GREAT BAY – The Progress Committee St. Maarten was in St. Maarten last week for the usual quarterly meetings with the director of the Pointe Blanche prison Edward Rohan and with the management of the police force to discuss the status of the plans of approach and the progress reports these entities are required by Kingdom law to submit. On Monday, the committee met with the Dutch representative in Philipsburg, Chris Johnson. After that the committee met with Prime Minister, William Marlin, in his new office. The committee took the opportunity to remind the Prime Minister that the committee is…
Author: The Publisher
It’s a good thing that teachers and kids at the Leonald Conner School experienced hindrance from something in the air. Not that we wish this on anyone, but the nuisance has forced the government to take immediate action. This is interesting in the context of the troubles we are experiencing with the fires on the dump. As we all know, or at least should know, these fires emit toxic dioxins. The stuff has the potential to cause cancer. Here is the thing: those darn dioxins are odorless. In other words, the poison is in the air every time the dump…
After last week’s report that women on the French side are not too eager to submit themselves to a breast examination, data from the Dutch side seem to indicate a similar sentiment. During breast cancer awareness month 342 women took a clinical breast examination. That looks like a nice number until you compare it with the population statistics that show that there are 9,876 women on the Dutch side between the ages of 30 and 70 (later data are not available). This means that just 3.5 percent of these women took the test. Whether this is based on a conscious…
GREAT BAY – In early August, the Progress Committee sounded the alarm over the lack of progress with the plans of approach in the justice chain. This week, the committee is back on the island for talks with law enforcement stakeholders; they also met with Dutch Representative Christ Johnson at his office on Front Street. On Wednesday, Minister Ronald Plasterk (Kingdom Relations) sent the latest reports from the Progress Committee to the Dutch parliament. In the accompanying letter he basically reiterates the concerns committee-chairman Nico Schoof expressed at a press conference in St. Maarten in August. Plasterk confirms that the…
The report from the General Audit Chamber about administrative appointments makes clear that this process leaves a lot to be desired. What is even more serious is that six out of seven ministers did not respond to a request to verify the findings of the audit. It remains to be seen how the new parliament will deal with this report; that is to say, whether it will deal with it at all. Past parliaments have mostly ignored these solid audits that contain serious recommendations for improvement. It is also worrisome that the Audit Chamber was unable to establish for half…
Minister of Kingdom Relations, Ronald Plasterk, says the ball is in the court of St. Maarten in a letter to the Dutch Second Chamber regarding the plans of approach for the Pointe Blance prison and the police force of St. Maarten.
Minister Ingrid Arrindell slightly changed her story about the process surrounding the appointment of Rolando Brison as the director of the St. Maarten Tourism Authority. In a lengthy statement (see related story) the minister demands an apology from this newspaper for calling her a liar. Actually we did not call the minister a liar; we wrote: It appears now that Tourism and Economic Affairs Minister Ingrid Arrindell has been lying about the candidacy of Rolando Brison as director for the St. Maarten Tourism Authority.” That’s a subtle, but important difference. These are the true facts of this story. On August…
Minister Ingrid Arrindell issued a press release on Monday with respect to matters surrounding the appointment of the director of the Sint Maarten Tourist Authority. This newspaper did not receive it for some reason, so we picked up a copy from the soualiganewsday.com website and we offer our readers here the unabridged version. Minister Arrindell has stated that the tone and content, which consisted of innuendos, accusations, and condemnations made toward her in the editorial written by Mr. Hilbert Haar in which he stated that it appeared that she has been lying about the candidacy of Mr. Rolando Brison as the…
The all-out war against houses of easy virtue reached a new pinnacle with the raids at El Capitan and Le Petit Chateau yesterday. Another 29 prostitutes without valid residence papers have been picked up by law enforcement for deportation back to the Dominican Republic and Colombia. After the action against the Hypnotic brothel in late October, a total of 56 prostitutes have now been taken out of circulation. The sex industry is going through tough times; that’s for sure. Love it or hate it, prostitution is part of any community and also of ours. It is a business of demand…
There is a tantalizing story developing around the appointment – or not – of Rolando Brison as the director of the St. Maarten Tourist Authority. We always wish everybody the very best but in Brison’s case, the deck seemed stacked against him and his buddy MP Silvio Matser won’t be able to move him into this coveted position. Mike Granger, a former journalist who now runs a public relations company that for instance produced the controversial ‘interview’ with Maria Buncamper-Molanus that appeared on the front page and on two more full pages in that other newspaper on June 3 in…
