|
Some moons ago, I did pass a comment, did I not, about weddings being held at Girgenti…. the reactions were diverse. Typical for Malta, the reds applauded and the blues scorned the mention. But before I scribbled my thoughts on holding weddings at State residences I searched in vain for similar weddings at the White House or at 10 Downing street and the other State residences in the western world. But I could find none.
Nevertheless, I concede that there are far more important things to write about.
This newspaper, you would have gathered by now, does not stand out in foreign news. We have a different perspective but we do not feel we can offer a reasonably good analysis of foreign news. That is unless we wish to imitate the actions of one of the English-language newspapers and set up a journalist in Brussels and proceed to copy news stories from the net.
Having said this, there are two foreign journalists who stand out and have caught my attention: Italian heavyweights Michele Santoro and Enzo Biagi.
Anyone who has not heard of these two should skip this page and move on to the classifieds and get some stimulation from the exaggerated property prices fuelled by greedy property negotiators. Both these journalists had been asked to move on by Berlusconi in his mad rush to execute his critics and remove them from the RAI, Italy’s State TV, or should I say government TV.
When Santoro spoke in Adriano Celantano’s unforgettable Thursday edition of Rockpolitik, he said he had committed many mistakes but what he had done, he had done because he believed it was in the public interest.
Enzo Biagi in another interview also on RAI went further. Still lucid for someone in his eighties, he had no misgivings about his journalistic work. And then he went on to describe the difference between State TV and Government TV.
Italian state TV had become Government TV, he pointed out, because it was not serving the State but the government of the day. Biagi made a clear distinction between State and government. To him the government was Berlusconi. The State however, was the audience and the people.
In Maltese we do not have a clear distinction between the word ‘Gvern’ and ‘Stat.’ We hardly make use of the word ‘Stat’ when we describe the authorities. To us PBS or Xandir ‘huwa tal-gvern’.
By sheer coincidence we are correct, Xandir is a government station, serving government’s interests and forgetting about its audience and the people. The Maltese language we use reveals our psyche. What should be State TV, turns out to be a screen for carefully chosen current affairs programmes and a mish-mash of stifled news and analysis.
Last week’s balbuljata prize is still reserved for Austin G. Only a week ago he presented his views on fuel prices. Further comment on his style and writing skills are unnecessary. His assault on Alfred Sant is his problem, but his comments on alternative energy remind me of the supposedly celibate Monsignors who sermonise on marital relationships but have never had to live with a woman.
Austin G’s views on alternative energy are in stark contrast to what his Prime Minister had to say at the Kunsill Generali of the PN where secretary-general Joe Saliba and assistant secretary-general Angelito Scibberras were oddly, or should I say unforgivably missing, because of some business out of the island.
You have the PM who talks passionately of alternative energy as a part solution to our energy crisis and then you get Austin G who ridicules it. Mockery comes easy, most especially with those people who have the wit but lack the tact. Indeed you could imagine that the two belong to two separate political formations. Austin G reminds me of Frans Josef Strauss, the loud and uncouth conservative leader from Catholic Bavaria who was always saying the most outlandish things at the wrong moment.
Yesterday morning Austin G described the MSCED as a talking shop, just like the good old days at the KSU, he said. So much so for the so-called social pact and social harmony. There is much talk that if Gonzi had to lose the next election, Austin G would move in as leader of the party. If that were to happen, the Nationalist Party should take its outdated logo and replace it with a bull in a china shop.
John Attard Montalto declared in his tracksuit that he would stand as leader of the party to a NET journalist. Thank God for the Labour party, he lost the contest.
The lawyer who occasionally flies from Brussels to Malta to defend a drug trafficker by the name of il-Bully, is among other things the head of the Labour party delegation in Brussels, and who landed MLP international secretary Joe Mifsud without a job. Mr Mifsud’s story appears on the front page.
JAM, or JAM007 as the number plate reads on his Merc, is not anathema to controversy as many of his ‘friends’ suggest. His ‘friends’ have given up on understanding the man. A vain and unpredictable character he has added a new dimension to the accident-prone Labour party: as the MLP continues to hope that it will beat the Nationalist party in the next election, it still cannot rid itself of embarrassing situations where many of its leading members have more faith in themselves than in their party leader.
The advantage in the Nationalist party is that they are far more united behind their kap and despite all the lame attempts by Il-Kullhadd to picture divisions in the PN, it is only a case of wishful thinking.
As we talk of birds dying from avian flu, a virus which bears a code which I cannot recall, the Maltese hunting community is running amok killing all that flies or moves.
I know that hunting is not a priority for George Pullicino, but the killing spree that is going on in the countryside is simply unacceptable. Only last Sunday at Tas-Salib, a young lad literally shot five shots at a Falcon from the patio of his house. The neighbours looked on and then, when it was unclear where the bird had landed, they joined forces in helping out with the precise coordinates of the downed protected bird.
There is all this talk about avian flu but the chief vet who only weeks ago announced in a press release that all migrating birds did not pose a risk because they were flying in the direction of South East Asia, has not realised the implications of hunters and hunting.
George P should at least appreciate that with over 10,000 registered hunters and 5,000 trappers mixing freely in a dense population of 400,000, most of which are trigger and trapper-happy, the possibility of spreading a virus if there is one is far greater than in a typical European scenario.
So instead of debating the effectiveness of simulated containment and waiting for instructions from Brussels, he would do well to consider some unilateral action – that is of imposing a moratorium on hunting and trapping.
A prominent tourist guide related to a very prominent politician involved directly in tourism is renowned for his humour. As in all things there is a limit to what is said and done. So when an inquisitive German tourist asked rather stupidly what the travel company’s acronym SMS stood for, the bubbly guide replied to the bewildered busload of tourists: Suck My Sausage!
Jennifer Latheef, 32, an Amnesty International Human Rights Defender and daughter of the Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP – the main opposition party in the Maldives) founder Mohamed Latheef, was sentenced to 10 years in jail on 18 October for ‘terrorism’ in a controversial case that has sparked outrage both amongst the opposition movement in the Maldives as well as amongst the international human rights community.
Ms Latheef has been an outspoken critic of President Gayoom’s 27-year rule as well as an uncompromising advocate on issues of human rights and civil liberties. She is a senior member of the MDP, a popular youth leader and also a writer and photo-journalist for the main pro-opposition newspaper in the Maldives. Dictator Gayoon will be one of the many dictators visiting Malta for the CHOGM meeting. Now please, someone tell me I am wrong on this one and that I should keep my big fat mouth shut for the sake of my country, my nation, the commonwealth and my government.
Did you say government or did you say the State?
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt
|
