Touching down on Malta

Jonathan travelled all the way from Washington state to Malta to participate in the EICAR conference starting this weekend. Maltese Technology Minister Austin Gatt will address the event on Monday. From Offpoint:

It was a very long and tiring flight. I think the end-to-end timing from the point i left the house till the time i actually lie down on my bed in the hotel is 23:17 hrs. More photos (about 120 and increasing as the week goes on here) are available on the flickr site, but some of them are not in the correct orientation. Will correct them when i get the time. Internet access here is kinda sad.. only available in the lobby, and it's not free. More on that later too.

Photos taken by Jonathan on trip to Malta via Seattle, Chicago, Frankfurt

EICAR Anti-virus Conference in Malta - Wired Temples

Simulating Parliament

Antonella Bonavia, a student from Naxxar, recalls her participation in the Mini European Assembly:

Mela, Nhar il-gimgha kellna l-ahhar session tal-Mini European Assembly gol-bini tal-Parlament...Xi gmiel hemm! I was amazed by the richness of the palace, it felt as if i was walking trough a fairytale! The echoes of the audience stopped mumbling as the session started; and as Guido and Anton Tabone made an endless speech about Malta's long way to reach EU membership, the participants were getting more excited.

Memories of last year came fresh into my mind. I felt butterflies in my stomach again. It is not everyone's opportunity to speak at the House of Representatives, and nervousness increased as the judging panel started naming the winners. All of the participants wanted to win the trip to Brussels and Strasbourg, meeting the most important EU people. As the session ended, a year of on-site and social activities was over as well. Although a lot of work was involved, I look forward for next year to come....

National Student Travel Foundation (Malta)

Low fares

The Malta Tourism Society comments about the the pending inauguration of flights to Malta by Ryanair - “Although there were a number of reservations about the short term effects these airlines will have on our industry, yet there was consensus over the long term results.” Nelson Alcantara reports for reports for TravelVideoTVnews:

As an independent NGO, whose primary role is to create an awareness about the benefits from tourism to local residents if it is managed sustainability, the Malta Tourism Society claimed it believes that “the low fares airlines could certainly improve Malta’s image by making the islands more accessible to a broader client base; by cutting the cost of air travel to Malta, this strategy will also allow a good opportunity for visitors to spend more of their budget in Malta ad Gozo.” On the other hand, this opportunity can only yield the most advantageous returns if we are more creative and innovative with our product development strategy, according to MTS. “Malta and Gozo have a lot to offer the tourist with regards to culture, traditions and history, but we must look for value-for-money products and services such as Upgraded Itineraries; a civic sense of pride and a good attitude to hospitality and service,” the tourism society added. “The society is already working with a number of local councils in this regard."

The Maltese Cross

Longbowman in Illinois writes about the history and meaning of the Maltese Cross:

As of late, a very old, and very honored symbol has been usurped once again by a group of people who have forgotten the history of its symbolism. I speak specifically of the Cross Formee, Cross Pattee, the Iron Cross, or in some circles, the Teutonic Cross. Many uninformed call this cross the Maltese Cross, and it is currently one of the hottest symbols of the fashion world, right next to the Nike "Swoosh" or the Izod Alligator! (bet you forgot that one!) The Orange County Choppers are using it as their symbol, hate groups sometimes use it as their symbol, and fashion designers use it whenever they can. (Why? Because it is neatest and strongest looking of all Cross symbols!) Being a lover of history, especially Western European history, and having a special affection for the Cross Formee, I am going to educate anyone who is interested, in the history of said symbol...

Continental Congress

In view of the first anniversary of expansion to Central, Eastern and Mediterranean Europe, Cameron Stewart in Valletta writes for The Australian about it's significance for the European project. He writes that "after just 12 months, the new-look EU is still a nervous work in progress. New and old members are exploring the limits of their power." From the Australian:

This ambivalence does not reflect a sense of forboding that one of Europe's grandest post-war gambles – the expansion of the EU from 15 to 25 member states – has failed. Rather, it reflects an uncertainty about what this new giant will mean, both for the debutants of eastern Europe and for powerhouses such as France and Germany. This ambivalence is also being driven by a growing sense of confusion about what it means to be European. Where do the racial and geographic boundaries of Europe lie with the EU rubbing up against the former Soviet states of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus and as far south as Malta and Cyprus, which are only a short sail from Tunisia and Lebanon respectively?..

The EU's expansion has not paralysed the decision-making process in the way some critics had predicted; it was already cumbersome to begin with and the new member states have so far made decision-making more difficult by degrees rather than by a quantum leap. In part this is because the 10 new EU members have been surprisingly low-key on issues that do not directly relate to them, preferring to leave the heavy negotiating to the old guard, especially the powerhouses of Britain, France and Germany. "These new states are quiet, they don't say much around the table," one British EU official says. "They tend to watch in silence rather than debate a point loudly.".. Although the new EU nations have so far refrained from taking an aggressive stand on most issues, they are expected to become more assertive as their confidence grows..

These new eastern members are also more pro-US than many states such as France and Germany, and are wary about plans for a more autonomous EU defence capability, fearing that this would dilute NATO's influence and therefore US military influence in Europe. Despite these differences, critics say the greatest victory of the first 12 months of the expanded EU is that there have been no great disasters given the size of the task of swallowing 10 new members.
"There will be no fanfare on May1," Cameron says. "But people do not appreciate the size of the transformation of eastern Europe. EU membership will fundamentally change those societies.
"Europe has never before been united under democracy like this. We've had Europe under Napoleon, Hitler and Attila the Hun, but we have never had it united under democracy like it is now."

Notes from Reykjavik

Maria Alva in Iceland gives advice to Maltese Anne who is planning to visit the island for her honeymoon. From Iceland Eyes:

Thanks for writing and thanks for the compliment about Iceland Eyes! I love the fact that my text and pictures are being read as far away as Malta...what a great thing! As far as clothing goes, the one thing you Must bring is a water-resistant coat or jacket, preferrably thin. Bring both an outdoors-y one for trips to the countryside and something more urban for walking around Reykjavik. You don't want to get caught in a summer shower in your new suede jacket, but you don't either want to look like you just came in from climbing a mountain when you go out for coffee or dinner!

The key here is layers...bring tank tops, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts and a few sweaters...what you don't see in my photos is how often the weather can change in one day! And be sure to bring something other than just hiking/outdoors boots...Reykjavik is very trendy and, once again, it's nice to not look like you are fresh off the mountain. It's just never that cold here...if you are prepared! Strong winds and rain can make things a little less comfortable, but this isn't the Arctic ...on the other hand, it sure ain't Malta either, eh? Let me know if you need more info...

Malta and Iceland - Wired Temples

Baseball hero in Malta

Leading US baseball player Ryan blogs about his return from his Malta visit. The Nationals are not the same without him. From Distinguished Senators:

Well, I'm not King of Malta. It didn't even come up, and I was too shy to mention it. I felt quite the fool for packing all my ermine and most of my scepters, let me tell you. Other than that, we had a great time, and I heartily recommend Malta to anyone who's willing to endure a trans-Atlantic flight and isn't offended at being assumed to be an Englishman. There was a downside to my trip, though..

What happens while I'm enjoying the charms of the Mediterranean and leaving my unaccustomed wedding ring in the bathroom more often than not? Disheartened by my absence, the Nationals win twice and lose five times, going from first place to fourth. Guillen and Castilla stop hitting, Guzman keeps sucking, and nobody pitches - but I don't need to tell you this; you were right here suffering through it while I was drinking cheap Maltese wine and saying "Gozo" in an hilarious Baltimore accent (try it!).

Perhaps you're not convinced, but surely it's not coincidence that while I was sitting in Newark trying to convince some really snippy immigration guys to let me back in the country even though I sold my passport to a cab driver in Rabat, the Nats pounded out 11 runs and humiliated our suck-ass rivals, the Mets. Am I reading too much into the events of a week? Blame exhaustion and jet lag...

Portland woman moving to Malta

Edward Walsh reports for the Oregonian that a new United States ambassador for Malta has just been nominated:

The long-rumored nomination of Portland public relations executive Molly H. Bordonaro to be U.S. ambassador to Malta was confirmed Wednesday with an announcement from the White House. Bordonaro, 36, is an executive with the Gallatin Group and served as President Bush's campaign chairwoman in Oregon, Washington and other Western states in 2000 and 2004. She was a Republican candidate for Congress in 1998, losing narrowly to Rep. David Wu, D-Ore.

Once confirmed by the Senate, Bordonaro said that she, her husband and their three young children will move to Malta, a nation in the Mediterranean Sea. Malta is about twice the size of Washington, D.C., and has a population of about 400,000. A crucial British stronghold during World War II, it gained full independence from Great Britain in 1964.

Michael Mifsud in Norway

'Former Kaiserslautern player and Maltese international star, Michael Mifsud, reveals his past, present and future in an exclusive interview with Goal.com’s Glenn Debattista.'. From Goal.com:

Together with Sprachcaffe Language School (www.sprachcaffe.com) and my friend from Germany James Richardson, who works for Sprachcaffe, we have set up a program for young boys and girls to improve on their game. At the moment we have more kids from Germany, Holland and Japan coming to us, because they can learn English and play soccer in the afternoons. We also have friendly games against local Nurseries such as Luxol and Birkirkara, but Maltese kids are more than welcome to join us. It is a lot of fun and maybe we can scout some future talent and bring him to one of the big clubs in Europe. Check out the web page www.soccercamp.de

International Policy(4): Maturing Europe

Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform and author of Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, says that Europe will survive a French Non. In his article for Foreign Policy he states that "the only thing that will be destroyed by France’s voting no will be its claims to a leadership role within Europe... that moral leadership within Europe will remain out of France’s grasp as long as it is anti-enlargement, anti-American, and anti-change. And the crisis will be in France, not Europe." Any opinions or comments about the French referendum on the EU constitution and it's wider implications? From the online edition of Foreign Policy:

It’s easy to argue that the European Union (EU) has been in a state of crisis since its inception more than 50 years ago. France voted “No” to European defense cooperation in 1954 and vetoed British EU membership in the 1960s. Denmark dealt a blow with its nej to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and to the single currency in 2000. The Irish rejected the Treaty of Nice in 2001, and the Swedish voted no to the euro in 2003. Yet, somehow, the European project has taken Samuel Beckett’s injunction to heart: If at first you don’t succeed, “Fail, fail again, fail better.” It has emerged stronger from every setback.

Should, as recent polls suggest, the French vote non to ratifying the European Constitution on May 29, there is no reason to imagine the EU won’t emerge from that experience stronger once again. Of course, opinion polls have a tendency to be wrong, and there are hopes in Europe that the pro-constitution lobby will now come out fighting. But even in the event of a Gallic no, the Euroskeptics should not take too much heart. Rather than spelling the end of the European project, this referendum points to an EU that is maturing politically...

What do French voters want from the European Constitution? This Policy Brief by the Federal Trust contrasts the differing public discussion of the European Constitution in France and the United Kingdom. It argues that any interpretation of the Constitution which might make it more acceptable to French opinion would risk making it less acceptable in the United Kingdom. How can you link this to the debate about the Constitution in the Czech republic?


International Policy(3): Vatican Foreign Policy

International Policy(2): United Nations Reform

International Policy(1): Web of Influence

Anti-virus conference in Malta

Eddy Willems in Brussels is professionally occupied with Anti-Virus consultancy and is the Director of Press and Information for the EICAR organisation (European Institute for Computer Anti Virus Research). He will soon be in Malta to attend the EICAR conference. From the Wavci blog:

During my preparation for the EICAR conference, this year in Malta and starting within 2 weeks, a new Bagle and Sober variant appeared. Nothing more to report as every variant will be handled by your favourite product with new definitions. Oh yes, if you want to read more about the EICAR conference this year, please have a look at the EICAR website at http://www.eicar.org The programme is very strong this year. The conference is really recommended. And if you are a director of EICAR, like me, you always know what to do! I will keep you updated in this Blog with some pictures during the conference.

Index of anti-virus sites

Offpoint - From Singapore to Seattle

Miracles on the Discovery Channel

Auny of Nashville stays in the US while Christian illusionist, Brock Gill, travels to Malta to film a series that will be broadcast on the Discovery Channel. From Life on the Road:

Today, I am packing us up to go out of town. It usually only takes me a few minutes because I've had so much practice. In fact, a portion of my things stay packed. However, this trip is a little tricky because Brock is leaving to go out of the country. Tomorrow and Friday, we perform in Florida. Saturday afternoon, our show is in Georgia. Then, Brock catches an evening flight to Malta. It's an island in the Mediterranean. I fly out Sunday morning to stay with my parents while Brock is overseas.

You may be wondering why Brock is going to Malta. Well, I'll tell you. He has the lead role in a mini-series called "The Miracles of Jesus" that will be aired on the Discovery Channel. The first shoot takes place in Malta. I am very excited! The objective of the show is to prove that Jesus actually performed miracles and not illusions. Can you believe that the most watched cable network is playing a documentary that is pro-Jesus?..

Islands of antiquity

Rita Cook writes about her Malta visit for the Vancouver Courier:

Tell three people you're visiting Malta and at least two of them will say, "Where or what is that?" The other one, familiar with the island's 7,000-year history, will be jealous. For history buffs, it doesn't get any better. For sun worshippers, there is always sun. For day-trippers, the island is close to Italy. Because of its strategic location, Malta has been occupied by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, French, British, Castillians, and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. From the stone temples dating back thousands of years, to the church where the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked, eventually spending time on the island, to the rich history of the Knights of St. John, Malta reflects a rich blend of cultures..

Gozo offers a different flavour and experience than her sister Maltese island. In part, this is due to the lush green hills and spectacular coastline. You don't want to miss the Azure Window in Dwejra, Fungus Rock and the world's oldest free-standing stone construction in Xaghra-the temples of Ggantija, built around 3500 B.C. For shopping visit the capital of Victoria. Greek legend insists that it was Gozo where the nymph Calypso lured Odysseus, keeping him there for seven years as her prisoner of love. You can see the cave where she was said to have lured him, and sun yourself below on the red sands of Ramla Bay.

No trip to Malta would be complete without a glimpse into the history of the Knights of St. John. Known to the world as the Knights of Malta, their story begins in the 11th century. Both romantic and dangerous, the knights fought the Turkish invaders, improved trade and commerce on the island and brought hope to the sick and the poor. Napoleon ended the rule of the Knights of Malta after 268 years, but nevertheless their rich history will lure the romantic at heart into the victories and defeats during their rule of this land.

Blogs will change your business

The cover story of this week's Business week is dedicated to blogs. It is an extensive special report about the potential impact of blogging on the business world. Their advice: "Catch up...or catch you later". From BusinessWeekOnline:

First, a few numbers. There are some 9 million blogs out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day. Some discuss poetry, others constitutional law. And, yes, many are plain silly. "Mommy tells me it may rain today. Oh Yucky Dee Doo," reads one April Posting. Let's assume that 99.9% are equally off point. So what? That leaves some 40 new ones every day that could be talking about your business, engaging your employees, or leaking those merger discussions you thought were hush-hush.

Give the paranoids their due. The overwhelming majority of the information the world spews out every day is digital -- photos from camera phones, PowerPoint presentations, government filings, billions and billions of e-mails, even digital phone messages. With a couple of clicks, every one of these items can be broadcast into the blogosphere by anyone with an Internet hookup -- or even a cell phone. If it's scandalous, a poisonous e-mail from a CEO, for example, or torture pictures from a prison camp, others link to it in a flash. And here's the killer: Blog posts linger on the Web forever...

Blogspotting

PR firms show growing interest in weblogs - from EURACTIV

Toni's blog birthday

Maltamedia today reports the birthday of Toni Sant's celebrated blog. Toni, an old schoolfriend of mine who has encouraged many others to blog including yours truly, started his adventure with blogger on the eve of Malta's accession to the European Union this time last year. In today's posting he looks back on an eventful year for his blog:

No. It's not my birthday today. It's my blog's birthday today. I'm not big on birthdays, but Pierre Mejlak made a big deal about this, so I decided to play along. Why be a party-pooper?Towards the end of April last year I felt a strong need to create an outlet for my ideas about Malta's new membership in the EU. A blog seemed like the perfect vehicle. I had been observing blogs, especially in American politics, for over a year before that. Howard Dean's meteoric rise (and fall) in the 2003/04 presidential primaries was often on my course syllabi for the classes I taught on New Information Technologies and Media Criticism at New York University and Adelphi University.

My dear friend Immanuel Mifsud had also urged me to give some attention to blogs at about the same time. So waiting to set up my own blog was just a matter of delaying the inevitable. The first thing I needed to decide was whether I'd go with Blogger or Moveable Type. For some reason I can't really remember I went with Blogger...


Toni Sant's blog one year on - Maltamedia

Wired Temples according to Toni Sant

Maltese spell check

This email by Ramon Casha of Malta Linux is doing the rounds. It is a response to comments made by Investments Minister Austin Gatt as quoted in this report by Di-ve

"IT and Investment Minister Austin Gatt wished success to Sirap and recounted when Microsoft was told to include Maltese in their list of languages. However unfortunately, he argued, so far there is neither a dictionary nor spell check for the Maltese language due to lack of agreement between Maltese intellectuals over the spelling of some words."

http://www.di-ve.com/dive/portal/portal.jhtml?id=180452

Kieku l-ministru Gatt staqsa 'll-impjegati tieghu stess kienu jghiidulu li fil-fatt spell-checker bil-Malti jezisti ghax huma juzawh il-hin kollu. Sfortunatament jidher li jekk ma jkollhomx "Microsoft" fuqhom l-affarijiet qishom ma jezistux.

Ramon Casha
chairman, Malta Linux User Group

Maltese spellchecker for Linux

Karla's Toe Story

Karla, who moved from Austin in Texas to Oslo in Norway, tells her travel stories on this blog. She fell over as she took this photo in front of the temples - from Tales of a Texpatriate:

That's my foot in front of an ancient temple in Malta. I took the picture because I thought the stones reminded me of my toes. A momentary photographic foot fetish on my part, I guess. I also found out it's really hard to take a picture of your own foot while you are standing. Try it yourself sometime....I ended up falling over just after the camera clicked.

I just like this picture. That's why I'm posting it. It makes me giggle. Mostly because I remember the other tourists thereabouts looking at me really strangely while I took it. Of course, over the course of my life, I have gotten fairly used to the strange looks I get when I do my goofy things, so that was no worse than usual. Though falling over did not help as I had meant to just take the photo and sneak off.

Ah, well. Here's a link with more info about the Maltese temples. (Recognize the stones in the picture?) Malta is one helluva fascinating place. I really want to go back.

Karla's big head photo blog

Malta 1981 in Canada debate

The debate in Canada over the Single Transferable Vote goes on as a referendum in British Columbia approaches. Dean from British Columbia links to this JKR post which discusses Malta's 1981 election experience. He also quotes Wolfgang Hirczy de Mino in his essay Malta: STV With Some Twists. From Dean rushes the vote:

The Nationalist Party obtained 50.9% of first-preferences, which translated into 31 seats (47.7%), the Malta Labor Party (MLP) meanwhile got 49.1% of first-preferences and 34 seats (52.3%). This crisis resulted in a change to Malta's constitution that "assures that the party with a majority of first-preference votes will receive as many additional seats as necessary to give it a majority in parliament". The Citizens' Assembly BC-STV system has no such assurance. It is possible with BC-STV that we will continue to have situations like the 1996 BC Election, where one party can get more seats with less votes. With BC-STV a party with less first-preferences can end up with more seats than a party with more first-preferences.BC-STV is not guaranteed to be proportional. With the added complexity of introducing computers to count our ballots *cough Diebold* or waiting days to count our ballots *cough "slow count has raised fears of tampering"


Polarised Politics - from Wired Temples

Single Transferable Vote - by Sue in Vancouver

The Fat Lady of Malta

It is nice to hear again from Boston writer Lori Hein. She has written a delightful post about her visit to the temples and the archeology museum during her Malta trip. From Ribbons of Highway -Thanks Lori for the kind mention!:

We pulled into the small dirt parking lot that sits near Malta’s Neolithic temples of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra and handed our money to a man who looked like Popeye. His face was grizzled by sun and sea spray, his teeth were several short of a full set, and his sailor cap sat high and to one side, calling attention to his large walnut forehead. He was delighted to see the kids, and he dug around in the pockets of his baggy pants and produced two fistfuls of hard candy, which Adam and Dana sucked on while listening to his tales of the mystical structures we were about to visit. Before we headed off to the temples, he promised to personally guard our car and pointed us to the free toilets. “Don’t use the toilets in the Hagar Qim Restaurant. You have to pay fifty cents each.”..

The island nation of Malta is peppered with spectacular megalithic temples erected by the ancients to venerate their goddess of fertility, and some of the complexes are, themselves, shaped like robust, pregnant women. “This room is the belly,” I said to the kids as we explored Ggantija, Gozo's "place of giants.” (They didn’t say “yuck.” My kids are cool.) The people who built these temples also carved statues and statuettes of healthy, round women, and seven of them, including the famous (and tiny – just a few centimeters high) “Venus of Malta,” were found at Hagar Qim, which means “standing stones” in Maltese (Malti).

The statues and figurines are poignantly beautiful and simple. Like the Maltese landscape, stark and unadorned. Unearthed from their temple homes, most of the statues of ancient Malta’s “fat lady culture” now rest in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, Malta’s capital and a World Heritage Site. The museum, which boasts a vivid central ceiling fresco, was built in 1571 as an auberge for the Knights of Malta. As you make your way through the building to view the exquisite fat ladies, you can walk atop sections of floor that have been peeled back and replaced with Plexiglas to afford views onto stone steps and vaulted chambers that run below street level...

Old Maltese songs

Fourteen year old Cam blogs about old Maltese traditional songs from the piracy years to wartime - with translated lyrics. From Death Candy:

Writing an article on such things is so not sufficient. This is because like any other country, we have hundreds of songs and folklore bards enough to fill an encyclopedia. We have a very rich history as compared to any other country and that has added on to our repertoire. It is the way of remembering old times in the traditional way, without having to read books. It is the old Maltese way. This is being kept alive by a recent boost in local interest in Melitensia. Several University students have done researches in numerous ancient Maltese traditions. Local folklore and Ghana (Maltese style of traditional singing) entertainment is being closely guarded and practiced. There are actually many different types of Ghana but that subject would be an entirely different article.

The band Etnika for example revived previously extinct Maltese instruments, songs and even music styles and put them out in the modern mainstream scene again. We haven't included any of the songs they play because you can easily go and hear the cd. Also I tried to stay away from the most common Maltese children's nursery rhymes because even there, the list is endless. Here we have some others, and as I said, the list is countless so here goes...

A fusion of Maltese ethnic instruments with the contemporary - Michael Stone write for Roots World

A New Yorker in Mdina

G8S from Manhattan, whose days in Malta were a dream come true, writes about his day exploring Malta's old capital Mdina and posts his photos. From 'Welcome to my upper-left-hand corner':

On the morning of 13 September, I boarded a bus from Valetta to Mdina, the ancient, pre-Knights era capital of Malta. My plan was to throw my backpack in a hostel outside the city gate, and hike out to Fomm ir-Rih, a beach so secluded, many natives had never heard of it. Upon arriving in Mdina, I was told that there were no rooms available, even though I'd made a reservation the day prior. The hike from Mdina to Fomm ir-Rih is approximately five hours in each direction. Facing the prospect of carrying a huge backpack ten hours in the hot sun, I gave up & decided to spend the day exploring Mdina, instead..

There's even an attraction called, 'The Mdina Experience,' replete with souvenirs and a website. But there are other bits of the city, mostly actual homes which can't help being on display, and refuse to divulge any information whatsoever. Mdina has been dubbed 'The Silent City,' and not without reason. Turn just once after entering the city gate, and the sense of quiet becomes deafening. Without cars, within walls, and standing high above the land, Mdina's sealed lips humbled me as I shuffled about the city. The golden stone from which most buildings are made relected the sunlight, bathing me in a warm glow wherever I went.

And as if the quiet weren't enough to recall Sundays in church, corner-shrines abounded, to watch my every footstep. But I'm making it sound unnerving, when in fact it was beautiful. Perhaps because I live in Midtown Manhattan, and am therefore coming from a noisy place, I found myself entranced by the illusion of solitude as I wandered around Mdina. In truth, it's a very small city, and there's not a lot to do; if I could see the whole of it in two hours, what do people do, who stay at the hotel? My guess is that they are people who seek contemplation. If there was ever a place to ponder life, it surely must be Mdina. With its high-walled narrow streets it was much like a labyrinth, and I probably could have lost myself in my thoughts.

Every street was so much the same, yet so different from the one before. All the closed, but brightly-painted doors & windows, all the golden bricks on every side. Streets led in circles, and sometimes to dead ends hinting of opulent interiors but not for outsiders like me. For me, there was only the offered beauty of the architecture and ambience, and of course Mdina's commanding view of the Rabat countryside. I took the shot of this view quite nonchalantly from a cafe situated on one of the city's walls. I sat there with a bottle of water, writing in my journal, wishing I could stay, wishing I wasn't one of the...

L-istordut kroniku

New blogger L-Istordut Kroniku hopes to find a publisher for his comic:

Dan il-fuljhett jinsab lest mix-xoghol kollu u lest. Qed jistenna biss li jsib xi stampatur/pubblikatur li jidhollu u jurih id-dawl tax-xemx. Din mhix haga facli li ssib peress li hawn Malta m’ghandniex il-kultura tal-qari tal-comics jew fumetti. Il-kelma comic jien stess jekk tinnotaw, qed nipprova nevitaha ghax lokalment ghandha konnotazzjonijiet ta’ hmerijiet u zinnijiet bla sens bhal ma wiehed isib fil-Beano u d-Dandy. Kif nafu fil-kulturi Ewropej il-Bande Dessinee kif isejhulu l-Francizi, il-fumetto Taljan u l-comic Ingliz, kollha ghandhom l-aspett adult u serju fihom. Hawn Malta, l-istorja hi differenti hafna. Kullinkwa fuljett jew ktieb li jsegwi rakkont bit-tpengijiet bhall-comic allura, hmerijiet...

Kultura fit-titotla - L-istordut kroniku

Across the great divide - Wired Temples

Star of Malta

This article by Fred Barnes appeared in The New Republic on Christmas Day 1989:

Star of Malta

The moment of crisis for President Bush at the Malta summit didn't come when he went eyeball-to-eyeball with Mikhail Gorbachev. It came when his minions faced a mob of reporters with nothing to say. The press was desperate information about the first Bush-Gorby session on December 2, and Bush aides couldn't help. Marlin Fitzwater, the White House Press Secretary, had plenty to say. But he was holed up on the Belknap, a U.S. Navy cruiser, along with Bush, Secretary of State James Baker, and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. High wind and rough seas kept him from going ashore to the press center to brief. Because Fitzwater couldn't make it, Gennady Gerasimov, the Soviet spokesman, agreed that he wouldn't brief reporters either.

That didn't stop other Soviet officials, including the glib, English-speaking Vitaly Churkin, from circulating at the press center with tidbits. Naturally these did nothing to enhance Bush's role at the talks. Since the second Bush-Gorby session and their joint dinner had been canceled because of the weather, the Soviets mocked Bush's idea of a summit at sea. The President's aides grew all the more alarmed when they watched Don Oberdorfer, the Washington Post's diplomatic correspondent, complain on CNN's "Evans & Novak" that Soviet officials were talking but those from the open, democratic country weren't. (CNN was piped into the press center.) Reporters were left with one story line: Bush-choreographed summit washed out. This was a public relations disaster for Bush.

It was nearly 10 p.m., or 4 p.m. EDT, before the Bush contingent began a blitzkrieg of leaks. By telephone, Fitzwater gave Deputy Press Secretary Roman Popadulk, who was at the press center, a rundown of the 21 initiatives that Bush had presented to Gorbachev. Then Popaduik stepped into a hallway to brief reporters. He spoke "on background," which meant no attribution to him by name. (White House officials said the no-briefing pact with Gerasimov only applied to on-the-record comments.) Fitzwater called individual reporters. From the Holiday Inn, ten miles away on Malta, Robert Blackwill of the National Security Council and Margaret Tutwiler, the State Department spokeswoman, got other reporters on the phone at the press center. The Bushies succeeded in changing the story. It became Bush's proposals contrasted with Gorbachev's lack of a single initiative. Bush hogged the coverage and won the p.r. game at the summit. This is significant. Gorbachev had come to earlier summits with surprise proposals that made him appear to be the dominant force. Bush, criticized for responding passively to the dismantling of communism in the Soviet bloc, couldn't afford to be upstaged.

From the moment the Malta meeting was announced in late October, he was cultivating a long list of initiatives to drop on Gorbachev. White House officials insist that Bush chose them solely for their substantive value. Maybe. Bush also went to extraordinary lengths to keep them secret, which gave the proposals greater tactical value at the summit. Four days before the Malta meeting, he summoned reporters to the Oval Office to downplay the agenda. "So the surprise will be, if you're looking for a surprise, there won't be a surprise. That may come as a surprise."

Bush knew better. By that time, four senior officials-Blackwill and Condaleezza Rice of the National Security Council and Dennis Ross and Robert Zoellick of the State Department-had long since created a full plate of proposals. Bush had initially told them he wanted concepts, not detailed initiatives. "I don't want an ALCM, SLCM Mediterranean meeting," he said. In other words, the summit shouldn't get bogged down in the minutiae (air-launched cruise missiles, sea-launched cruise missiles) of arms control. "He didn't want it to look like SovietAmerican summits of the past," an aide says. The four drafted roughly 35 initiatives, then pared the list. "These were all in the framework of a Republican Administration," says a senior official. "There wasn't one that called for disbanding the armies." Bush hashed over the proposals with Cabinet members, but not their subordinates. He wanted secrecy. This was not done with the bureaucracy," the official says. "

He discussed it only with these people. There were no strap-hangers or interagency paper. That's why it didn't leak." The economic concessions-agreeing to start talks on a trade treaty and to bestow Export-Import Bank credits on the Soviet Union-were broached with Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, and Trade Representative Carla Hills. Bush brought up the arms control initiatives with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. And so on. Not all of the 21 proposals were fresh. President Reagan had proposed in a 1987 speech that the Olympic Games be held in Berlin in 2004. Still, Gorbachev seemed (to Bush aides) riveted as he listened to the President's hour-long opening monologue. He took copious notes in a small orange book. When Bush finished, Gorbachev referred back to all but one of the proposals. He left out the Berlin Olympics. In Gorbachev's mind, Bush aides guessed, this presupposes a unified Berlin and a unified German. Gorbachev doesn't like the prospect of that, or even talking about it. Bush let the Olympics idea die. He was happy to settle for Gorbachev's overall assessment of the proposals as evidence that he's on Gorby's side in supporting perestrolka.

Bush sealed his p.r. triumph by coming across as the fellow in command at his point press conference with Gorbachev aboard the Gorky, a Soviet cruise ship. He was friendly enough, but did not act smitten with Gorbachev the way Reagan used to. In Brussels the day after the summit, Bush declined to call Gorbachev a friend. "I'll say this," he said. "We had a friendly conversation.... What happened was, I think he took my measure and I took his, and I think we just feel more comfortable about our common objectives." I suspected Bush was merely trying to avert a headline ("Bush Calls Russk'e His Buddy"). I asked senior aides if Bush, who considers practically every European leader a friend, really likes Gorbachev. The answer was no. The relationship is cordial and respectful, but formal. "I don't think it's fair to call them close personal friends," an official said. Bush paid a price for dominating the summit. He made concessions. Gorbachev made none. A White House official said Bush had to reciprocate for Gorby's big pre-summit concession of letting Eastern Europe move toward democracy. When news reached euphoric Air Force One (as Bush was flying to Brussels) that the East German Politburo had resigned, Soviet expert Condaleezza Rice joked that the new Communist slogan is, "We're out of here."

Sununu argues that while Bush gave up something in only two proposals, it wasn't much. Bush agreed to start trade talks before the Soviets have codified free emigration and thus qualified for most favored nation status. They'll still have do this, though, for a trade pact to be completed, Sununu says. The President promised Export-Import Bank credits, but those are for American goods sold in the Soviet Union. "That's a net plus for the American economy," he says. In truth, Bush made at least two other important concessions. By setting a june deadline for new limits on strategic nuclear weapons, Bush put pressure on his negotiators, not Gorbachev's. This allows the Soviets to stall in anticipation of further American concessions, which is what happened repeatedly in the INF talks. "You want to put pressure on the other guy," says Paul Nitze, Reagan's chief arms negotiator. Bush also said he's willing to ban production of chemical weapons altogether. The trouble is, stockpiles of chemical weapons deteriorate. Production is needed to make sure chemical weapons are effective and a real deterrent.

Bush's biggest mistake was telegraphing his acceptance of Gorbachev's alibi that the Sandinistas and Cubans have assured him that they aren't arming rebels in El Salvador. Three days before the summit, Baker declared that either the Soviets are lying, or the Cubans and Nicaraguans are. He said he believes the Soviets. At Malta, Bush held forth for 15 minutes in his opening statement to Gorbachev about Central America. But he didn't insist that Gorbachev crack down on his clients. His aides handed a paper to Soviet officials that spelled out how Gorbachev could save $15 billion a year by cutting off Cuba, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. If Gorbachev was impressed by this, he didn't let on.

Bush - Gorbachev summit in Malta from Wired Temples

Hikaruland Eurovision Preview

New York playright Hikaru Freeman writes a personal preview of the countries that are lucky(?) enough to make it directly into the final of the Eurovision Song contest. The Malta review:

Malta: Let me start a campaign for changing the expression "like a Greek tragedy" to "like a Maltese tragedy," because that's just what Malta has sent from 1992 until now (1996 being a slight exception: unintentionally funny instead of tragic). Yet they keep on coming back, like weeds. Somehow the deranged Maltese entry each year manages to attract enough voters to keep them from relegation. (From the articles, it seemed like Malta was on the brink of civil war when Lynn failed miserably in 2003.) So this year's tragedy is an old one with a new song. Namely, Chiara (the old tragedy from 1998) with her new song "Angel."

By the looks of the video, Chiara seems to have only made slight modifications in her outfit from back in Birmingham. Oh that says a lot about your confidence in this song, you're going to try to get people to vote for you just because you looked pretty back in 1998. Well lady, I didn't like your song then and I really don't like your song now. Anyway, despite being for a dire song, the video is pretty damn good. It's very reminiscent of the videos Ken Hirai has for his slow songs: lingering shots of people looking full of angst or deep in thought; landscapes; singer looking...well, angelic and all-knowing. Great video (although occasionally a bit too over-the-top with the symbolism), crap song that the Lloyd-Webber lot will just salivate over.

Read all the country previews from Hikaruland

Your daily Eurovision Centre and EurovisionMalta.com

The Malta entry on the official eurovision site

This German blogger predicts victory for Chiara

Baudrillard and Malta

Susanne Sperring of Finland, who has just visited Malta, compares the reality of Maltese roads with the information provided by the Malta Tourism website. From Paeonia:

I’m back home from the vacation in Malta, and I keep thinking about what Jean Baudrillard said about hyper reality and simulation. He claims that the images we see in the media seldom represent reality. They are rather phantom images of a reality that gets lost on the way through the media channels to the consumer. What we see is therefore a hyper reality. The reason why this comes to mind is that in my quest of useful information about Malta before I left, some websites encouraged me to explore the islands by bicycle:

"Put on walking boots, hire a mountain bike and head out from the village squares on the narrow farmers’ tracks" or "Highlight: hire a bicycle and explore the Maltese Islands."

Since I’m fond of biking, I thought to myself that “yeah, that’s a good idea, I’ll look into that once I get there.”. But once I got there, I realized that it probably isn’t such a good idea. Why? Because the traffic was chaotic! Few pedestrian crossings, very few bicycle roads, narrow roads and loads of cars passing you by in high speeds. Perhaps I’m over sensitive because I’ve been in two traffic accidents but there’s no way I’d get into the Maltese traffic on a bike. Therefore, the image I got of the conditions of the bicyclist on Malta on the tourist sites and what I finally saw when I got there did not match. I saw only one person biking during the whole week and the Maltese themselves seem fond of their cars, as there are more than 200 000 cars on the island, and about 350 000 habitants. But it's great fun to find out that things are completely different than what I thought. It’s healthy and educational.

Despite the trouble of crossing the roads, I really enjoyed Malta. There were lots of things to do for a film buff like me. There’s the Popeye village, built for the shooting of the movie Popeye, and the Mediterranean Film Studios with two large circular water tanks, where movies like The Count of Monte Cristo, Revelation and The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen were shot. It was pretty cool to visit the places you see in the movies. (This is a picture from the movie The Odyssey and this is my version.) There’s also the Eden Film Centre with 16 screens. One night, we went to see “Meet the Fockers” and there were only the two of us in the theatre :-) ..

Malta in Brussels

David Gelles is in Brussels and has just dined at a restaurant called Malta. Does anyone out there know where it is??:

After a splendid dinner at Malta, a quirky restaurant near downtown Brussels, where I had a pesto encrusted rack of lamb with sundried tomatoes and sweet vegetables, and others had truffle ravioli and citrus chicken, we made our way to the MP3 Disco Bar. A small club with a long bar terminating at a cramped dancefloor, the place was packed on a sunday night, and the throngs were pulsating to all the obvious European hits: Shania Twain, Will Smith, Nirvana, and Gewn Stefani..

Financial collateral

Malta amends law implementing the Financial Collateral Directive. William Woods writes for Bizoffshore.com:

The Financial Collateral Directive (FCD) contains an opt out whereby Member States may exclude, from the scope of the local legislation implementing the FCD, financial collateral arrangements wherein one of the persons is not an institution as laid down in Article 1(2)(a – d) of the FCD (examples of such institutions include banks, investment firms, UCITS etc.). When implementing the FCD on the 1st May, 2004, Malta had decided to exercise this opt out and accordingly the Maltese Financial Collateral Arrangements Regulations only applied when both the collateral taker and the collateral provider were both such institutions as defined in the Directive..

Reactions to the election of Benedict XVI

The election of the new Pope Benedict XVI has triggered several reactions from the Maltese blogosphere. The non-Catholic MaltaGirl is surprised that Joseph Ratzinger has become Pope Benedict XVI since she wasn't expecting an older, more conservative Pope. Fausto Majistral says he would have preferred a namesake of the apostle of Gentiles and Paul VI with whom Joseph Ratzinger shares the quality of being an intellectual heavyweight. Toni Sant, who declares himself a relativist, says he will become a most devout catholic if the new Pope changes his views on absolute truth. Sharon Spiteri writes that with the election of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, what small hope there was for a change in Catholic dogma, has been diminished. Jacques René Zammit quotes Jovanotti on the Vatican but says that a strong church is required to apply the brakes on innovation and development and to keep us aware of our responsibilities to each other and to future generations. Peklectrick is uneasy when people conveniently become profoundly religious after the death of a leader. Finally, Caska quotes reports that state that “according to an interpretation of Nostradamus's prophecies by a leading Colombian author, the pope elected to succeed John Paul II will be assassinated and his death will spark a Muslim invasion of the west that will split the Catholic Church”.

In my opinion, a major task for the Catholic Church is to build better bridges with other religions particularly Islam in view of the growing influence of the Muslim faith in Europe and elsewhere. At face falue, the new Pope does not seem to fit the bill but history shows us that significant developments are often prompted by the most unlikely protagonists. We will see.


Pope Benedict XVI blog with Ratzinger links

What Kind of Man is Pope Benedict XVI? - from Lifesite

German press split over new Pope

Internet2 under attack

Daniel Stout from the University of Iowa blogs at Manufactured Environments and has a Malta section on his blogroll. In this post he writes about the RIAA attack on Internet2:

Internet2 is a high-speed version of the Internet available at research institutions such as the university I work at. The RIAA claims this high-end network is rife with file-sharing going on by students. “We cannot let this high-speed network become a zone of lawlessness where the normal rules don’t apply,” said Cary Sherman, president of the recording association.

The WSJ is running an AP article (subscription req’d) with all the gory details. Update: Story freely available via CBS News. Apparently the RIAA will be launching lawsuits against 405 students at 18 colleges.

Manufactured Fotos of Malta and the Mediterranean by Daniel Stout - More photos here

Revolutionary Paradigm

Paradigm Shifter goes as far back as possible in history reaching the Maltese temples with a view to getting a grip on the future:

Sometimes when I am bored I try to imagine as much of human history as I possibly can going as far back as I can and play the movie in my mind in fast forward as far as I can into the future. Great Civilizations rise and fall like the ebb and flow of a spring tide yet all the while we are never really quite able to comprehend the forces at work. What was will be again and what is will be what was used to be. Who's on first?..

Some of the oldest ruins on earth are located on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean. The stunning thing about some of these stone temples is that they show signs of massive water damage; channels worn by water in solid rock monuments. The implication is that it took a lot of water a long time to cause such damage.

This loosely ties back into the flood stories. Many cultures have flood stories. They seem to date to about 7000 BC to 10,000 BC. That is about as early as we can seem to go in regards to our modern human history. This time frame may also fit well with Plato's story of Atlantis.

There has been rampant speculation about Atlantis. Some speculate they were a super intelligent race of human beings that ultimately destroyed themselves with their highly advanced technology. Others place Atlantis smack in the middle of the Mediterranean. The tale goes that a great earth quake ripped apart the strait of Gibraltar allowing the Atlantic Ocean to spill into the valley wiping out an entire civilization...

A trip to remember

Rotary exchange student Courtney Craig of Denmark writes about her Malta visit:

The first week of March my class ventured by bus, train and plane to the small island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea- a place of giants, underground cities, catacombs, and temples. It has been by far one of the best weeks of my "Danish life", and the fact I spent it with the best people on the earth made it all the more worth while. We spent all week travelling the small island.. From the not so nice weather to lovely sunny