a missing decree of registration at the Electoral Council – the Central…
