That the Collective Preventive Service recommends the use of toothpaste and mouth water containing fluoride may surprise some readers. After all, fluoride has been at the center of disputes in many countries. Its use is, at least, controversial. Medicalnewstoday.com published the following information about the controversy. A growing number of people are asking why we are being “medicated” in such large numbers without being consulted first. Surely, if fluoride is a medication and is being added to our water supply, shouldn’t this occur with our approval? There is also concern that perhaps it is not possible to accurately control exactly…
Author: The Publisher
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Twee days after the fourfold liquidation near Parera on the access road to Punda the police in Willemstad still has no idea whatsoever about what happened last Saturday night. NOS-correspondent Dick Drayer sums up the situation in his personal blog De Aachterkant van Curacao. “Even better: Chief Commissioner Mauricio Sambo complains publicly about the fact that hardly any witnesses have come forward in the first hours after the murder of 32-year-old Reegi Angelista, 39-year-old Elery Cijntje, 48-year-old Harold Francisca and 54-year-old Purcival Brooks. Literally Sambo says: “It cannot be so that in such a crowded area like Parera on Saturday…
Sometimes a sweet little story like the presentation of the Welcome Baby Bag at the hospital brings home the realization that there are plenty of good-willing people in our community. Stories about violent crimes, serious accidents and large-scale fraud investigations tend to dominate the news and push such initiatives into the background. Good news is no news is a well-known maxim in journalism. No matter how true that remains, its effect is that social issues in general receive less coverage. The Welcome Baby Bag story is a topic from the category small news. But it has a huge impact on…
GREAT BAY – Little Kiandra was not aware of what was going on around her yesterday afternoon in the conference room of the St. Maarten Medical Center, but yet, with her mom Juana the 4-days-old baby girl was the center of attention during the presentation of the Welcome Baby Bag initiative. The idea for the welcome baby bag comes from the Rotary Club Mid Isle’s president Veronica Jansen-Webster who received a welcome bag of goodies after giving birth in the Netherlands. The Rotary picked up the initiative and found sponsors to support it: Bebe N Kids, Penny’s, Domino’s Pizza and…
MARIGOT – With 49.2 percent of the vote, Team Daniel Gibbs booked a resounding victory in the first round if the territorial elections on Sunday. A distant second was Louis Mussington’s MJP (13.8 percent) followed by Alain Richardson’s MVP with 11.9 percent. These three parties will go into the second round of voting this upcoming Sunday. Voters wiped out the list of President Aline Hanson who won just 6.6 percent of the vote. If these elections showed anything, it was a deep disinterest in politics by the electorate. Of the 20,276 eligible voters only 8,601 cast a vote (42.4 percent),…
The gap between politics and “the people’ has been a subject for debate in many countries. This weekend we witnessed the size of this gap on the French side of the island where citizens had the opportunity to vote in the territorial elections. With a turnout of 42.4 percent politics sustained a severe black eye, because almost six out of ten eligible voters opted to stay home or do something else than exercising their democratic rights. The winner of the first round of these elections, Team Daniel Gibbs scored a seemingly impressive 49.2 percent of the vote; but that percentage…
As flight connections between the islands of the former Netherlands Antilles become more cumbersome, many are scratching their heads about the next move. With Insel Air in bankruptcy protection chances are that one of the major airlines to serve the connection between St. Maarten and Curacao and Aruba will disappear. And then what? We figure that government departments will have to invest in video conferencing equipment. That will at least give them cheap options to stay in touch. But what about all the other inter-island travel? Without reasonable flight connections – asking for something perfect seems a bit much at…
That the country’s financial management needs improvement is old news. But that the books are altered after the fact is something new. Apparently that happened in 2015 if we go by the letter from the Cft to the finance ministry. There are other violations too and one of them requires immediate attention. Ministries have been exceeding their budgets (in 2015) while there was no approval to do this from Parliament. The question is of course: how would parliamentarians become aware of such violations? They surely do not get a red alert the day after something like this happens. It is…
Dear Editor, The past week has given us many issues to reflect on or critically dissect to determine where we stand in the greater plan of it all. We have seen with quite some interest the letters back and forth between our prime minister and the minister of kingdom affairs. Each clinging to his point of departure on the protocol signed on the establishment of an Integrity Chamber. It would seem that though it is clearly pointed out that the agreed time has elapsed and we are taking measures to remedy the shortcomings exposed in the many studies and investigations…
GREAT BAY – United St. Maarten Party MP Chanel Brownbill was released from police custody on Saturday but he remains a suspect in the Emerald-investigation into tax fraud, forgery and money laundering. Four other suspects, policeman Akeem A. and two men identified as C.D. and K.L. have also been released. According to the office of the public prosecutor their detention is no longer necessary for the investigation. Remains suspect in money laundering case The Emerald-investigation began in April 2016 after newspaper reports appeared about questions in Parliament about a new contract between Checkmate Security and the port. On November 28…
