Another St. Maarten Day is almost upon us, but do we have something to celebrate? We hear year after year stories about the cooperation between the Dutch and the French side, but, truth be told, we never see any practical results. About a year ago
St. Maarten is certainly not short of plans. First there were the by now infamous cricket field and the drag racing strip. Then Justice Minister Duncan launched his plan for a Justice Park. Now we hear from infrastructure Minister William Marlin that
The month leading up to the holidays in December is dedicated to domestic violence – one of the greater ills in our community. Every now and then somebody ends up in court for ill-treating a wife or a girlfriend. But what we see in court is the
After UP-leader Theo Heyliger, the Hospitality and Trade Association SHTA has also expressed its concerns about the effects hurricane Sandy could have on our island’s economy. It is an understandable point of view, even if the term Pavlov-reaction
St. Maarten has found a bargaining chip after the Dutch Finance State Secretary Weekers asked the country to exempt citizens and companies from the BES-islands who buy goods here from the turnover tax. Finance Minister Roland Tuitt wants to use this
Minister De Weever’s intention to take crisis intervention away from the Mental Health Foundation and move it to Turning Point seems to make little sense. The MHF is fully equipped for this task, complete with a resident psychiatrist, while Turning
Education Minister Silveria Jacobs has work to do or, to be entirely correct, more work to do, after she received the report from the Soualiga Foundation about the experiences of St. Maarten’s students in the Netherlands. The main stumbling block
The prosecution made short shrift yesterday of most of the arguments defense attorneys presented in the Vesuvius trial on Monday and Tuesday. Of course, not everything is what it seems and it is in the end up to the independent judge to separate fac
The Vesuvius-trial has almost run the first leg of its course. The prosecution has presented its case and defense attorneys have rattled the cage this week to the best of their abilities. Where the prosecution demands two life sentences and against
Editorial, St. Maarten News - Posted by admin on October 23, 2012
It is interesting how our Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports played the ball back to the parliament yesterday when the issue of making Constitution Day a national holiday came up. Writing legislation is not the prerogative of the govern
The demand did not exactly come like a bat out of hell, but still, the life sentences public prosecutors demanded yesterday against two defendants in the Vesuvius trial suddenly doubles the number of potential lifers from two to four within less than
Editorial, St. Maarten News - Posted by admin on October 19, 2012
Yesterday we erroneously reported that acting Governor Reynold Groeneveldt will travel to Curacao as an observer for today’s elections. Prime Minister Wescot-Williams said on Wednesday that the chair of the main voting bureau would be dispatched at
Editorial, St. Maarten News - Posted by admin on October 18, 2012
Finance Minister Roland Tuitt is not one to mince his words too often, but yesterday he treaded carefully when questions came his way about a possible increase in taxes. The surest way for the government to generate more income is obviously the turno
The publication of bank statements on Curacao’s whistleblower website Curaleaks suggesting hefty payments from Italian gaming company BPlus into the account of MFK-leader Gerrit Schotte’s girlfriend Cicely van der Dijs drew an angry reaction from
Marcel Loor was released from prison more than four years ago. Due to the final ruling by the Supreme Court, the former head of immigration is making some headlines again. His conviction is final, but he served his sentence already a long time ago.
Apparently the message is not entirely clear yet to the Justice Ministry, or at least to its Immigration and Naturalization Service. While Minister Duncan has resigned to a court ruling from September 11 that basically reconfirms that American citize
MFK-leader Gerrit Schotte accuses the media of a witch hunt, but so far we have not been able to detect any mistakes in the reports about the former prime minister’s attempts to obtain a statement of good behavior for Atlantis World Group and BPlus
Things are not looking better for ousted Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte in Curacao. Not that there is anything new about his ties with Atlantis World Group boss Francesco Corallo, but the fact that the latter has now been put on display through corres
It is by now abundantly clear that there is no support for dumping more sand in the embattled Great Salt Pond- not for a cricket stadium and not for an extremely noisy drag racing strip. The thing to do is obviously to pull the plug on these projec
Somehow we have a not so good feeling about where this is going: the discussion about the zoning plans. Vromi-Minister William Marlin announced the project with some fanfare at a press conference in August with a justified statement: “Overdevelopme
Court rulings against the Westin hotel are rolling in thick and fast these days and they all carry the same message: the Westin is not what one would call a good corporate citizen. That is a pity, because the hotel is the stage for quite some local
The Pride Foundation is crying foul about the Great Salt Pond and for good reason. Plans to build a cricket stadium and a drag racing strip require a further filling-in of the pond. That this has even been considered as a realistic proposition is rem
There is hardly a day or a month in the calendar that is not dedicated to a cause. This month’s cause is breast cancer awareness. But within this month the United Nations has marked fifteen commemorative days, that’s one every other day of the mo
With the arrest of a 17-year-old suspect the investigation into the murders of Michael and Thelma King has entered a new phase. Of course, the teenager is at this stage a suspect, but based on his arrest one must assume that investigators have inform
The first word that comes to mind considering the behavior of outgoing Prime Minister Gerrit Schotte is this one: shameful. That Schotte initially refused to leave his office (literally) after the appointment of Stanley Betrian as interim prime mi
The last word has not been said about the plans the American Clinic has for playing a major role in the development of medical tourism on the island. From all the information we have seen so far it appears that St. Maarten Medical Center Director Geo
Police and prosecutor’s office have accepted the help from the American Federal Bureau of Investigation in the Michael and Thelma King murders. This will without any doubt raise some eyebrows, and not all for the same reasons. The prosecutor’s
While environmental and heritage groups would not exactly be thrilled if Rain Forest Adventures managed somehow to still gets its hands on the Emilio Wilson Estate and build a commercial attraction park there, the company’s project leader John Dalt
With the arrest of one suspect, the team that is investigation the brutal murder of Michael and Thelma King seems to have made rapid progress. It is probably a bridge too far to conclude now immediately that the case has been solved, but at least
Whoever manages the air conditioning system in the courthouse in Philipsburg needs to read up on how to handle these systems and get a grip on what is generally understood by healthy working conditions. Yesterday our thermometer in the upstairs co
The ruling by the Common Court of Justice in favor of two men who were facing life imprisonment may be a victory for the defense but it is a bitter pill for their victims and the relatives of those who died at the hands of these two men. The court
The VVD and the Labor Party seem to be miles apart ideologically. Yet the leaders of these two parties get along just fine and we may soon see them together in the next Rutte-cabinet. How is this possible? Because politicians in the Netherlands under
It is no doubt a good thing to control supermarkets, especially the food items that are on the shelves. But the question that will linger in the minds of supermarket owners in Middle Region will probably be: why us? We have quite a few large superma
A closed door meeting of the Central Committee about the zoning policy and development plans? Whoever came up with that idea must have lost his (or her) sense of reality. Vromi-Minister Marlin already presented the plans on August 22 during a press c
The Dutch electorate has spoken, and seldom before was its voice so clear: pro Europe and against the Islamophobic rhetoric of Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party. The liberal VVD and the Socialist Labor Party both made a strong appeal to voters a
