(Curaçao Chronicle)
Jonas---the Prophet who spent three days and nights in the belly of a giant fish--- set up shelter on a hill slope overlooking the city of Nineveh. Jonas waited for the obliteration of the wicked city by God’s wrath, as he had prophesized. The city of Nineveh repented, and God suspended His destruction. But three thousand years later, the ultimate condemnation still looms over the city.
For months, the international press camped out on the outskirts of Mosul. Mosul city centre is mostly west of the Tigris River, and replaced the ancient Assyrian capital Nineveh, on the eastern bank. Like Jonas, the world is waiting to be the eyewitness of total annihilation of a most wicked and barbaric group of thugs that the world has seen for a very long time.
The media reported: “After months of intense fighting, Iraqi special forces crossed into western Mosul last week, marking a decisive victory that spells the end of the terrorists’ grip on the city. ISIS thugs holding the Iraqi city of Mosul hostage have been warned they are days away from being wiped out by advancing coalition liberators. Bodies of ISIS fighters already litter the streets of west Mosul as Iraqi special forces battle to end the extremists' grip on Iraq.”
Social media bring an ample cash of pictures and videos full of death and destruction, and not to be watched by the faint hearted.
ISIS leaders proclaimed their destructive missions to be in the name of God, of Allah, to cleanse the new Caliphate of all sins and ready for the return and rule of the Mahdi, the Messiah. The new world order was not to be by democracy and nation states, as we know it today, but by one global caliphate, a theocracy in the name of Allah. All those who would not comply and surrender to the one and only Allah and his faith would be destroyed.
This divine message of constant conquest, of Jihad, is carried out relentlessly. To name a few, by Iran and its proxies of Houthis and Alawites on the Shi’a side, and by ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Muslim Brotherhood on the Sunni side.
To assume that Jihadist terrorism will be over after the fall of Mosul and Raqqa is naïve. Islam does not know separation of State and Church. To the contrary, the leader of the State is one and the same person as the leader of the Islamic faith. A decapitated Al-Baghdadi, the self-appointed Caliph of ISIS, may be welcomed with cheers in the West and a sigh of relief in the Muslim world, but do not forget that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."
Jacob Gelt Dekker
Dear Editor,
It is important to give the public a refresher as to why the process to amend Book 7A of the Civil Code.
The intention behind amending Book 7A of the Civil Code is to protect the employees or workers. To do so we have determined to establish rules to limit and/or eliminate the abuse of the short-term contract for functions that have a long-term or permanent nature or character.
In order to establish the needed measures against such (the abuse of the short-term contract), Book 7A of the labour law of the Civil Code of St. Maarten has to be amended.
It goes on to mention the different articles, for example, after article 1615fa a new article 1615fb will be submitted by seven members which states: a labour contract of a temporary nature will be done in written form.
It is prohibited to sign a temporary labour contract with an employee or worker when the labour is of a permanent nature.
The consistent use of labour contracts of a temporary nature without the employer having a good reason for doing so and whereby the employee is deprived from his or her legal and dismissal protection is in conflict with or against the law.
The labour contract that is in conflict with the law as mentioned in the aforementioned will be considered to be of a permanent nature.
Every condition in the labour agreement, be it written or oral that is in conflict with the aforementioned is legally annulled.
As to what was determined in the aforementioned articles, only by a collective labour agreement can deviation be made in the benefit of the employee.
The labour contract in accordance of that which was stipulated in article 1615fa that was extended for more than three consecutive times every time taking into consideration interims of more than 3 months will be considered permanent from the date this national ordinance goes into force.
Article II
By national resolution containing general measures further rules shall be established for the execution of this ordinance as well as the supervision of its compliance and enforcement of the stipulations of this ordinance by or on behalf of the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.
Article III
Violation of the stipulation in article I would be considered a crime and punished with imprisonment of at least 8 months or a fine of at least 10,000 guilders per violation.
Article IV
The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs sends after the establishment of this national ordinance a report of its functioning and application.
Article V
This national ordinance can be cited as national ordinance eliminating the abuse of the short-term labour contract and comes into force or effect six weeks after the first day it appears in the Landscourant of St. Maarten in which its notification takes place.”
I have freely translated the above mentioned in an attempt to give the English-speaking population an idea as to what is taking place.
I will continue to update the people of St. Maarten on its progress. Many other changes are also proposed that deal with pregnancy leave, medical coverage for sole proprietors, pension and so on.
George Pantophlet,
Member of Parliament
By Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON--When he was Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz was once asked about the CIA’s disavowal of involvement in a mysterious recent bombing in Lebanon. Replied Shultz: “If the CIA denies something, it’s denied.”
Has there ever been a more dry, more wry, more ironic verdict on the world of espionage? Within it, there is admission and denial, smoke and mirrors, impenetrable fog and deliberate obfuscation. Truth? Ask the next guy.
Which is why my default view of espionage is to never believe anyone because everyone is trained in deception. This is not a value judgment; it’s a job description.
We learn, for example, from Tuesday’s spectacular WikiLeaks dump that among the CIA’s various and nefarious cybertools is the capacity to simulate intrusion by a foreign power, the equivalent of planting phony fingerprints on a smoking gun.
Who are you going to believe now? I can assure you that some enterprising Trumpite will use this revelation to claim that the whole storyline pointing to Russian interference in the U.S. election was a fabrication. And who was behind that? There is no end to this hall of mirrors. My rule, therefore, is: Stay away.
Hard to do with Washington caught up in one of its periodic conspiracy frenzies. Actually, two. One, anti-Donald Trump, is that he and his campaign colluded with Russian intelligence. The other, anti-Barack Obama-CIA-“deep state,” is that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower to ensnare candidate Trump.
The odd thing is that, as of today, there is no evidence for either charge. That won’t, of course, stop the launch of multiple all-consuming investigations.
Collusion
James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, who has been deeply and publicly at odds with Trump, unequivocally states that he has seen zero evidence of any Trump campaign collusion with Russia. Nor has anyone else.
The contrary suspicion arises because it’s hard to explain why Michael Flynn falsely denied discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador and why Jeff Sessions falsely denied having any contacts at all. That suggests concealment. But there was nothing inherently inappropriate with either behavior. So why conceal?
Suspicion, nonetheless, is far short of assertion – and a fairly thin basis for a major investigation, let alone for a special prosecutor. To prosecute what exactly?
Wiretap
The other storyline is simply fantastical. Congressional Republicans have uniformly run away from Trump’s Obama-wiretap accusation. Clapper denies it. FBI Director James Comey denies it. Not a single member of Trump’s own administration is willing to say it’s true.
Loopier still is to demand that Congress find the truth when the president could just pick up the phone and instruct the FBI, CIA and DNI to declare on the record whether this ever occurred. And if there really was an October 2016 FISA court order to wiretap Trump, the president could unilaterally declassify the information yesterday.
The bugging story is less plausible than a zombie invasion. Nevertheless, one could spin a milder – and more plausible – scenario of executive abuse. It goes like this:
The intelligence agencies are allowed to listen in on foreigners. But if any Americans are swept up in the conversation, their part of it is supposed to be redacted or concealed to protect their identity. According to The New York Times, however, the Obama administration appears to have gone out of its way to make sure that information picked up about Trump associates’ contacts with Russians was as widely disseminated as possible.
Under Obama, did the agencies deliberately abuse the right to listen in on foreigners as a way to listen in, improperly, on Americans?
If they did, we will find out. But for now, all of this is mere conjuring. There is no evidence for either the collusion or the wiretap charge. We are headed down a rabbit hole. An enormous amount of heat and energy will be expended, ending – my guess – roughly where we started.
What a waste. There is a major national agenda waiting to be debated and enacted. And there is trouble beyond the cozy confines of the capital that needs to be confronted. Self-created crisis can leave us distracted, spent and unprepared when the real thing hits.
It’s unquiet out there. North Korea keeps testing missiles as practice for attacking U.S. bases in Japan. Meanwhile, we are scrambling to install an antimissile shield in South Korea as early as next month. Fuses are burning. When the detonations begin, we’d better not be in the rabbit hole.
Dear Editor,
When a government carefully and consciously decides to withhold information from the people, or selectively inform them of what and how much they should know, democracy suffers. It is also extremely dangerous to excite and incite the people with half stories that we want them to know.
A few weeks ago the Dutch dictatorship appointed a quartermaster unilaterally and outside the scope of the agreed procedures and the government in Philipsburg reacted I believe decisively and correctly. They went further and came to Parliament to let the legislature know what was happening and have them take a position on the issue. While we have always maintained that we signed away our souls for this illusion of Country within a Country there are, however, acts of brilliance and courage in defence of our people. But, strangely enough our “Prime Minister” met with Minister Plasterk in Aruba on the very same matter and two weeks later total silence.
Why should we believe the meeting was so great when we are not allowed to know what transpired or what was agreed? How is it that the Dutch didn’t call the press to say what they will do like in their previous press release the threat to give and instruction or impose higher supervision. There is total blackout of information from both governments and we are to accept that all is well until “those across the pond” start to get their way and start claiming agreement is agreement.
Then there are reports on arrests at our border control services and as it should be in a law-abiding democratic country we are informed of the progress and the possibility of more arrests. At the same time, we are getting whispers of alleged fraud and embezzlement taking place at SZV. We are advised that people were sent home. The question is how do we decide who and when to prosecute or not is place or origin colour of skin or simply dependent on the ministry in charge. We want to know.
A new story making the rounds is about a new tax ordinance now at the SER for advice proposed by our Minister of Finance. This ordinance seeks to enforce compliance with the tax laws by setting a 30 per cent penalty on delinquents and permitting the tax inspector to go back 15 years in assessing compliance. Not too long ago the same minister, in preaching the values of the Tuitt approach, thought five years were adequate. What changed? Simply put, they are now implementing ordinances to placate the Dutch, close more businesses and contribute to an increase in poverty.
To date, the governing programme is still being awaited on. We are still at loss for actions proposed by government to recoup the loss of cruise ship calls at our port. Very little is known about the situation at GEBE and the incessant outages and load shedding. It would be nice if someone in charge could let us know when we can expect this to end. We are much more interested in the continued and dependable service than who is on the BOD. The people’s right to know is a basic human right not a privilege. Withholding information is as good as lying. We can’t build a nation by keeping our people ignorant of the happenings in and of government. Transparency is not served by trickling and selective releases from the powers that be.
Elton Jones
By Andrés Oppenheimer
President Trump has just announced the creation of a new government office that will document and publicize crimes committed by undocumented immigrants who, according to most studies, commit far fewer crimes than native-born Americans. So here’s my question to my friends who still support this president: If that’s not anti-immigrant fear-mongering, what is it?
