Item about fire trucks (click here)

The kids news in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba has won the ‘KNN Award’ during the annual summit of the eight Kids News Network programmes. The award is a yearly professional prize for the best report of the network (see FreeVoice news item).

Sulin Passial, chief editor of the Caribbean Kids News has proudly received the price in the form of a South African art piece, on behalf of her team (picture above, taken by Ole Chavannes). The Caribbean Kids News broadcasts since September 2009 on six islands in English, Dutch and Papiamento.

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• ervaren en breed inzetbare advocaten
• in staat om te procederen, te adviseren en transacties te begeleiden
• uitmuntende beheersing van de Nederlandse en Engelse taal, zowel in woord als geschrift
• in staat om zelfstandig te werken
• nastreven van topkwaliteit
• netwerker

Geïnteresseerden kunnen contact opnemen met Veronika Szymanski via recruitment@spigthoffcuracao.com of met mij via karel.frielink@spigthoffcuracao.com.

Karel Frielink

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I wish you good health and heartfelt happiness. Let’s hope 2010 will be a better year, especially for the poor, the oppressed and the sick among us. May we all defend and honor human rights.

And now for something completely different. In a couple of months we will be celebrating the 5th anniversary of this weblog. Please feel free to make suggestions as to how we might celebrate this together.

Karel Frielink
Attorney (Lawyer) / Partner

(1 January 2010)

Click here for pictures of Spigthoff’s New Years Party 2010

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Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then like a hand in the dark
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.
(David Whyte)

Let’s talk about winds. Nobel winds. Nobel winds and breezes. Sometimes law even has something to say about the wind, for instance, when you consider building or buying a wind farm at a certain site. A windstorm may have legal consequences too. There are legal aspects involved when you want to connect the output of your wind turbine to a utility grid. Implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which deals with wind energy and air pollution, has legal implications too, in addition to the fact that it in itself is an international legal agreement.

Alexander Mohr is a charismatic, multi-cultural professor. He is an emeritus professor of Corporate Law at the University of Amsterdam and former Deputy Judge in the Enterprise Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He lives half the year in his house in Amsterdam and the other half in his house in Tanti, Argentina. He lectures and lectured in the Netherlands Antilles, Surinam, Indonesia, China and Russia: he went to those countries ‘on the wings of air’. Alexander is an adviser on company law legislation in Indonesia, Russia, Ukraine and Armenia as well as a member of the Governmental Commission on Book 2 of the Civil Code of the Netherlands Antilles. Finally, Alexander Mohr is a partner at Spigthoff Attorneys and Tax Advisers in Amsterdam and Curacao.

Alexander Mohr has a fascination for complex legal matters and also with wind. Wind as a natural phenomenon, which has, in his opinion, been overlooked in literature. He is interested not so much in the “kind of wind that sinks ships or brings down trees, or the wind that penetrates, or bites, or propels driving rain, hail or snow … but the common everyday natural phenomenon that is felt as a more or less cursory and seemingly arbitrary displacement of air.”

In his opinion, we read too little about the wind, the breeze described above. Alexander read and reread books written by 105 gifted winners of the Nobel prize for literature, many of whom were previously unknown to him. And thus created an anthology in which the wind is mentioned by all one hundred and five Nobel prize winners. As Alexander wrote in the preface: “Here are some nine dozen pearls of literature, strung together on a – well-nigh imperceptible – thread of wind: a wealth of drama, depravity, lyricism, imagination, romance, humor and other expressions of the spirit”.

Have we been waiting for this book? No. Is it a useful book? Not really… or maybe it is. Should one purchase a copy? Yes, without any doubt. It is the only book that describes exactly how this phenomenon is treated by the greatest contemporary writers of our times. We all experience the wind on a daily basis, but very few of us have ever tried to describe it. However, understanding the wind may help you to sail through life. It may add to the quality of your existence if you try to see and understand the invisible aspects of your journey.

The book: Nobel winds & breezes, edited by Alexander L. Mohr, published by A.L. Mohr Publishers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009, 638 pages; ISBN: 978-90-9024344-3.

Karel Frielink
Attorney (Lawyer) / Partner

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Spigthoff Curacao is een commercieel full-service kantoor met focus op ondernemingsrecht, financieel recht, belastingrecht en geschillenbeslechting. De advocaten en belastingadviseurs van Spigthoff adviseren en procederen op uiteenlopende rechtsgebieden en begeleiden transacties, zowel op de lokale markt als internationaal.

Spigthoff Curacao heef inmiddels een solide reputatie opgebouwd, zowel lokaal als in de omringende Caribische regio. Het team van Spigthoff Curacao bestaat uit 13 advocaten en belastingadviseurs. Samen maken zij het Spigthoff product: deskundig, gedreven en messcherp maar altijd laagdrempelig en klantgericht.

Spigthoff Curacao zoekt ervaren en breed inzetbare advocaten, die in staat zijn te procederen, te adviseren en transacties te begeleiden. Een uitmuntende beheersing van de Engelse taal is vereist. Kennis en ervaring op het terrein van het telecommunicatierecht strekt tot aanbeveling.

Voor sollicitaties of nadere informatie gelieve met mij contact op te nemen: Karel.Frielink@Spigthoff.com

Karel Frielink

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How to keep yourself informed about the newest innovations and the most fascinating ideas of our time? Through TED.com (free videos), the TED annual conferences, the annual TED Prize, local TEDx events and TED Twitter.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. TED is an academic organization owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation.

Topics:

Transition to a world without oil / Science inspired design / The year I was homeless / The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology / Navigating our global future / A new way to explain explanation / Tribal leadership / East vs West – the myths that mystify / The evolution of compassion / How bacteria “talk” / The Paradox of Choice / The next Web (and many more).

People you can watch on TED.com:

Bill Gates / Rob Hopkins / Fields Wicker-Miurin / Pranav Mistry / Tim Berners-Lee / Hans Rosling / David Deutsch / Ian Goldin / James D. Watson / Rachel Armstrong / Sergey Brin / Devdutt Pattanaik / David Logan / Rebecca Saxe / Richard Branson / Bill Clinton and many others.

Karel Frielink

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Computer hackers have broken into a server at a well-respected climate change research center of a University in Britain and posted hundreds of private e-mails and documents online — fueling debate over whether some scientists have overstated the case for man-made climate change (click here).

According to the New York Times:

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Who is to believe? Is it all about an inconventient truth or a convenient lie? A thorough investigation into the affair is required and for that purpose an international independent investigation Commission should be established. If it turns out that researchers / scientists lied and manipulated data, they should be held responsible for their actions and the consequences thereof.

Karel Frielink

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On Thursday December 3, 2009, the Laura and Wagner Foundation are holding a fundraising evening at the Netherlands Antilles Central Bank.

Special guests will appear via TeleConference to discuss how to make technology more abled for the disabled. Click here to read the flyer.

The Laura and Wagner Foundation is a Curacao-based non-profit NGO (non-govermental organization) whose mission is to serve as an advocate for disabled people of all ages in Curacao and the Netherlands Antilles by:

• Lobbying for legislation that will protect the human rights and integrity of people who are blind and visually impaired; deaf and hearing impaired; and those who are mobility impaired, or who have epilepsy who rely on guide/assistance/seizure dogs, to ensure equal access with their service animals to all places non-disabled people go
• Producing educational, recreational and vocational conferences, media and online programs and resources that provide disabled individuals with enhanced opportunities for self-improvement and independence
• Coordinating the development of supportive community and workplace resources to promote the integration of disabled people into productive employment and training opportunities
• Advocating integrative support systems within public and private communications and transportation sectors to improve communications and mobility options for disabled individuals

Corporate and Individual donations of manpower, materials or funds are always welcome. Please contact Donations@LauraAndWagner.org for more information.

Karel Frielink

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The Curacao-based Foundation Youth Into Media (Stichting Youth Into Media) is responsible for the sustainable development of a youth news program – Caribbean Kids News – on television and the internet for the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. The first show of ‘Caribbean Kids News’ was on September 14, 2009 on TeleCuracao.

Caribbean Kids News is a unique program for Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles (Curacao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba), thus for six very special but quite different islands. For the first time a news program informs young people between 10 and 14 years in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba and gives them a voice in the Caribbean region. Click here for the Caribbean Kids News’s Channel on YouTube.

Free Voice, the developer of the kids news format, is a media organization in the Netherlands that strives for independent and multiform media as well as balanced and reliable journalistic press freedom in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Kids News Network is their special project:

‘News programs for children is since 2004 a theme program of Free Voice. Kids News Network (KNN) initiates and coordinates a worldwide network of kids news with a range of about 20 million viewers. To give more children a voice and to improve the quality of media, KNN starts new kids news in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.’

Caribbean Kids News has its own website: click here.

Karel Frielink

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In May 2009, United International Press (UIP) issued a special bulletin on Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles, in an insert in the New York Post. UIP has also placed the bulletin on its website. Curacao is described as a Caribbean Hub with Investment Appeal. Amongst various government institutions and businesses, Spigthoff Attorneys & Tax Advisers is also mentioned (click here).

According to its website,

“United International Press is a media agency specialized in the production of comprehensive economic country surveys inserted in the New York Post. Information you won’t get anywhere else – exclusive interviews, photos and real insight on business opportunities. The country surveys profile the investment climate of countries that are of interest to the readers of the New York Post. Published as an insert in the renowned newspaper New York Post.“

Karel Frielink

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