(Oranjestad)—This upcoming Monday, our island has the great honor of celebrating King Willem-Alexander’s birthday. This special day is a national holiday for Aruba.

Willem-Alexander is the first King of the Netherlands since the death of his great-great-grandfather William III in 1890. On April 20, 2013, Willem-Alexander’s inauguration took place at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Willem-Alexander ascended the throne immediately after the abdication of his mother, Queen Beatrix, on the same day.

Under the constitution, the king, along with the ministers, forms the government. The king represents the Kingdom of the Netherlands at home and abroad. In addition to his formal duties, King Willem-Alexander works in the interests of the Dutch people.

As head of state, it is the king’s duty to unify, represent, and encourage the people.

The ministers, not the monarch, are responsible for government actions, and the ministers are accountable to Parliament for what they do and say. The ministers, together forming the cabinet, are responsible for decision-making.

The king holds weekly meetings with the prime minister, regularly meets with ministers and state secretaries, signs all laws and royal decrees (KB), and ratifies international treaties as part of the government. At the State Opening of Parliament on the third Tuesday of September, he delivers his Throne Speech, in which the government announces its plans for the upcoming parliamentary year.

The constitution requires the monarch to appoint, dismiss, and swear in all ministers and state secretaries. In view of this constitutional role, and upon the request of Parliament, the king may be kept informed of all developments in the formation process.

The monarch is officially the president of the Council of State, a historic role that is purely symbolic in nature. The Council of State provides the government and Parliament with independent advice on legislation and governance and also serves as the highest administrative court in the country. In addition to the plenary meetings attended by the king, the Council of State consists of an Administrative Jurisdiction Division and an Advisory Division, whose meetings do not involve the king. Accordingly, the king is not involved in practice in the two main areas of activity of the Council. The vice-president is responsible for the day-to-day management of the Council of State and presides over its meetings.

Positions held by King Willem-Alexander since April 30, 2013:

Editor’s note: In celebration of the king’s birthday, there will be no issue of Aruba Today published Monday.

EAGLE BEACH – From the widest, most protected shoreline of Eagle Beach to global recognition, Ewald Biemans has shaped a legacy defined by purpose, care and action. On Friday, April 24, 2026, the Kingdom of the Netherlands honored Ewald Biemans, the founder and owner of Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, with the royal distinction of joining the Order of Orange-Nassau during the annual “Ribbon Rain,” a key highlight of the King’s Day ceremony celebrated across the Dutch Kingdom.

Conferred by His Majesty King Willem-Alexander, the honor of Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau recognizes individuals whose contributions create lasting impact across society. Over more than five decades, Biemans has shaped Aruba and the Caribbean tourism industry through executing a vision grounded in long-term responsibility, strengthening the island’s economy, community and environmental stewardship while helping define how sustainable hospitality is practiced worldwide.

Shaping Sustainable Travel Through Action

Biemans has always approached his work as a lifelong student, driven by curiosity and a commitment to raising standards. That mindset has earned recognition at the highest international levels, grounded in measurable impact. Bucuti & Tara became the Caribbean’s first and Certified CarbonNeutral® hotel in 2018, the result of a comprehensive sustainability program developed over decades, defying what many believed was possible to achieve.

In 2020, the United Nations recognized that work with its Global UN Climate Action Award, marking the first and only time a hotel has received this distinction. Upon presenting the award, the UN affirmed Bucuti & Tara’s sustainability program as “highly replicable and scalable,” encouraging hotels worldwide to emulate its approach. Long committed to sharing these solutions across the industry, Biemans has been guided by his belief that every business can take meaningful steps toward carbon neutrality, advancing a model for more sustainable global hospitality.

A Commitment to Think Global, Act Local

Biemans’ commitment to conservation spans decades, from supporting sea turtle protection on Bucuti’s beach, where vulnerable Leatherback sea turtles continue to return to their natal shores as some of the island’s earliest visitors, to safeguarding Aruba’s coastal ecosystems. More than 40 years ago, he also founded the island’s first hotel-led cleanup initiative, uniting the tourism sector around environmental stewardship. Today, the resort’s monthly beach cleanups bring together staff, community members and guests, removing an average of 1,500 pounds of debris annually while fostering shared responsibility and connection.

Together with Yesenia Arends, he also founded Stimami Sterilisami, the resort’s nonprofit and the program’s largest funder, supporting spay and neuter procedures for more than 47,000 dogs and cats and significantly improving animal welfare across the island.

In 2022, marking the resort’s 35th anniversary, Biemans, together with his dear friend Grete Marie Case and Bucuti & Tara, donated 30 acres to establish The Bucuti Tara – GMC Nature Preserve in Noord. Today, the 32-acre/13-hectare protected area stands as a lasting give-back to Aruba’s future generations, being reforested with already more than 1,200 indigenous trees planted and enhanced with nature trails through year-round efforts by guests, staff and the community. The preserve restores biodiversity while creating a vital carbon sink that contributes to Aruba’s climate resilience and reflects a model for conservation beyond the island. Bucuti & Tara guests, who are often visiting as couples at the adults-only resort, are now invited to Plant a Tree of Love in the nature preserve where they can return on future visits to see how their “love” continues to grow.

(AFP) – Russia and Ukraine on Friday swapped 193 captured soldiers each, the second exchange this month in one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv.

The two countries have exchanged thousands of POWs throughout the four-year war — with the swaps often the only result of otherwise stalled talks on ending the conflict.

“193 Ukrainian warriors are returning home as part of a prisoner exchange,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

“We remember each and every one and continue working every day to bring our people home from Russian captivity.”

AFP journalists at the scene of the swap in northern Ukraine saw dozens of exchanged Ukrainians pour off buses looking pale but relieved after long stints in Russian detention.

They wrapped themselves in blue and yellow flags, embraced each other, or cried on the phone to loved ones.

One of the servicemen, who identified himself to AFP only as Vadym, said that after three-and-a-half years in Russian detention he had one immediate wish.

“I want to see my son, who was born while I was in captivity,” he said.

Another released serviceman, Ruslan Osaulyak, said he hoped his parents were still alive after more than three years he was in captivity.

“What do I wish for? A peaceful sky over us, and to drive all of them out of here as soon as possible. Every man must defend his homeland, and his family,” he told AFP.

A representative of Kyiv’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War told AFP that most of the released military personnel had been held in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, and that many months of negotiations were needed to secure their release.

The official, Petro Yatsenko, said that two of the exchanged Ukrainian prisoners were celebrating their birthdays on Friday.

The youngest in the group of freed Ukrainians was 24 and the eldest was 60, he added.

The Russian defence ministry also confirmed the swap had taken place, adding that its troops were undergoing medical checks in Belarus, a Moscow-allied country bordering Ukraine.

“The United Arab Emirates and the United States provided humanitarian mediation efforts to facilitate the return of the Russian servicemen from captivity,” Russia said.

US-led talks aimed at ending the four-year conflict were already stalled before the war in the Middle East effectively put them on ice.

(AFP) – Iran’s foreign minister and envoys of US President Donald Trump were heading to Pakistan, their respective governments said Friday, in the first concrete sign of movement on renewed peace negotiations in nearly two weeks.

The announcement that Trump emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were leaving for Islamabad came after the US leader announced a truce in Lebanon had been prolonged following a meeting with Israeli and Lebanese envoys in Washington.

While Trump expressed confidence at the prospect of a lasting peace in Lebanon, sealing a deal to end the wider Middle East war is a thornier proposition, even as urgency mounts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital conduit for the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was expected to arrive in Islamabad on Friday night, an official source in Pakistan said.

A spokesman for his ministry said the trip would also include visits to Oman and Russia after the Pakistan stop, adding that Araghchi would meet “senior officials” and discuss “the latest status of efforts to end” the war.

But he made no mention of new talks with US representatives.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, said Witkoff and Kushner would head to Pakistan on Saturday “to engage in talks… with representatives from the Iranian delegation”.

“The Iranians reached out, as the president called on them to do, and asked for this in-person conversation,” she said, adding that the conversations would “hopefully move the ball forward towards a deal”.

– Iran impasse –

Leavitt said US Vice President JD Vance, who led a first round of talks in Islamabad that concluded without a deal, would not be joining the others for the time being, but was on “standby to fly to Pakistan if necessary”.

Since the last round of talks, efforts to bring the two sides back to the table have hit an impasse, with Iran refusing to participate as long as a US blockade on its ports remained in place.

Iran has imposed a de facto blockade of its own on the Strait of Hormuz, allowing only a trickle of ships to pass through the waterway, throwing global energy markets into turmoil.

Oil prices slid on Friday amid hopes that any fresh peace talks would see an end to Tehran’s disruption of trade through the strait.

European Council President Antonio Costa said Friday that the strait “must immediately reopen without restrictions and without tolling”.

“This is vital for the entire world,” he added.

Trump had previously indicated he was in no rush to end the war with Iran, saying he had “all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t”.

The USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier recently arrived in the Middle East, the US military said, bringing the number of the massive warships operating in the region to three.

– Lebanon strikes –

In Lebanon, despite Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire extension, state media reported two people killed in an Israeli strike near Touline on Friday.

And in Bint Jbeil, the Israeli military said its forces killed six Hezbollah fighters on Friday in a firefight and subsequent strike on a building.

Israel also confirmed a claim by Hezbollah that it had shot down an Israeli drone with a surface to air missile.

Mohammed Raad, the head of the Iran-backed group’s parliamentary bloc, urged the Lebanese government to withdraw from direct talks with Israel and warned that a lasting peace deal of the kind sought by Trump “will in no way enjoy Lebanese national consensus”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to destroy the Iran-backed movement, said: “We have started a process to reach a historic peace between Israel and Lebanon, and it’s clear to us that Hezbollah is trying to sabotage this.”

In south Lebanon’s Tyre, Mohamad Ali Hijazi was searching a mountain of rubble for mementos of family members killed in an Israeli airstrike minutes before the ceasefire took hold.

“I’m trying to find my mother’s hairbrush… and a bottle of perfume that she loves,” said Hijazi, 48 — some of the last things he sent her from France, where he has long lived with his wife and two daughters.

“My life has been destroyed. I haven’t slept for five days,” he told AFP, repeatedly fighting back tears.

In Washington, Trump spoke in glowing terms of peace prospects for Lebanon, voicing hope for a three-way meeting with the Lebanese and Israeli leaders. The two countries have been officially at war for decades and until last week had not met so directly since 1993.

(AFP) – The European Union and United States signed an agreement Friday to coordinate on the supply of critical minerals needed for key industries including defense, as China’s dominance becomes a growing concern.

The pact marks a rare embrace by President Donald Trump’s administration of the role of the EU, which it often berates as it instead champions right-wing populists within Europe.

Flexing its muscle at times of tension, Beijing has restricted exports of critical minerals needed for products including semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries and weapons systems.

“The overconcentration of these resources, the fact that they’re dominated by one or two places, is an unacceptable risk,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as he signed a memorandum of understanding with EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic.

Sefcovic told a separate press briefing that the agreement “formalizes our partnership across the entire value chain, from exploration and extraction to processing, refining, recycling and recovery.”

– Cost of dependency –

On concerns that China could retaliate against a potential critical minerals deal involving multiple parties, Sefcovic said: “For us, it’s really a matter of economic security. It’s a matter of overcoming dependencies.”

From recent experience, “we know how dependencies could be expensive, and we have a huge price tag for being dependent on the sources of our fossil fuels,” he added.

“We simply want to learn from that experience and have a much more diversified portfolio of suppliers,” Sefcovic said.

Rubio noted that the United States and the EU combined are “the largest customers and users” of critical minerals.

“We have to make sure that these supplies and these minerals are available for our futures and in ways that are not monopolized in one place or concentrated heavily in one place,” Rubio added.

An action plan said that the EU and United States would explore setting minimum prices on critical minerals — effectively preventing China or other outside powers from flooding the market with inexpensive exports.

They will also look at coordinating any subsidies and stockpiles of critical minerals, and could coordinate joint standards to ease trade across the Western world, and together invest in research.

The US Trade Representative’s office said this plan will be the main mechanism to “coordinate trade policies and measures on critical minerals supply chains with a view to concluding a binding plurilateral agreement on trade.”

The Trump administration has previously called for a preferential trade zone among allies on critical minerals.

Washington has also unveiled critical minerals action plans with Mexico and Japan, alongside a supply framework with Australia and others.