SXMElections.com

Academy Closes Year By Graduating 81

CUL DE SAC, St. Maarten - St. Maarten Academy’s academic campus closed the calendar year with a bang by graduating 81 of its students who successfully completed their CSEC examinations, offered by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) in May/June.

The ceremony was held on December 16, 2015 at the Belair Community Centre under the theme, “Education: The Passport to Our Future”.

Clifford Francois emerged as valedictorian and recapped the years of hard work that brought him and his fellow graduates the successes they have achieved Read more

New Parties Come With Joint Statement About Elections

St. Maarten – The five newly established political parties will come with a joint statement about the decision to move the elections from February 9 to September 26, Christian Party leader Wycliffe Smith told this newspaper yesterday evening. He declined to make an individual comment on the situation, but it stands to reason to assume that the five parties are not happy with the outcome of the process.

The Christian Party, Hope, led by Mercedes van der Waals-Wyatt (aka Elektra),MAP, led by Peter Gittens, SMD, led by Benjamin Ortega and Beyond St Read more

New Parties Urge Governor To Hold February Elections

St. Maarten – The five newly established political parties have, as they announced last week, sent a protest letter to Governor Drs. Eugene Holiday, demanding that the elections on February 9 of next year take place and will not be postponed. The letter is dated November 30, but its authors are still awaiting an answer from the Governor.

“We are hearing rumors that the new government will first seek a decision from parliament on the postponement of the elections,” the five parties write in their letter Read more

New Political Parties Balk At Postponement Of Elections

From left Peter Gittens, Daniel Ortega, Loekie Morales, Mercedes van der Waals-Wyatt and Wycliffe Smith. Photo contributed

St Read more

Dp Pushes Again Membership Of Open Government Partnership

DP policy advisor Emil Lee at the summit in Mexico City. Photo contributed

St. Maarten – The Democratic Party is once more pushing the country’s membership of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an issue it made a core element of its election campaign last year Read more

Emil Lee Attends Open Government Partnership Summit On Behalf Of Dp

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten - The DP was represented at the recent OGP Summit by Emil Lee.   Unfortunately, due to the current political crisis, DP Party Leader and Member of Parliament Sarah Wescot Williams had to cancel her planned attendance. According to MP Sarah Wescot Williams, “The DP supports having St Maarten apply for membership to the OGP.  In order for St Maarten to become a member, there are a number of requirement with which St Maarten would need to comply.  Although St Maarten doesn’t currently qualify for membership, this provides the country with an excellent road map to follow in our path towards becoming more open.  There is an undeniable connection between the degree of openness and the level of prosperity of any country.  The more open and transparent the government, the more the people participate in and benefit from the economy.  We felt that this conference was such a valuable learning experience that Emil and I funded the trip at our personal expense.”According to Emil Lee, “the amazing thing for St Maarten is that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  Many countries have similar problems to St Maarten.  Many have issues with how to make the budgeting process more transparent and inclusive.  How to make procurement and government contracts less susceptible to corruption?  By participating in OGP, St Maarten can benefit from all of the experiences and work of other countries.”Use of Confidentiality Clauses: A great exampleAccording to Lee, “In St Maarten, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the use of confidentiality clauses in contracts with government and government owned companies.  There are countries where the contracts are not even legally binding until they have been placed on line for anyone to review.  Additionally, there are clear guidelines for what items are able to be covered by confidentiality clauses.  Pricing and financial information typically does not quality as items that would be able to be shrouded by confidentiality clauses.  This clause is usually reserved for proprietary processes and trade secrets.”OGP SummitThe OGP or Open Government Partnership hosts the OGP Global Summit every two years in the Country of the current Chair, this year in Mexico City.  Representatives from government, academic institutions, civil society and multilateral organizations come together to exchange experiences and share best practices and major developments in open government.OGP Mission:“OGP’s vision is that more governments become sustainably more transparent, more accountable, and more responsive to their own citizens, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of governance, as well as the quality of services that citizens receive Read more

Climate Change And The Caribbean

PORT OD SPAIN, Trinidad - This debate surrounding our climate has polarized the world into two different groups for a long time; some theorists maintain that an intrinsic characteristic of climate is that it changes while a large percent of others support the theory that global warming is anthropogenic or caused by human action.

There is however, scientific consensus that the Earth's climate system is warming, with average temperature rising somewhere between 0.4 and 0.8°C over the past 100 years Read more

Who will be paying for Minister Connor trip to the Dominican Republic? Minister got motion of no confidence he has no right spending tax payers monies.

style="text-align: center;">GEBE not paying for Minister’s ticket.

PHILIPSBURG:--- The Minister of VROMI who is also responsible for Government owned company GEBE Claret Connor is expected to travel to the Dominican Republic this weekend with a delegation from GEBE. According to information provided to SMN News GEBE was invited by Watsilla to travel to the Dominican Republic on a fact-finding mission on the waste to energy plant Read more

Scientists: Water flows on Mars, raising possibility that planet could support life

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida--Briny water flows during the summer months on Mars, raising the possibility that the planet long thought to be arid could support life today, scientists analyzing data from a NASA spacecraft said on Monday.
  Although the source and the chemistry of the water is unknown, the discovery will change scientists' thinking about whether the planet that is most like Earth in the solar system hosts microbial life beneath its radiation-blasted crust.
  "It suggests that it would be possible for life to be on Mars today," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, told reporters, discussing the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
  "Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past Read more

More than 700 pilgrims die in crush in worst haj disaster for 25 years

MINA, Saudi Arabia--At least 717 pilgrims from around the world were killed on Thursday in a crush outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi authorities said, in the worst disaster to strike the annual haj pilgrimage for 25 years.
  At least 863 others were injured. Saudi King Salman said he had ordered a review of haj plans after the disaster, in which two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads in Mina, a few kilometres east of Mecca, on their way to performing the "stoning of the devil" ritual at Jamarat.
  Thursday's disaster was the worst to occur at the pilgrimage since July 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims suffocated in a tunnel near Mecca Read more

Lake Powell's receding waters show risk of "megadrought"

ON THE SHORES OF LAKE POWELL, Utah/Arizona border--Where the Colorado River falls from the snow-capped Rocky Mountains into the arid U.S. Southwest, lies Lake Powell.
  More than 500 feet (150 meters) deep in places and with narrow side canyons, the shoreline of the lake is longer than the entire West Coast of the United States. It extends upstream into Utah from Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam and provides water for Nevada, Arizona and California.
  But a severe drought in recent years, combined with the tapping of the lake's water at what many consider to be an unsustainable level, has reduced its levels to only about 42 percent of its capacity, according to the U.S Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:---- The Democratic Party said in a press release that the buzz word independence has been carried and dropped many times during parliamentary debates recently. The Faction of the Democratic Party considers it opportune at this time to reiterate its stance on the political future of our country.

Politically going forward, in our opinion there is only one way, as going back is not an option.
Our faction has remained steadfast over the years about the political future of our island.

Back in 1994, it was our belief that the Netherlands Antilles had served its time Read more

>MARIGOT:--- The Health Observatory of St.Martin was created in October 2010 under the leadership of the Collectivité of St. Martin. This project was born of a cooperation between the Collectivité, the Government of Sint Maarten and Louis Constant Fleming Hospital. It is financed with European INTERREG IV Caribbean funds. The general meeting held on Friday, September 4, 2015 helped to formalize the functioning of the association that rules the Health Observatory.

The mission of the Health Observatory is to conduct public surveys and health studies on the both sides of the island in order to inform local institutions on priority needs for the population Read more

Tamara: Increase Chamber fee to fund surveillance camera system

PHILIPSBURG--Partial funding for the long-overdue camera surveillance system starting in Philipsburg and branching out to the rest of the country can be raised easily through a nominal fee increase for all St. Maarten Chamber of Commerce and Industry (COCI) registrants, United People’s (UP) party Member of Parliament (MP) Tamara Leonard proposed in a letter to Parliament dated July 28 in light of the daring daylight robberies in Philipsburg.

   The letter, directed to Chairman of Parliament’s Justice Committee MP Johan Leonard, said Tamara envisioned a collaboration of the Chamber of Commerce, police, St Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:----  Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, and Transport & Telecommunications Hon. Claret Connor, recently attended the 31st Annual Conference and Trade Exhibition (CANTO 2015) of the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication (CANTO) in Miami, Florida.
The conference and exhibition was held under the theme “Improving Lives through Broadband Innovation.”
The key note speaker, the Hon Read more

Minister Of Telecommunications Connor Attends 31St Canto 2015 About Improving Lives Through Broadband Innovation

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten – Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, and Transport & Telecommunications Hon. Claret Connor, recently attended the 31st Annual Conference and Trade Exhibition (CANTO 2015) of the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication (CANTO) in Miami, Florida.

The conference and exhibition was held under the theme "Improving Lives through Broadband Innovation."

The key note speaker, the Hon Read more

Transparency International Presents Integrity Assessment: “Political Parties Are Weak In Representing Social Interests”

Transparency International’s regional director for the Americas Alejandro Salas and lead researcher Cora de Voit. Photo Today / Leo Brown

GREAT BAY – At 7 p.m. local time last night, Transparency International’s National Integrity System assessment for St. Maarten came online. The company presented the report at the same time at the university on Pond Island. St. Maarten has now come full circle with probing its integrity issues. There are four reports on the table: the Baseline Study Institutional Integrity from the General Audit Chamber, the integrity-reports from the Bob Wit-committee and PricewaterhouseCoopers and now the transparency assessment.

It contains three core recommendations, of which the third one is the most concrete Read more

No word yet on completion of minister candidates screening

PHILIPSBURG--It has been more than a month since the submission for screening a minister candidate to join the Marcel Gumbs Cabinet and there has not been any word about whether and when the candidate will be sworn in to office. There also has not been any information about the progress of the screening from authorities.

The candidate, who is expected to take up the post of Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunications (TEATT), is former utilities company GEBE employee Ernest Sams.

Following a successful screening, Sams is to take up that post and current minister Claret Connor is slated to move to the portfolio of Ministry of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Read more

TI study finds gaps between laws and their enforcement

BERLIN/PHILIPSBURG--There is a “general gap” between laws on the books and the practice and enforcement of those laws in St. Maarten’s key institutions, the global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International (TI) said in a report published Tuesday.

The gap is “a major obstacle for consolidating the democratic foundation of this new country and weakens its accountability mechanisms. It will limit the success of any future programme promoting good governance and countering corruption, if not addressed,” the organisation said.

Based on the findings of the St Read more

Multi-Annual Plan underlines importance of development

SABA--The Multi-Annual Programme (MAP) underlines the importance of Saba's further development, the Executive Council indicated during the Caribbean Netherlands (CN) Week held in The Hague in June.

Under the MAP umbrella, projects in the area of economic development, children's rights and the reduction of poverty are either in progress or are yet to be launched Read more

Multi-Annual Programme Caribbean Netherlands 2015- 2018

BES Islands - The Public Entity of Saba has indicated during the CN Week that, as for matters relating to content which specifically concern Saba, the Multi-Annual programme (MAP) underlines the importance of the island's further development.

Many projects in the area of economic development, children's rights and poverty reduction are either in progress or will be launched. Therefore the MAP is a basis for a joint effort, the Netherlands and Saba, to increase Saba's level of provision.

The Public Entity has also expressed the wish to evaluate the CN Week and to engage a more bilateral conversation with the Netherlands.

Finally, Saba is appreciative of the investment assignment which the MAP entails but it has underlined that a decision on structural financing of the maintenance costs has not yet been reached.

Introduction
This is an initial integrated Multi-Annual Programme of the Cabinet and Executive Councils Read more

Multi-Annual Programme Caribbean Netherlands 2015- 2018

BES Islands - The Public Entity of Saba has indicated during the CN Week that, as for matters relating to content which specifically concern Saba, the Multi-Annual programme (MAP) underlines the importance of the island's further development.

Many projects in the area of economic development, children's rights and poverty reduction are either in progress or will be launched. Therefore the MAP is a basis for a joint effort, the Netherlands and Saba, to increase Saba's level of provision.

The Public Entity has also expressed the wish to evaluate the CN Week and to engage a more bilateral conversation with the Netherlands.

Finally, Saba is appreciative of the investment assignment which the MAP entails but it has underlined that a decision on structural financing of the maintenance costs has not yet been reached.

Introduction
This is an initial integrated Multi-Annual Programme of the Cabinet and Executive Councils Read more

Water Front Project Will Not Serve Its Purpose

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten - Former Councilor and leader of the MAP Party, Louis Mussington is of the opinion that the ongoing development at the Water Front in Marigot will not serve its purpose.

Up to this point in time, acco Read more

Water Front Project Will Not Serve Its Purpose

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten - Former Councilor and leader of the MAP Party, Louis Mussington is of the opinion that the ongoing development at the Water Front in Marigot will not serve its purpose.

Up to this point in time, acco Read more