GREAT BAY – Prime Minister William Marlin was “flabbergasted” when he read that the Dutch government had appointed Hans Leijtens as the quartermaster for the Integrity Chamber. At the same time, Marlin noted that the government had not received any official communication about the appointment. Marlin said at Wednesday’ Council of Ministers press briefing that the country does not need an Integrity Chamber. “The faction of the National Alliance vehemently opposed the legislation to establish the Integrity Chamber in the form it was proposed. It is not that we are against addressing integrity issues but there are enough mechanisms in…
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GREAT BAY – Governor Eugène Holiday administered the oath of office on Tuesday to new Member of Parliament Perry Geerlings at the Governor’s Cabinet. Geerlings takes the seat for the Democratic Party left vacant by the appointment of Emil Lee as Minister of public health, social development and labor. This means that the Parliament is now at full strength with 15 members. Governor Holiday congratulated Geerlings and wished him strength and wisdom in the performance of his responsibilities to foster the wellbeing of the people of Sint Maarten. Photo caption: Governor Eugène Holiday administered the oath of office to Perry…
The authorities are coming down hard on casino owner Francesco Corallo. Today he stands in front of the Judge of Instruction for an assessment of the legality of his arrest. That will be followed further down the road by an extradition hearing. In the meantime, the Italian authorities have indicated that it is okay to seize several hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets from Corallo. It is probably all according to procedure, yet one gets the feeling that law enforcement is rushing here, for reasons that remain unclear. Corallo’s real estate in St. Maarten is not going anywhere…
Dear Editor, I must commend our parliamentarians for raising the budget debate in the Central Committee a notch higher this year. Compared to the debate on the 2016 budget, parliamentarians were better prepared to deal with details, to ask critical questions and to consequently carry out one of their very important functions, namely to control and monitor Government. Parliamentarians were in their right to call out the NA-DP-USp-Lake-Matser caretaker government and ministers on the 2016 expenditures of the country. However, I believe that Members of Parliament were too hard on our caretaker Government as far as the 2017 Budget is…
The speed and hurry of the outgoing cabinet to contract the new operator for the Isla refinery and the Bullen Bay has created a lot of unrest in Curacao, Caribisch Netwerk and NOS-correspondent Dick Drayer writes on his blog ‘De Achterkant van Curacao.’ There are proponents, because the honey pot of the Multi-Disciplinary Project Team is again filled to the rim and opponents because there is a honey pot in the first place. Analogous to the sudden urge to do something of the outgoing team in Forti the old cabinet of Whiteman has found a new honeypot: the bachelor training…
To make things simpler for the private sector requests for an inspection for an operational license in the horeca-sector (bars, restaurants, hotels) will no longer be accepted at the Yellow Building (Tamarinde Steeg 16) we learn from a press release from the Ministry of Tourism and Economic Affairs. These requests will now have to go to the section economic control. They’re at Cannegieter Street 23. However, before visiting the section economic control, entrepreneurs have to go for the initial application, to the department of economic licenses. Their offices are located at Zoutsteeg 3. We thought that the 21st centrury started…
This Grand Case by Night special about the Grand Case dining scene was printed on Friday, December 9th, 2016, in the paper version of the TODAY newspaper as a 4-page full colour supplement. This supplement was sponsored by Amigo Tours, StMaartenTours.info, St. Maarten Airport Taxi Association, Dutch St. Maarten Taxi Association and Genesis Taxi Service. This supplement is now published permanently online in the RESTAURANTS, NIGHTLIFE and ENTERTAINMENT sections on the TODAY Newspaper Online website with all the hyperlinks active to help increase and improve the websites ranking, findability, visibility and popularity of the aforementioned sponsors. Please read and enjoy this…
GREAT BAY – Cruise Company Princess has to pay the American government $40 million for environmental violations. In 2013, investigators discovered a ‘magical pipe’ at one of the company’s cruise vessels; the pipe was illegally pumping oil into the ocean. ‘Magical pipe’ used to dump oily water into the ocean It appeared that Princess already used this ‘solution’ since 2005 to get rid of water polluted with oil for free instead of paying for waste disposal and processing. In one discharge, the vessel pumped 16,000 liters of oil-polluted water into the ocean, 35 kilometers out of the coast of Great…
In any society the ultimate objective of right thinking political, trade union and private sector leadership should be to design a structure for society so as to ultimately engender happiness among the people that they serve. This means that addressing issues such as net foreign exchange earnings, use of natural resources, education and training, high productivity employment for fair compensation, transportation, health and sanitation, food, clothing and housing is paramount. These may be partitioned into productive sector issues and service sector issues. The productive sectors, which are traditionally the domain of the private sector (structured to do business), grow the…
Princess Cruise Lines is “extremely disappointed in its personnel,” the company said after it received a $40 million fine in a court in Miami for environmental violations that have been going on since 2005. We have never had any illusions about cruise companies and this statement adds to this feeling. We figure that, to install what has been called a ‘magical pipe’ that enables a cruise vessel to dump thousands of liters of oil-polluted water into the ocean, you need to know something about the construction of these huge floating hotels. The personnel members who work on these ocean mammoths…
