St. Martin News Network

PHILIPSBURG:--- A plenary public session of Parliament regarding the position of the chairman is scheduled for May 27.

The plenary public meeting will be held on Monday morning at 10:00am in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelmina Straat #1 in Philipsburg.

This meeting was requested by Members of Parliament (MPs) Hon. Petrus de Weever, Hon. Romaine Laville, Hon. Gracita Arrindell, Hon. Sylvia Meyers, Hon. Jules James, Hon. Janchie Leonard, Hon. Dr. Ruth Douglass, and Hon. Roy Marlin. The request for the plenary session was dated May 16, 2013.

Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend the parliamentary session.

The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.com, and also via www.sxmparliament.org.

POINT BLANCHE:--- The Port of St. Maarten will receive six calls from the newest Royal Caribbean Lines (RCL) vessel Quantum of the Seas for the 2014-2015 cruise tourism season. The Quantum of the Seas sets sail on its inaugural voyage November 23, 2014.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Mingo of the St. Maarten Harbour Group of Companies is looking forward to welcoming this new vessel adding that the new RCL vessel signifies the close partnership that exist between the port and RCL, and the confidence the cruise line has in the destination making St. Maarten a premier destination.

Quantum of the Seas will debut in fall 2014 followed by her sister ship Anthem of the Seas in Spring 2015. The Quantum series span 16 decks, encompass 167,800 gross registered tons, carry 4,180 guests at double occupancy and features 2,090 staterooms.

RCL is known for introducing signature features onboard their ships such as the rock-climbing wall, ice-skating rink, FlowRider surf simulator, Central Park and Aqua Theater. Quantum of the Seas will have 18 Caribbean sailings, ranging from seven to 12-nights.

The groundbreaking new ship will sail roundtrip from Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey to the most popular Caribbean destinations through April 2015. Vacationers can choose from seven and eight-night Bahamas, eight to 11-night Eastern Caribbean, and 11 to 12-night Southern Caribbean itineraries.

The Eastern Caribbean cruises include ports of call among Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten.

Guests on the Southern Caribbean cruises will call at Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Martinique, Barbados and St. Kitts.

Pond Island:--- TelEm Group technicians and engineers today reported that the company's 3G mobile voice and data network is now free of interference from neighboring Anguilla. The network is now fully operational under a different frequency.
"With immediate effect, customers in the affected areas of Cupe Coy, Cole Bay and Simpson Bay will notice a vast improvement in their 3G voice and data service with less dropped calls and less interruptions while accessing data on the internet," said TelEm Group Public Relations Officer, Joe Dominique.
Mr. Dominique said engineers and technicians carried out some emergency maintenance work on the 3G network Tuesday night which resulted in the complete elimination of the interference on the network.
"We were able to work with the Bureau of Telecommunications and Post, St. Maarten, and also with technicians in Anguilla to identify and eliminate the problem altogether with some fine-tuning on a new temporary frequency Tuesday night," continued Mr. Dominique.
He said previous instructions from the technical staff for customers to take their mobile devices and smartphones "OFF" AUTO, has now been reversed.
"We are now advising 3G customers to reset their devices and handsets to AUTO to best utilize their voice and data service," said Mr. Dominique.
He said the company sincerely apologizes for the interruption in service caused by the interference to the 3G network and assured that this was out of the company's control.
"As a result of this incident we will be bringing in some frequency experts from overseas within short to analyze the network. We want to determine how we can best protect against something similar happening in the future.
"It is also the intention of the technical and engineering staff to further optimize the 3G voice and data network in the coming days and weeks to improve the capacity and efficiency of the network to the benefit of our mobile voice and data users." added Mr. Dominique.

Telem Press Release

GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- Youth Health Care, a division of the Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a Department at the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour, planned community outreach vaccination sessions and lectures, has as its objective to reach all children with life-saving vaccines and health information for adults.

The first of three community outreach and "family planning" lecture sessions is set for St. Peters, next week Wednesday, May 29 at the Rupert I. Maynard Youth Community Center from 5:00pm to 7:30pm.

The theme for the vaccination campaign this year is "A Shared Responsibility."

Minister of Public Health Hon. Cornelius de Weever 'Get Checked' campaign is in line with the efforts of CPS and therefore Minister De Weever is appealing to guardians and parents to get their children checked on May 29 to see if they are up to date with their vaccinations.

The objectives of the campaign are to stimulate parents to have their child(ren) vaccinated; to bring about awareness as it relates to vaccinations and to encourage parents and the community at large to take responsibility by ensuring updated vaccination records for the children in their care.

In addition the campaign aims to provide the public with general vaccination information; to encourage others such as, health care workers, pregnant women and pre-and exam class students to update their vaccination status.

To encourage risk groups such as waste/garbage handlers, the Police, hotel and restaurant workers, and others to verify and update their vaccination status, particularly on Hepatitis B and Tetanus.

An estimated 22 million children in developing countries are still not protected from dangerous diseases with basic vaccines, according to the publication "Vaccine".

Immunization averts an estimated two-three million deaths every year, protecting children from diphtheria, measles, pertussis (better known as whooping cough), pneumonia, polio, rotavirus diarrhea, rubella, tetanus and others.