SIMPSON BAY—UPNext, the youth movement of the United People (UP) party hosted a successful “Green-A-Thon”, a walk-a-thin type event last Saturday morning to raise funds for the groups environmental campaign on which it will embark following the Parliamentary elections.

The event drew a large crowd who started their trek from the Kim Sha Beach at 5:00am and, accompanied by music, made their way down the Simpson Bay Stretch, over the Causeway, Union Road, Welfare Road and finally ending at Kim Sha Beach. Breakfast was on sale for everyone who took part.

As UPNext is affiliated with the UP, most attendees were decked in green. However, the UPNext kids were fully armed with green powder to douse anyone who wasn’t wearing green. “If they cane in any color, we made sure they left in green,” President of UPNext Kinisha Kalla said.

“Besides assisting our party at various events and contributing to various discussions, this was the second event hosted by UPNext, the first being our successful Summer Video Awareness Competition highlighting the importance of voting. We are very happy with the level of participation of both events and thank everyone for their support and contributions,” Kalla said.

The next event for UPNext will be a youth panel discussion to be held this Saturday, August 16 at the Philipsburg Cultural and Community Center. The event will give invited youth groups the opportunity to ask questions to all 23 candidates that are contesting the elections with the UP. It will start at 5:00pm.

“We are really excited about this event and for our youth/young adults to speak directly with our candidates. Our candidates are approachable people with big ideas and plans for St. Maarten. We thought it was very important for our youth to get this opportunity,” Kalla said. 

SPAIN-SINT MAARTEN – In an INTERPOL (International Police) supported operation in Spain targeting the trafficking of stolen vehicles, nearly 20 vehicles were recovered and some 15 individuals arrested. 

Led by the Spanish National Police, Operation Paso del Estrecho (which means ‘crossing the straits’), was conducted from 28 July to 1 August at the port of Algeciras in southern Spain, a known route used by organized criminal networks to smuggle cars stolen from throughout Europe into North Africa.

Sint Maarten has illegal car parts trafficking.

The Sint Maarten Police Department on Tuesday July 15th were informed via a tip that found four stolen vehicles on the premises of a home located on Paris Drive in the Bishop Hill area. These vehicles were two Suzuki SX4 cars, one Kia Sportage jeep and one Hyundai Getz.

During the investigation it was clear to see that the VIN-numbers on some of these vehicles were tampered with while the documents for the other vehicle did not correspond for that specific vehicle. At least one of these cars is known to have been reported stolen on the French Side of the island.

With the assistance of INTERPOL’s Stolen Motor Vehicles (SMV) unit, Spanish police monitored car ferries leaving the port en route to Morocco, with some 5,000 vehicles screened against INTERPOL’s SMV database.

INTERPOL coordinated the deployment of 28 experts from seven countries to support the operation. The experts are members of the INTERPOL Stolen Motor Vehicles (SMV) Task Force, comprising police and private investigators who support member countries with operations targeting the theft and trafficking of motor vehicles.

The INTERPOL SMV database contains more than 7 million records submitted by 128 member countries. In 2013, countries searched the database more than 125 million times, resulting in 117,000 positive hits.

Sint Maarten law enforcement could take the lead in researching the possibility of having vehicles registered into a database that links with the one of INTERPOLs SMV.  The country continues to experience vehicles being stolen on a regular basis.  From past police reports, the car thieves are more interested in the car parts – illegal car parts trafficking.

The trafficking of vehicle parts also takes place on the North side of the island (St. Martin) and therefore this creates a transnational border crime.  Coordinated joint action is seen as the key to combatting this form of crime and Sint Maarten law enforcement could with other Caribbean nations in establishing a database.  There is no need to re-invent the wheel because INTERPOL already has a database that has been submitted by 128 member countries.

“Operation Paso del Estrecho was very important because it allowed us not only to detect and recover stolen vehicles from Spain and other European countries, but also to obtain crucial information that will allow us to continue our investigations into the organized crime groups dedicated to illegal vehicle trafficking,” said Ángel Arroyo Morales, Head of the vehicle crime investigation unit of the Spanish National Police Central Squad of Organized Crime.

“There is no doubt that with strong cooperation between INTERPOL and police across Europe and beyond, we will continue to recover even more stolen vehicles before they can be used for criminal purposes,” he concluded.

In addition, 15 people were arrested during the operation, including one Ukrainian and two Spanish nationals arrested in connection with a major investigation of the Central Squad of Organized Crime of the Spanish National Police. They are suspected of being the masterminds behind a vast trafficking ring transporting stolen luxury cars between Spain and Ukraine, via Poland and Moldova.

The stolen vehicles seized came from various European countries including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, demonstrating the transnational character of this crime.

“The trafficking of stolen vehicles is a crime that knows no borders. The only way to effectively combat the organized criminal networks behind this crime is therefore through coordinated joint actions, as evidenced by this successful operation,” said INTERPOL’s Director of Specialized Crime and Analysis, Glyn Lewis.

Operation Paso del Estrecho is an annual initiative conducted by Spanish police in Algeciras – a major gateway between Europe and Africa which sees approximately 4.8 million people and 1.3 million vehicles pass through each year – to prevent stolen vehicles from leaving the country and to identify and disrupt the criminal groups responsible for the illicit trafficking.

Highlighting the links between organized crime and the trafficking of stolen motor vehicles – which are often used in the commission of other serious crimes – is a key part of INTERPOL’s global Turn Back Crime campaign.

The campaign aims to raise awareness of these hidden links, and of the very real effect these crimes can have on people’s daily lives.

PUERTO RICO-SINT MAARTEN – A New York bound JetBlue flight out of Puerto Rico on Saturday night, August 09 had to be evacuated at Luis Munoz Marin Airport after a fire broke out on the A-320 aircraft that had 186 passengers on board at the time.

The fire broke out before the aircraft took off.  The 186 passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft.  Fire and emergency services were alerted and extinguished the fire.

Three persons were reported to have suffered some minor injuries.

CARIBBEAN – A public health risk assessment carried out by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, says the Caribbean Region has a low risk for the Ebola virus disease which is currently wreaking havoc in West Africa.  CARPHA did say that the level of risk for the Caribbean could change as new information becomes available.  At this point in time the Caribbean does not have any cases of Ebola.

Caribbean health authorities have been requested to monitor the situation and to step up preparations in order to be able to deal with a possible infection should that ever be the case.

An outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa was first reported in March 2014. The outbreak continues and is the largest outbreak of EVD ever reported. As of 04 August 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports a cumulative number of 1,711 cases and 932 deaths, resulting in a case fatality rate of 54%

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is one of numerous viral hemorrhagic fevers. It is a severe, often fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (such as monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees). Ebola is caused by infection with a virus of the family Filoviridae, genus Ebolavirus. When infection occurs, symptoms usually begin abruptly. The first Ebolavirus species was discovered in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo near the Ebola River. Since then, outbreaks have appeared sporadically.