GREAT BAY – The government is considering an alternative to the Integrity Chamber, Prime Minister William Marlin said yesterday afternoon during a meeting of Parliament about the controversial appointment of Dutch quartermaster Hans Leijtens. That alternative would be expanding the General Audit Chamber with an integrity-investigation branch. The idea is currently subject to debate in the Council of Ministers; a decision has not been taken yet. Members of Parliament shed their light on the issue extensively, mainly by rehashing the history of the Integrity Chamber legislation and – in the case of MP Frans Richardson – complaining about the fact…
Author: The Publisher
While the link between stress and heart attacks and strokes is well known, scientists have long failed to establish the exact cause. Now they believe they have finally cracked it, and it all comes down to heightened activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that reacts to stress. The amygdala readies the body for harmful experiences, such as being physically attacked, by telling the bone marrow to temporarily produce more white blood cells. These help fight infection and repair damage to the body. Chronic stress can lead to a similar reaction, but in the absence of physical damage…
The National Health Insurance is a work in progress but its completion is still a long way away. As Professor Wynand van de Ven explains in our front page story, this does not mean that the country should do nothing in the meantime. The first order of the day is the establishment of a third party purchaser – a body that will negotiate price and quality of care with care providers at home and abroad. But there is more: the composition of the care package. What will fall under this insurance and what kind of care will people have to…
Dear Editor, Lee Halley, as a young man, had a vision, a dream to someday have his own fishing charter business on the same land and water where his father, brothers and many Simpson Bay fishermen kept their fishing boats. Lee’s hard work, determination, dedication and Simpson Bay Pride made that dream come true. A dream that, after 30 years, grew into what is now Lee’s Roadside Grill & Deep Sea Fishing. Closing Lee’s Roadside Grill will impact our lives, the families of our 30 employees, our suppliers, contractors and the Simpson Bay community. At a time when the economy…
The ease with which politicians use comparisons with the Second World War to characterize the attitude of the Netherlands towards St. Maarten is – to use a Frans Richardson expression – unfortunate. Yesterday the term Gestapo was used by PM William Marlin and by UP-leader Theo Heyliger who threw in the Nazis for good measure. The Gestapo was Hitler’s secret state police, but the organization itself was not by a long shot as frightening as the sources it depended on: ordinary Germans who tattled on their neighbors or on anybody they happened to have a beef with. The Gestapo itself…
Don Quixote was charging at windmills under the illusion that they were giants. Something similar was happening in Parliament yesterday during the debate about the appointment of a quartermaster for the Integrity Chamber by the Dutch government. The term fighting windmills seems appropriate – the Netherlands is full of them and to local politicians, the Netherlands is that giant bent on trampling the little guy. Because what is going on here? The Dutch appointed a quartermaster. That’s based on a protocol former Vice Prime Minister Dennis Richardson signed with Minister Plasterk on May 24, 2015. “The Netherlands appoints a quartermaster…
GREAT BAY – “In the game of politics in St. Maarten there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies; only permanent interests,” Gracita Arrindell, leader of the extra-parliamentary political party People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) said at a press briefing yesterday morning. Seconded by her treasurer Ed Gumbs, Arrindell addressed a broad array of topics, thus joining the public debate for the first time again, after the party’s defeat in the September 26 elections. And while Arrindell says that she opposes new taxes like the departure tax that is currently in the pipeline, somewhere in her presentation she repeats a…
GREAT BAY – Small businesses are going to die if banks do not facilitate entrepreneurs to receive money online. That is the view of consultant and entrepreneur Ifelola Badejo. “We are in the 21st century. Our banking systems unfortunately are stuck somewhere between the 20th century and the 19th Century…I say that to have a reality check. To understand that if they are not moving with the times, they will cause our economies to die,” Badejo says. Relating from her personal experiences, Badejo recalled inquiring at the bank why she is unable to do transactions online and receive payments, even…
GREAT BAY – Exactly seven years after his mysterious disappearance, the car of American Robert Brous has been found, after tourists spotted it in the sea near the Walter Plantz Pier on Sunday morning around 9 a.m. The car, a dark blue BMW381i, is according to the police “possibly” the vehicle Brous rented in 2010. Chief Inspector Ricardo Henson dismissed media reports that a body had been found in the car. The police have impounded the car for analysis and it released a picture of the car to the media. The French-side website soualigapost.com reported however based on police information…
Today’s story about the art school of Tess Verheij reveals an apparent lack of local interest in the arts and in particular in the training of youngsters in the pleasures of drawing and other creative activities. Reason enough for us to ask in this spot attention for the opportunity Verheij’s project offers to fifteen talented but underprivileged children: a whole year of free art classes. Parents and schools ought to pick up on this, while children themselves are free to drop in at the art school on Old Street. Verheij’s idea to uplift art classes in the school system should…
