Hogwash
By Hilbert Haar The November 19, 2021, court ruling against Hushang Ansary, his daughter Nina and several others that orders them to repay insurance company ENNIA in excess of a billion guilders starts having an More...
Forgotten examples
By Hilbert Haar “A parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people,” the British journalist, businessman and essayist Walter Bagehot once wrote. True or false? When I look at the parliament More...
The Daily Invisible
By Hilbert Haar Julius Vischjager was, I am not exaggerating, a phenomenon. Between 1977 and 2009 he produced 528 editions of The Daily Invisible, the only handwritten newspaper in the world. Vischjager was its More...
Slightly insane
By Hilbert Haar I have more than once expressed my amazement about the huge number of tax warrants our tax inspectorate issues on a regular basis. Hundreds of them and they all have one characteristic in common: More...
Breathless asks attention for sleep apnea
PHILIPSBURG — In December 2022, journalist Hilbert Haar was diagnosed with vascular dementia, or cognitive impairment. Main cause: years of sleep apnea, a disorder general practitioners seldom consider, mainly More...
Crying over spilt milk
By Hilbert Haar Als het kalf verdronken is dempt men de put. That Dutch expression aptly describes the belated anger of parliamentarians about the destruction of the historical ruins at Diamond Estate. I am not More...
Unlawful spending
By Hilbert Haar The General Audit Chamber investigates the lawful and efficient spending of public funds, or so I read in the chamber’s report about St. Maarten’s 2021 financial statements. Related article: More...
Present-day slavery
Door Hilbert Haar St. Maarten will “accept nor deny” apologies for the history of slavery from the Dutch government, according to Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs in a reaction to a speech by Prime Minister Mark More...
Be careful what you wish for
By Hilbert Haar Independence. That term has been doing the rounds among politicians and among civil proponents of it like José Lake Jr. for a very, very long time. And now independent MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten More...
Freedom of choice
By Hilbert Haar The Common Court of Justice has ordered Aruba and Curacao to allow marriages between partners of the same sex. That order had not gone into effect yet, because both countries could appeal the ruling More...
