THURSDAY, 11 FEBUARY,2010 | Margrietstraat #3,Oranjestad, Aruba | Tel: (297) 583-1400 | email: info@thearubatimes.com

Mrs. Audrey Croes-Lacle "Citi-zen of the Year 2009" by the Aruba Lions Club. The Aruba Lions Club just celebrated 62 years on Aruba. She is being nominated Citizen of the Year for 2010 for her outstanding contributions to the Aruba community.

She works tirelessly to help alleviate drug addiction on Aruba. She's also being rec-ognized for her contribu-tion to the "Adopt an Addict" program. Her title is well de-served as stated by the Aruba Lions Club.

AUDREY CROES LACLE IS AWARDED CITIZEN OF THE YEAR FOR 2009

Dear Loyal Subscribers,As we indicated in our first issue, it was a prototype. We will be offline for approximately a week to improve upon The Aruba News. You may receive a condensed version. In the mean time, please bare with us as it is only temporary.SincerelyThe Aruba News Team

Around 3 a.m. in the wee hours, the police station received a call informing about a very serious accident on Sasaki-weg, at the cross point with traffic lights, by La Cabana Resort. On arrival at place, the co stated that a traffic light pole was thrown over and it resulted in the Aruban Resort’s fence. As a consequence of this hard hit, the SUV of Bleu Color, with license plate number A-27067 with the driver stuck under the car. The victim was not giving any sign of being alive. On spot, Dr. Habibe declared him death around 3:40 a.m.

He is Mathiue Lucien Melenboer, born in Holland on De-cember 15th, 1978 and was living at San Barbola 288-A. In the vicinity of the cross point, police officers found a car bumper and a number plate (A-33644) and this gave the officers an indication that the accident is probably a case of hit and run. They listened to a witness who declared that he saw all what happened and that the other car involved left the accident area. The other car is a Sentra, beige of color. An investigation started and around 6 o’clock in the morning, the driver came to turn himself in at the Police Station in Noord. He is detained for further investigation. The Aruba Police Force is sending their condolences to the families of the deceased. Furthermore the Police informed that this accident happened due to high speed

driving and failure in using seatbelt caused the accident to be fatal.

3rd Fatal car accident for this year

Team Aruba whose home base is now in Union , SC, USA, has traveled to Bradenton, FL to commence test-ing their Pro Stock car. Their driver is a young man from Aruba, Trev-or Eman. He is also a student at University of Central Florida.

On the weekend of January 29th, 2010, Trevor Eman ran the 1/4 mile in 6.26 seconds with a top speed of 223.99 mph. He beat the 2007 record set by Brian Gahm whose speed was 223.95 mph. The top spot is held by

the famous Frank Gugliotta with a 2008 record of 6.251 seconds. This says a lot about "Team Aruba's" spirit since moving to the USA to compete against the "Big Boys".

TEAM ARUBA DEBUTS IN BRADENTON, FL

2 | The Aruba Times Thursday, 11 Februray, 2010

This Friday, parliament was to meet in regards to the report of the FATF. Parliament member will debate about the issue and for the general public Dr. Ruiz-Maduro will give a simple explanation what FATF means for Aruba’s political view. Financial Action task Force is a world organization that stipulates and recommends rules to fight money laundering and financing of terrorist activities.

In total, the FATF has made 40 recom-mendations to fight one laundering and 9 to fight financing of terrorism. FATF consist of 35 members of their respective countries. Aruba through the Dutch Kingdom is a member of the FATF is hereby committed to comply with these 40 and 9 recommendations.

Aruba’s evaluationWhen certain years pass by, the FATF sends in a delegation of experts to evaluate our country to verify if they are comply completely to the recom-mendations. End 2008, it was Aruba’s turn to be evaluated by experts coming from those countries that are members of the FATF. The teams consisted of two experts from Switzerland and Jersey, two legal experts from Mexico and Su-riname and two experts from the FATF Secretary that are from France and Aus-tralia. In a period of two weeks, they revised our legal system and rules and

they has conversations with all actors in Aruba who do jobs to fight and prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In July 2009, the Evaluation Report was presented in the plenary session of the FATF in Paris.

Aruba’s scoreAs per Xiomara Ruiza-Maduro, the evaluation of Aruba was not satisfac-tory. In the eyes of FATF, Aruba is not complying with some of the important recommendations. An example is that of Aruba’s way of punishing financing of terrorism. Despite having the same manner as Holland, still in the eyes of the organization is not sufficient.

The recommendation on financing of terrorism has a lot of effect on the other recommendations y that is the reason if we do not penalize well, we cannot comply with the other recommenda-tions. FATF is also of the opinion that organizations like the Central Bank and the MOT (Law Organization for money laundering among others) has to fine more those that fall under their control. They find that the fines should be much higher to have a more effec-tive and persuasive effect. Additional to this they find that those two instances have to work more closely when doing supervisions.

From the 16 most important recom-

mendations, Aruba is greatly comply with 3, partially with 7 and does not comply with 6. From these 6 recom-mendations, Aruba does not comply with 4. The latter is due that the financ-ing of terrorism is not penalized like FATF recommended. A remark made in the report lead to convince that Aruba has been evaluated very rigidly and the way the report was written was with a suggestive and negative tone. A Dutch professional working in Aruba says: “Aruba is treated in a strict way. The way the report is written, it gives the impression Aruba has nothing in place”.

At closing of yesterday’s edition, we got notice that the Parliament meeting has been postponed until two days before travelling to the meeting abroad.

Parliament Member, Dr. Xiomara Ruiz-Maduro, who represents the MEP party in the Parliament, explains

Reasons why Aruba did not pass the Financial Action Task Force’s evaluation

Minister of Economics Aruba, Michelle Winklaar and her counterpart in Holland, Minister Maria Van Der Hoeven, met in Holland to discuss future economics of the two countries. During the reunion, Michelle Winklaar and her Dutch colleague expressed compromises to help diversify our economy. One of the topics discussed was about the situ-ation of the Valero refinery and how to rectify its situation.

The Government of Holland was happy to be invited on the mission of economic development for other countries, including Europe and the Caribbean. Both countries see this as an opportunity for economic growth with each other. Minister Maria Van Der Hoeven showed great respect for her colleague from Aruba by displaying the flag of Aruba in her office, renewing good relations with the Kingdom of Holland.

Minister of Economics, Michelle Winklaar and her Dutch counterpart, Minister Maria Van Der Hoeven, met in Holland to discuss future economics of the two countries

Thursday, 11 Februray, 2010 |3The Aruba Times

From February 1 to 4, the Red Cross Aruba studied the so called “Vulnerabilitiy and Capacity Assessement ” with the final goal to determine its position in extending gen-eral help in Aruba. This study is important to define what is being expected from their partners and as to that effect putting a plan of action together to better carry out help.

Conversation were held among other with the disaster bureau, utilities companies, certain government departments, private sector and part of the social sector. The VCA study was executed by the senior council member of Red Cross, Mr. Eelko Brouwer, Bruno Haghebaert ,Manager-Counselour in Disasters and Risk Reducements for the Dutch Red Croes and Michel La Hayes, direc-tor Red Cross Aruba.

Red Cross Aruba went through a “Vulnerabilitiy and Capacity Assessement” study

My Father and I decided to head towards the middle of the Island to get some great pizza. I knew just the spot as I have never taken him there, but that's a story for another time. As you may know, its Carnival Time. Many of you have heard the stories or even been to Carnival many times so I won't go into that.

As we were driving down L.G.Smith Blvd, I was looking at all the colorful trailers. I just happened to pass a local artist who was decorating one for a local construction company. Now I've been here 4 years and have watched how much work all the people put into their trailers and stands. Jorge Rosel, "George"as he calls himself, is one of the best known artist on the Island. Born and raised in Santa Cruz , he has perfected the art of airbrushing to new levels.

Today he was doing a colorful mural to make this trailer one of the coolest on the street. He has done everything from the famous Banana Buses to custom cars and motorcycles. He will airbrush anything. For me, seeing the trailers start lining

up and being decorated is as much fun as Carnival itself.

So , next time you are on the Island and spot these colorful trailers behind houses, businesses and anywhere they can find space until the next Car-nival, take minute to look at them and appreciate the spirit and personalty each one of these trailers carry with them. Its all about a Good Time for a Happy Island .

Places & Faces