THE HAGUE--Former Attorney General of Aruba and former Chief Public Prosecutor for the BES islands Bote ter Steege used Saturday’s IPKO panel discussion to urge Kingdom partners to take a more serious and practical approach to human rights concerns in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom, warning that detention conditions and the lack of adequate TBS care cannot be left to small islands to solve alone.

THE HAGUE--St. Maarten has too many institutions for the size of the country and too little capacity to properly staff and operate them. That was one of the clearest observations made by Maria van der Sluijs-Plantz, Chairwoman of the Evaluation Committee for the Mutual Arrangement for Cooperation on Reforms, during IPKO, as she explained why Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten cannot be treated as one uniform “CAS” category.

THE HAGUE--Chairwoman of the Evaluation Committee for the Mutual Arrangement for Cooperation on Reforms, Maria van der Sluijs-Plantz, told IPKO on Saturday that reform cooperation between the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten has produced concrete results, but remains vulnerable because progress depends heavily on capacity, continuity, political commitment, public support and administrative direction.

GREAT BAY--Two new airline partnerships involving Winair, Contour Airlines, LIAT Air and Air Caraïbes are pointing to a broader shift in Caribbean aviation, as regional carriers work to make island-to-island travel less complicated, better connected and more useful for residents, visitors, businesses and the tourism sector.

THE HAGUE--Curaçao MP Quincy Girigorie of PAR delivered one of the sharper contributions at IPKO, challenging the Netherlands on what he described as a painful double standard: when the Netherlands faces migration pressures, the matter is treated as urgent, but when Curaçao was overwhelmed by the Venezuelan migration crisis and asked for help on human rights grounds, the answer was autonomy, “do it yourselves.”