Lament for the Maltese Falcon

Writing in today's Independent (UK), Anne Penketh in Valletta says that Maltese hunters are defiant and proving elusive for the European Union. She writes that, every year, 'around two million wild birds are massacred on Malta as they migrate from Europe to their winter quarters in Africa':

At the entrance to the Buskett bird sanctuary in Malta, a notice warns visitors that "no hunting or trapping is allowed within the nature reserve" and gives them a telephone number to report violations. Less than 200 yards away lies a red spent cartridge, proof that Maltese hunters are prepared to risk being reported to the police by shooting their prey in one of the island's few protected zones. Hunting birds has been part of Maltese life for hundreds, if not thousands of years. "Go to the port, how many seagulls do you see? None - that's because they shot them all," says a shopkeeper in the capital, Valletta.

He is not joking. Every year, according to the bird protection society BirdLife Malta, up to two million birds are massacred on Malta, which lies in the very centre of the migratory route between Europe and Africa. Other estimates put the death toll much higher. There are 12,500 registered hunters and 4,300 trappers on an island with a population of 400,000 crammed onto its rocky outcrops. They trap finches for breeding and sale, and shoot anything that flies, from birds of prey to quail and skylarks. Some, like thrushes and turtle doves, end up on the dinner table, others are kept caged on rooftops, but most are stuffed as trophies and displayed in cabinets by the hunters for bragging rights. In Malta, they shoot swallows for target practice.

But now the European Union has the hunters in its sights. Since Malta joined the EU last year, it is supposed to have implemented the EU's Birds Directive, which protects birds and their habitats throughout Europe, and regulates bird hunting. It notably bans trapping, and forbids the hunting of birds on their way to breed and during the breeding season...

Full article

Dutch travel Journals

Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, spoke about Dutch-Malta historical relations during the launching of “Malta, from The Hague in the 18th Century – Two Dutch Travel Journals” at the Malta embassy in the Netherlands. The book is edited by Adrian Strickland:

Il-Prim Ministru Olandiż qal li kien qed jieħu gost ikun imdawwar b’nies Maltin f’pajjiżu stess. Hu stqarr li kien iħobb ħafna lil Malta u jħobb iżur pajjiżna kemm fuq xogħol u anke għall-vaganzi mal-mara u t-tifla tiegħu li tħobb ħafna Popeye Village. Aktar kmieni din is-sena hu kien f’Malta biex fetaħ l-Ambaxxata Olandiża. Il-Prim Ministru Balkenende qal li kienu japprezzaw ħafna l-klima sabieħa ta’ Malta kif ukoll l-istorja u l-kultura tagħha. It-Tempji Preistoriċi u l-bini massiv huma impressjonanti ħafna u l-istess jista’ jingħad għall-knejjes sbieħ, il-monasteri u l-fortifikazzjonijiet.

Il-Kavallieri ta’ Malta kellhom ħila kbira fil-bini tal-fortifikazzjonijiet u l-kastelli, imma bnew ukoll ġawhra bħalma hu t-Teatru Manoel u l-Sacra Infermeria, fejn il-morda kienu kkurati sew. Johan Meerman, vjaġġatur Olandiż kien għamel ħin twil fil-Kattidral tul il-Ġimgħa Mqaddsa u kien affaxxinat biċ-ċerimonji reliġjużi, għalkemm bħala Protestant ma approvax dak kollu li ra. Iżda dak iż-żmien, it-tolleranza reliġjuża fl-Ewropa ma kinitx kif inhi l-lum...Il-Prim Ministru Olandiż irrefera għal dak li kiteb Meerman li qal li għoġbitu l-belt Valletta għax fiha wieħed “isib l-Ewropa kollha fuq skala żgħira”. Mhux biss minħabba n-negozju imma anke għax il-Kavallieri kienu ġejjin minn tant pajjiżi differenti.

L-istorja ta’ Malta hi marbuta mill-qrib ma’ dik ta’ l-Ewropa u kif qal l-istoriku Norman Davies, iċ-ċiviltajiet differenti li rat Malta huma bħal “gwida fil-qosor ta’ l-Istorja Ewropea”. Il-vjaġġaturi Olandizi tas-seklu tmintax ukoll kienu affaxxinati b’Malta. Willem Hendrik van Nieuwerkerke, żamm djarju taz-zjara li kien għamel f’Malta u Għawdex fl-1778 u l-istess għamel Johan Meerman fl-1792. Dawn it-tnejn ipinġu tajjeb Malta ta’ dak iż-żmien u jiddeskrivu l-poplu tagħha bħala poplu ħawtiel u ta’ suċċess.

F’dawk iż-żminijiet, il-Kavallieri kienu għadhom importanti ħafna fil-ħajja ta’ kuljum fuq il-gżira. Żgur li kien impressjonanti ħafna tara l-Gran Mastru fuq it-tron tal-Kattidral imdawwar bil-Kavallieri jew taraħ fiċ-ċerimonja tal-ħasil tar-riġlejn tal-foqra. Il-Prim Ministru Olandiz irrefera wkoll għal dak li kiteb Meerman li l-poplu Malti kien kuntent bil-Kavallieri. Il-Maltin kienu jħossuhom liberi u żguri. In-negozju kien ġieb il-ġid u t-toroq kienu ndaf għax il-pulizija ma kienux iħallu lil min iħammeġ..

Hu temm jgħid li din il-pubblikazzjoni ġdida hi kontribut importanti fl-istudju ta’ l-istorja ta’ Malta. Il-ktieb taż-żewġ vjaġġaturi Olandiżi jagħti ħajja lil Malta tas-Seklu 18 minn perspettiva Protestanta. Il-‘watercolours’ li hemm fil-ktieb huma verament sbieħ u din il-pubblikazzjoni għandha tappella għal ħafna nies li huma interessati f’Malta u l-istorja tagħha...

Thinking big

Malta may be one of Europe's smallest nations but coach Ray Farrugia insists with Domenic Aquilia a small-time attitude is holding local players back. From UEFA.com

One of Malta's most respected footballers, Floriana FC product 'Zazu' spent much of his career in Australia before returning to Malta to join Naxxar Lions FC. When he finally hung up his boots at the age of 42 years and three months, he was the oldest player to have appeared in the Maltese Premier League...Now 50 and running his Zazu football academy while working as technical director at Marsaxlokk FC, Farrugia is convinced Malta is capable of producing top players - but fears players' attitudes are hindering them from enjoying professional careers away from the island. "It is very simple," he told uefa.com. "Youngsters who want to play at the top level must make sacrifices. If this mentality keeps on in our players, then I am sorry to say they will never achieve their ambitions. They have to accept that you have to give up certain things in life to succeed."..

"The thinking in Malta has always been the same: that, coming from a tiny country, we Maltese have to know our limits," he said. "That is not true! We have as much talent as other countries. The only difference comes with the club set-ups - we are amateurs while other countries are full-time professionals. "If our clubs do not take full professional status then we will lose a lot of youngsters between the ages of 15 and 18," he went on. "We do not have the necessary facilities to train youngsters - without good facilities and a well-planned structure we cannot produce enough good players."... One thing in particular has given 'Zazu' reason to believe. A 15-year-old who has trained at Farrugia's academy, Miguel Ciantar, recently had a trial with Italian giants AS Roma. "I am seeing a lot of progress among my youngsters and this makes me even more determined to carry on," he said. Should Ciantar manage to make the grade outside Malta, it could be the big breakthrough that changes Maltese football forever.

The day after

Thank God we are past CHOGM without a scratch. Enough of the pomposity and imposing security measures. Maybe it was a rehearsal for the organisation of the EU summit if Malta gets the EU presidency someday in the future.

At the end of their meetings the Commonwealth leaders issued the so-called Malta Declaration. It looks good on paper and maybe not so good for the Maltese coffers. The leaders said in their declaration:

“We also endorse the establishment of a Special Fund to enable implementation of the specific activities and to achieve the performance targets envisaged in the Action Programme, and call for contributions to the Fund so that it can become operational without delay. In this context, we note with appreciation the substantial contributions [my bold] to the Fund announced by India and Malta.”

The Maltese government did not say what shape this “substantial contribution” will take. Malta’s financial situation does not lend itself very much for financial contributions but we can share a lot of experience in ICT with developing Commonwealth countries. We are tackling the Digital Divide successfully and perhaps we can share this experience to good effect elsewhere.

This is my last entry in Wired Temples in the time window afforded by Robert. I concluded my experience with an ICT-related entry because that’s what my real professional interest is.

I thank Toni Sant for getting me hooked on blogging and Robert for giving me the space to take my first steps. I will now continue blogging in my personal space.

CHOGM ‘exposed’

Although related to CHOGM, this is worth writing about.

CHOGM is synonymous with pomp, circumstance and bla bla. But there’s another important connection: exposure of the human body. CHOGM is not just a good time to expose other countries’ misbehaviour, as in the case of Uganda this year or Pakistan in the past. You may also get a woman ending up showing her breast in true Janet Jackson style.

The unfortunate girl, reports the Daily Mail, is Fiona McKeown, who experienced what is called a “wardrobe malfunction” in front of around 50 head of states and of governments, a hall packed with VIPs, and Her Majesty QE2 during the opening ceremony of CHOGM at the Mediterranean Conference Centre on Friday. This not to mention the thousands watching the event live on TV.

There was another ‘naked woman incident’. It did not happen in Malta but the Prime Minister of Malaysia Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was questioned about it while he was attending CHOGM in Malta. The Star report s video clip taken by a mobile phone showing Chinese women allegedly being mistreated in police custody was shown in Parliament and made rounds on Malaysian mobile networks. The Sydney Morning Herald published a snapshot from the video.

The Malaysian prime minister in Malta promised a full inquiry.

Simply the Best

“I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars - the rest I just squandered”

George Best was simply the best explosive mixture you can get. One half wonder and one half boy, a true wonder boy for British football who scored fantastic goals on the pitch but made one crucial own-goal away from it that cost him his life a few hours ago.

George Best was already in the nadir of his footballing career when I was born. I can only appreciate what he did from footage shown now and then. Tributes from all over the world are proof enough he was one of the greatest of all time. If Pele says he was the finest then it is true.

Best loved Malta. He once played against Hibernians in the European Cup, and ended up winning it with Manchester United in 1968. Many years later, in 2002, he had just returned to England from a holiday in Malta when he had a liver transplant. He never fully recovered. The following year, his wife Alex left abruptly from yet another holiday in Malta amid rumours George was having an affair.

What a pity he ushered in the era of the football star, an era where many football players seek the zeros in their pay-cheques before the number of goals they are going to score. It’s an era when the Glazers turn a football team into a money-making machine first and then a goal-scoring machine second. It’s an era where the Japanese look up to the European Beckhams and Del Pieros or South American Ronaldinhos as a new sort of demi-gods. It’s an era where playing for the national team is a pain in the arse because you get nothing substantial except for personal pride and the club is scared shitless it may lose the services of its stars for such useless events. Even the singing the national anthems of the teams before a match is being considered dangerous.

We need football heroes. Best was one of them. Though he lost his most important match, the one for his life, he fought to the last in pure British style. We should all emulate the golden boy for what he stood for in the field but despise all the rest he did. Indeed, that was truly immense potential squandered.

Tributes from Maltese bloggers:
Guze' Stagno
Jacques Rene' Zammit

Chewing the CHOGM

CHOGM and the Queen’s visit rekindled Malta’s ties with its former master, the last one in a long line that goes back thousands of years.

The Times took the cue to launch an online poll about whether the British should apologise for sending a group of Maltese pro-Italians to Uganda during World War II. This group included Nationalist Party leader Nerik Mizzi and other leading politicians.

Their only fault was that they supported and Italianised Malta, and unfortunately for them Italy was ruled by Benito Mussolini who wanted to turn the Mediterranean into an Italian lake just like classical Roman times. Instead of Pax Romana he got the British fighting back, with Malta in the thick of it.

Where these Maltese true Maltese lovers of the patria just like the Maltese who saw their lives tied to and not severed from the British colonisers? Would you have thought of yourself as a traitor is you were to use torches at night to lead Italian bombers over Malta?

A similar thing has happened 140 years earlier. Some Maltese, disgruntled by the decadent Knights of the Order of St. John, helped the French in gaining possession of Malta. They did it because they believed in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in Malta. Would they have done the same if they knew that the price for this would be a rebellion from the Maltese who valued their Catholic beliefs more than the profane French revolutionary ideals?

Mikiel Anton Vassalli shared the French ideals and got his name in the black book of the Maltese Catholic Church. He paid the ultimate price, having to work for English Protestants to get some money and being buried not according to Catholic rites. Yet today he is regarded as one of the fathers of the Maltese language, one who was proud of his native tongue, and one who dreamt of a Maltese republic 200 years before it become a reality.

Dun Mikiel Xerri did not share Vassalli’s ideals. On the contrary, he fought the French and died in the process, killed by a French firing squad after an ill-fated attempt to seize Valletta. Yet he died for his country, a hero for many, and his fate recalled in many a school history text book.

But can we have two figures with divided and opposing loyalties, in the broad sense, being Maltese patriots at the same time?

Let’s go many more centuries back. The myth persists, but it’s historically proven that Malta’s Christianity does not date back to St. Paul for there is an interruption of several hundred years when Malta was taken by the Tunisian Arabs.

Scholars say a bloody battle saw Malta fall under the Arabs in 870 AD and then it remained uninhabited for a time until it was colonised by Tunisian immigrants. With time, these Tunisian migrants became Maltese for they lived and died in Malta. So much so Count Roger’s raid (not liberation) of Malta in 1091 did not free Maltese Christians, for there is no mention of them in the report of Count Roger’s chronicler Malaterra, but Christian 'captivi' (prisoners).

Maltese turned, slowly, back to the Christian fold, and from then on became an ardent bastion of Catholicism in the ‘infidel’-infested Mediterranean. So the next time someone makes a reference to the negative olfactory stimulation of stuck-up Maltese noses by Arabs in Malta should not forget that some 1,000 years ago the Maltese WERE Arabs.

To cut it short, if you get soaked in rain and wait to wave to the passing British monarch you’re no better or worse Maltese. Maybe nothing more than a curious Maltese. Just as I would not mind getting soaked in the rain just to watch Manchester United play. Or would I?

Martin Debattista to Guest Blog

A pioneer of Maltese e-journalism is the next guest blogger on Wired Temples. Award winning Martin Debattista, the founder of the MaltaMedia news service and current MMON editor-in-chief, will be writing in this space until next Monday. Twice winner of the Malta Journalism Awards for radio (1998) and e-journalism (2003), Martin is a prolific writer on issues related to internet and information technology and has been published both locally and internationally. With Toni Sant, he co-founded aboutmalta.com, the online guide to the Maltese islands, formerly known as Grazio's Malta Virtwali. This is Martin's first venture into blogging and I extend to him a warm welcome.

Island of happiness

On the eve of CHOGM, the Queen returns to her island of happiness, writes Caroline Davies in Valletta. From the Daily Telegraph-with photo gallery:

The Queen returned to Malta yesterday, the island where she spent carefree days as a Royal Navy wife before her accession. She was welcomed by a 1,000-strong crowd who lined the narrow medieval streets of its capital, Valletta, to see the woman who was once their resident princess, then later their Queen.

The Maltese jealously guard their claim that they provided her with the only few months of "normality" she has enjoyed in a life dedicated to duty when, as Princess Elizabeth, she lived as a naval officer's wife with Prince Philip, who was posted there between 1949-51 with the Mediterranean Fleet..

As she began a four-day state visit, it seemed there were memories around every corner. Indeed, this was her "isle of happy memories", asserted Malta's newspapers yesterday alongside evocative photographs of her at the time. Remember the occasion, one reminded readers, when she had to back her car up "after a countryman on a donkey cart plodding along a narrow stone-wall lane at Mgarr refused to give way"..

Fifty-six years later, that photographer, Frank Attard, was still there, perched on a balcony with his camera to record her walking through the crowds on this, her fourth visit. In fact Malta even claims her first "walkabout", said to have been in November 1967, when as Queen of a then independent Malta, she mixed with the crowds on Kingsway. Yesterday she repeated that walkabout, except Kingsway is now Republic Street after a Labour government jettisoned her as Queen in 1974...

From Australia's Herald Sun, 'John Howard has neatly summed up the Commonwealth's dwindling clout'; Wikipedia has the humorous CHOGM acronym: Chappies Holidaying On Government Money; From The New Zealand Herald, why have a CHOGM?; From Qatar Gulf Times, Laurence Grech gives CHOGM background; From Reuters, Commonwealth "getting angry" at lack of WTO action; From One world South Asia, first CHOGM meeting for Pakistan since re-admission in Commonwealth; From Fiji Times, Malta has been gripped by Commonwealth fever; From Yachting World, new marina opened by Queen.

Disillusionment

The news that the Nationalist Party was awarded a contract worth over half a million Euros by the European Commission is a hot talking point amongst the Maltese public nearly as much as today's visit to the island by Queen Elizabeth. It is easy money for Gonzi's party - a press review was already prepared on a daily basis for internal party purposes before this contract was awarded. Now they simply repackage it and send it to the EU Representation in Malta every morning.

The problem with this contract is not just that it is awarded to a political party in a politically sensitive country. The Nationalist Party is itself the owner of a substantial portion of the Maltese printed and broadcast media which effectively means that it will now be monitoring its own media output on behalf of the EC. Even the most enthusiastic pro-Europeans are questioning the European Commission's sense of judgement in awarding this contract.

The EU Representation in Malta, headed by Joanna Drake - herself a former Nationalist Party parliamentary candidate, will now have to double the effort to bring the EU closer to the Maltese citizens . According to the latest Eurobarometer, Maltese public support for the European Union has gone down by 15 per cent since the referendum in 2003. The controversy surrounding this contract, which has already been raised in the European Parliament, will not enhance the Maltese public perception of European institutions.

Richard North, author of The Great Deception, follows on Prime Minister Gonzi's remarks to Reuters and says that "we have good company as far as general disillusionment with the EU goes". From the EU Referendum Blog:

..Prime minister Lawrence Gonzi says his country still stood by the sacrifices it made to qualify and was benefiting from millions of euros of annual aid but the joy of joining had yielded to a realisation that the proposed EU constitution was in limbo and that the budget was in deadlock.

Another factor which might even turn disillusionment into cynicism and even downright hostility is the extraordinary news that, according to Malta Today, Gonzi’s National Party has been awarded a major €565,000 contract from the EU for providing a daily press review to the Commission representation in Malta. Incredibly, the EU commission is claiming there is no "situation of conflict of interest", even though the press review is prepared by the in-house research bureau, which also provides the party with its own press review every day.

The contract won by Media.Link Communications, which is owned by the PN. Deputy prime minister Tonio Borg, is both a nominal shareholder and a director of the company. A direct UK equivalent would be the commission awarding the contract to a press company owned by the Labour Party, with John Prescott as a director...

The story as reported by Matthew Vella for MaltaToday; From Postform, Swedish Green MEP Carl Schlyter raises the issue in the European Parliament; Jurgen Balzan says that he had believed EU membership would eliminate incompetence and cronyism; Jacques Rene Zammit

Defending the Maltese language

Linguist Antoine Cassar responds to a contoversial letter to the Times that attacks the notion of Maltese as an official EU language. From Triq il-Maqluba:

L-argumenti li jsostnu li l-ilsien Malti ma messux ikun aċċettat bħala lingwa uffiċjali ta' l-Unjoni Ewropea nisimgħuhom ta' spiss, tant illi l-lingwisti (fost oħrajn) naħseb ilna li xbajna minnhom. Jien sirt nidrahom, u kien mingħalija li wasalt sa punt fejn ma nintlaqatx iżjed minnhom, minn widna jidħlu u mill-oħra joħorġu. Iżda meta wieħed jikteb ittra fiż-Żminijiet tal-Ħadd, iżeblaħ ilsienu, imaqdar b'ironija batuta lil min qed jagħmel ħiltu sabiex jitħarreġ grupp ta' tradutturi u interpreti Maltin fejn qabel –minkejja l-bilingwiżmu tagħna– ma kien hemm kważi xejn...

Il-kontro-argumenti tiegħi għal din l-attitudni elittista fissirthom f'riċensjoni tat-taħditiet dwar it-tfassil tal-lingwa li kien ta l-professur Katalan Miquel Strubell f'April li għadda fl-Università ta' Malta. Ser ikolli ntennihom - sfortunatament mhux biss il-lum, iżda għada, pitgħada u min jaf jekk wara ħamsin sena wkoll. Lil hinn mill-kwistjoni ta' identità, u lil hinn mill-fatt li l-Kostituzzjoni Maltija tgħid li l-Malti mhux biss huwa lingwa uffiċjali iżda wkoll nazzjonali –u dawn iż-żewġ argumenti diġà huma validi ħafna u jmisshom ikunu biżżejjed biex jiġġustifikaw il-Malti bħala lingwa uffiċjali ta' l-UE– hemm żewġ konsiderazzjonijiet oħra li ta' min inżommuhom f'moħħna....

From The Guardian: Language has always been crucial for Malta..

Waning euphoria

Malta's EU joy wears thin as EU bloc struggles, writes Nelson Graves for Reuters following an interview with the Maltese Prime Minister:

Malta's euphoria at joining the European Union last year is waning as the bloc struggles to approve a budget and poorer new members face having to share the cost of enlargement, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said. Eighteen months after Malta and nine other nations were admitted with fanfare into the economic bloc, Gonzi said the smallest member still stood by the sacrifices it made to qualify and was benefiting from millions of euros of annual aid. But the joy of joining has yielded to a realisation that the proposed EU constitution is in limbo and that the bloc's budget, needed for long-term investment, is in deadlock, the Maltese prime minister told Reuters in an interview...

FACTBOX-Tiny Malta at Mediterranean crossroads

'No personalities please, we’re Maltese'

Raphael Vassallo, a popular TMIS columnist who has recently joined the Maltese blogosphere, puts some humour on the local efforts to produce Maltese Euro coins and notes:

It had to happen, I suppose. How often do we get an opportunity to parade our glorious retinue of famous historical personalities before the envious eyes of all Europe? Never, by my count. And when it finally happens, what do we do? Why, we blow it completely, of course. What else? I refer to the decision taken by the National Euro Changeover Committee (or “Pain in the NECC” for short) regarding the first ever local euro coins, due to be minted when Malta joins the Eurozone in 2007. (Or was that 2070? Can’t remember now...) But anyway. NECC’s chairman, Joseph “Special” F.X. Zahra, was clear on this point. “Read my lips”, he said. “No Maltese personalities.”

And what can I say? He’s perfectly right, too. For let’s face it, the choice of any single Maltese politician – alive, dead, or, like the vast majority, somewhere in between – would invariably elicit an immediate reaction of anger and resentment among at least half the population, which is not exactly the effect that a “national symbol” is intended to achieve. And besides, we’re not just talking symbolism here. It’s also a currency, for heaven’s sake. No offence or anything, but which of our politicians’ mugshots do you seriously think would serve to strengthen the euro against the dollar? Get real...

But there are loads more non-political professions to choose from. What about architects? Richard England, I hear you say? Not bad; not bad at all. But then, he’d probably insist on designing the coin himself, with the result that the Maltese euro would be the world’s first triangular coin with a hole in the middle. With the value written back-to-front and upside-down, too. Just slightly impractical, I would have thought... but then, what do I know about art?...

Maltese personalities banned on euro coins

Maltese music podcasts

Toni Sant keeps his promise and produces another series of podcasts. The next podcast in this musical series will appear in a week's time:

This is the very first series of Maltese music podcasts. While Archibald and others bemoan the state of live shows from visiting artists in Malta, the local scene continues to produce interesting works. Many of these works go almost unnoticed by the mainstream or enjoy a very limited underground cult status for many years.

Most, if not all, radio stations in Malta fail to see how interesting Maltese music can be and instead play the most run-of-the-mill pop trash, if/when they play any Maltese music at all. My new podcasting series attempts to address this by bringing anyone who cares to listen a weekly look at some of the most interesting music from and/or by Maltese musicians. The series is called Mużika Mod Ieħor, which can either be translated as A Different Kind of Music or as Music by Other Means.The first show opens with the music of a band I consider to be the most exciting thing on the current local gig scene. The boys in Xtruppaw have a special vibe around them and they make me feel the same sort of warmth I felt for bands like The Rifffs and The Subverts many years ago..

Websites by Maltese musicians are plentiful. Just have a look at the large number of sites linked from the aboutmalta.com music section. Among the ones I was very happy to discover is that from Vince Fabri. Vince has become a household name since he started appearing weekly on Xarabank. His work on that TV programme is perhaps one of the better things about it. Still, no enough people know about the beautiful songs he wrote around 1990 with the poetry of Oliver Friggieri entitled Mal-Fanal Hemm Ħarstek Tixgħel. This podcasts comes to a close with the first track from that album, Poeta, featuring the voice of Phyllis Anne Brincat and the best use of a harmonica (played by Paul Camilleri) I've ever heard on a Maltese recording.

Mark Vella 'jimmassaġġja d-dubji etniċi': Dwar muzika u nazzjonalita’

Raphael Vassallo on Maltese rock music

Wither the Information Society?

Following the conclusion of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, John Horvath writes that it has become apparent that the European notion of the "information society" appears to be dying a slow but sure death. From Germany's Telepolis:

The WSIS is intended to provide a unique opportunity for all key decision makers to gain a better understanding of computer and information technologies and their impact on the international community. The roles that are assumed by various "stakeholders" in smoothly coordinating the setting up of the information society around the globe is supposed to be a major concern of the summit. However, judging by the final outcome of the WSIS, it's quite obvious that any truly social aspect to the concept is clearly lacking..

In Europe, meanwhile, the apparent disconnect between information and society has been apparent ever since the mid-term evaluation of the European Commission's Lisbon Agenda. In many ways, the concept of the information society and the lofty goals of the Lisbon Agenda were intertwined. As a result, when it was publicly acknowledged that the Lisbon Agenda was, in effect, dead, information society rhetoric became more toned down. One just has to take a look at official European Commission publications as an example. At the turn of the millennium, European research and innovation publications (CORDIS info, Euroabstracts, RTD info, etc.) [1] couldn't get enough of the term; every second line seemed to mention the information society. Lately, however, this term appears less and less in pages few and far between..

According to a recent survey looking into the provision of public services online, EU member states are gradually moving more public services on to the Internet. Still, the report admits that with only 40% of these services fully transactional, there is some way to go before Europe has a high level of genuine online functionality..

Overall, Sweden and Austria are seen as the best performers, both in terms of sophistication and full service availability. Sweden has moved from having 28% of public services fully available online in 2001 to 74% by October 2004. Austria, in the same period, increased from 15% to 72%. In contrast, during those same years, Portugal went from 32% to just 40% and, in the process, dropped from being one of the top performing nations to near the bottom of the list. The countries with the lowest scores are Latvia and Poland, with Luxembourg scoring the lowest amongst the EU-15.

In some cases, moving services to the Internet can involve a comprehensive re-engineering of a public service. Malta still requires claimants for unemployment benefits to initially present themselves for an interview, but subsequent weekly claimant registration is conducted electronically at district offices using a biometric finger scan...

More on the WSIS

NATO in Malta

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) will take over security on the Maltese islands during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting next week, writes Frank Nyakairu of Uganda's Daily Monitor. Uganda was beaten by Malta in the bid to host this year's CHOGM and is expected to win the bid to host the next meeting in 2007:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) will protect the Queen of England together with 53 heads of State in the Malta amid reports that the summit is under threat by terrorists. Maltese government spokesman Emmanuel Abela told Daily Monitor in an interview on Thursday that the island country is not taking the threat for granted. “We are not taking any threat for granted, the Maltese police is ready to work with other international security organisations to make sure that nothing happens,” Abela said.

This follows a report in the British newspapers and the Maltese newspaper, The Times of Malta that the Queen of England is a target of terrorists following an arrest of a Sudanese Al Queda suspect in neighbouring Italy. The Maltese government has, however, denied that its security forces had got leads of a possible attack.

Information obtained by Daily Monitor indicates that the Nato will take over security working with the Maltese police. Abela said his government set a side over $7 million for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm)

GWU to hold protest during CHOGM; From Reuters, Commonwealth leaders to warn on world trade; Ir-Regina thossha sigura f’Malta!

Miss Marketing

Sassy Sarah's blog chronicles the 'trials and tribulations of a lady in her 20s trying to make it in the network and online marketing scene'. From Miss Marketing:

..It served as the initial push to get me rolling in the business.... get me rolling and enjoy the rolling! It's also gave me quite a boost as I didn't know I was such a talker.. Malta is an island with a booming network marketing scene. I do not know how long this boom will last until it start to fizzle out only to leave the big players playing in the business, though one thing is for certain. It sure is a pity we are so small because the potential there is here is incredible.

Bloggers meeting

Maltese bloggers will be meeting for drinks in Attard tomorrow Friday. The meeting is convened by Athena who will be in Malta to launch her new book. All are welcome:

Okay everyone, yours truly is about to descend on the islands early on Wednesday morning - don't say you haven't been warned. Anyway, there will be a bloggers' meeting on Friday at 7pm at the Melita Gardens and Cafe. I've been told that this place is now roach free:-) So far, MaltaGirl, Twanny, Robert and Reesa are coming. Everyone, feel free to drop by and say hello..

On Thursday yours truly will be allowed to gabble (ok lecture) at length about archaeology (well, for one hour) at the Heritage Malta head office at 6pm. Robert is already offering his support :-) On Saturday, the much-awaited :-) book by yours truly on Maltese Neolithic sculpture will be officially launched at the National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta...

Adelaide no more

New blogger Andre laments the destruction of Sliema's Victorian architecture and particularly the latest victim, the Adelaide Hotel. From 'Confessions of an atheist':

One of my earliest memories is that of me going for a walk with my parents on the Sliema Front. I was always fascinated by the houses on the front. There was something charming about the Victorian houses with the bay windows and each of them had an individual feature which made them unique. Time passed. I stopped going for walks with my parents, and the carefully planned Victorian Houses where replaced with blocks of concrete. The traditional Maltese Balcony was replaced by hard wearing aluminium. And Sliema lost its charm. It’s just another shopping town in a world which is full of shopping towns.

There were however one house which stood proud – the Adelaide Hotel and the adjacent “Old Vic” pub. The hotel was not a five star hotel, it did not have all the modern comforts one would expect, and in the last few years I doubt it was used. It was however one of the last examples of Victorian architecture on the Sliema front. Last time I passed by the site where the Adelaide Hotel stood – and I was shocked to see that the hotel was demolished, probably to be replaced by another one of the anonymous concrete buildings where one apartment might sell for something close to Lm 300,000.

Service with a scowl

MaltaMedia clean sweep at Journalism awards

MaltaMedia dominated the ejournalism category at yesterday's Malta Journalism awards. Congratulations to Pierre who won thanks to his sterling work with the MaltaMedia news team last year. The inclusion of Wired Temples with the award finalists comes as a welcome recognition of the phenomenon of blogging by the Maltese media establishment:

For the second time in three years MaltaMedia News has won the e-journalism category of the 15th Malta Journalism Awards. Pierre Mejlak was first in the category as announced in the final ceremony held on Monday night. The MaltaMedia News team was second and Robert Micallef, with his blog on MaltaMedia, was third.

Pierre Mejlak won with his interviews with the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi; an interview with Jens-Peter Bonde, MEP and chairman of the euro-critic Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities; and other reports during a two-week stage in Brussels. During the ceremony journalist Julian Manduca, photographer Alfred Giglio and sports commentator Julian Zammit who passed away this year were remembered..

We are the champions - by Toni Sant

'Malta trip a waste'

A parliamentary visit to Malta has attracted controversy in Australia. Anna Patty writes for Australia's Daily Telegraph:

A State MP who went on a taxpayer-funded study tour to Ireland and the US yesterday questioned the value of a Labor MP's visit to Malta. Democrats MP Arthur Chesterfield-Evans said Illawarra MP Marianne Saliba, who chairs the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, visited Malta to examine the voting system there. "Put it this way, if I was working out where to spend 10 days in the world to look at electoral systems, my gut feeling is you wouldn't go to Malta," he said. "I would have thought that some of the American states with different voting systems might have been a better place to go." The committee's overseas trip began on June 30 when its officer Stephanie Hesford and Ms Saliba went to Malta to visit MPs and the electoral commission for two days...

Hope and Glory

Professional awards in Malta are not always what they're cracked up to be. The Malta Music Awards and the Malta Web Awards immediately spring to mind along with the words not, taken, and seriously. However, the annual Malta Journalism Awards, presented by the Institute of Maltese Journalists, is a solid exception to this.

The 15th Annual Malta Journalism Awards will be announced this evening during a ceremony at the Audio-Vision Centre in Hamrun.

Formerly known as the Malta Press Club, the Institute of Maltese Journalists has presented an annual awards ceremony since 1990. The first edition was very simple. Tonio Bonello (who wrote for the weekly church newspaper Il-Gens at that time) was selected by a panel of local experts as the journalist of the year. The following year broadcasting was added to the list of nominations, and the first broadcast journalism award went to TVM's Joe Dimech.

Photojournalism was introduced as a new category in 1996 and Darrin Zammit Lupi swept the first of his three awards since then. Cartoons were added to the list of categories in 1998, with Maurice Tanti Burlo (Nalizperla in the Sunday Times) grabbed the first of the 3 awards he has won over the years.

Other categories were introduced since 2000: sports, travel, culture journalism, and e-journalism. In 2002, the broadcasting category was split into a writing award and a video award.

The awards are for work published/broadcast in the previous year. So this year's awards are for articles, features, reports, photos and cartoons from 2004.

Since 1998 have also honoured a number of journalists for going beyond the requirements of normal journalistic practice during their career. The winners of the Gold Award Fr Joe Borg (1998), Anton Cassar (1999), Frank Attard (2000), J.G. Vassallo (2001), Anthony Montanaro (2002), John Manduca (2003) and Charles Grech Orr (2004).

The first e-journalism award in 2003 was won by MaltaMedia.com's Martin Debattista, who remains editorial director of the MaltaMedia Online News service. Martin won the Radio Journalism Award in 1998 for his pioneering work about the Internet on Radio Malta 2.

This year MaltaMedia has all three final nominations in the e-journalism awards. One nomination is for the whole team that worked on the perennial year-end feature 2004: A Year in Review, coverage of Julie & Ludwig at the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, and the 2004 PN leadership election. MaltaMedia's Brussels correspondent Pierre J. Mejlak is nominated for his interviews with the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi and Jens-Peter Bonde, MEP and chairman of the euro-critic Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, as well as a follow-up interview with Sharon Ellul Bonici and other reports he wrote from Brussels in March/April 2004.

Julian Zarb from First Magazine was also originally also nominated as a finalist in this category. However, his work was disqualified about four weeks ago because the category is for works that have not appeared in print before they are published on the Internet. Julian is a very decent man and a noteworthy tourism journalist, so it's unfair that this has happened to him after the finalist were announced. Out of his misfortune, MaltaMedia garnered its third nomination for tonight's awards.

MaltaMedia's third nomination is for this very blog you're reading now. Yes, that's right, Wired Temples is in the running for the e-journalism award. Robert Micallef had only been blogging for a few days in December 2004, but Wired Temples produced enough material to make it to the final round of the 2005 Malta Journalism Award in the e-journalism category.

Good luck and best wishes to all!

OFF THE RECORD: My money is on Pierre who has flown in from Brussels for tonight's ceremony.

Full list of finalists nominated for the 15th Annual Malta Journalism Awards

Any Given Sunday

The Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times (DISCERN) within the catholic Archdiocese of Malta will be holding a census concerning attendance to Sunday mass around the Maltese islands. DISCREN director Fr Joe Inguanez will be revealing details about this census during a press conference at the Archbishop's Curia in Floriana on Tuesday morning.

No one doubts the declining figures for Sunday church attendance in Malta and Gozo over the past 30 years. Previous surveys conducted by the curia clearly document a downward trend. This year's census will measure how severe the downturn in church-going has become. It will also give those who argue against the powers of the catholic church over Maltese society some leverage towards insisting that religious beliefs should not bear any consequence to social policies regarding divorce, reproduction rights, and homosexual affairs.

While the social ramifications from the census are of logical concern for the curia, there are other factors to take into consideration. Foremost among issues raised by the dwindling numbers at Sunday mass in catholic churches is the increase in converts and followers that other Christian churches appear to enjoy, as well as a growing number of non-Christian faiths taking root in Malta.

A Sunday Mass Census held in the Maltese Islands in December 1995 showed attendance of around 67%. The results of the current census will be remarkably newsworthy if attendance to Sunday mass has gone up over during the 10 years since that census.

The Sunday Homily [updated weekly]

Links to religious websites in Malta & Gozo

On the Town

Public events around the Maltese Islands are one of the things we're most often asked about at the MaltaMedia Online Network. Almost all the requests for such information comes from people outside Malta. Yet there's a growing number of Malta-based Internet users who are turning to the internet for information about what's on around the islands.

About 10 years ago, when the National Tourism Organisation of Malta (the Malta Tourism Authority's predecessor) entrusted me with the creation of Malta's official tourism website, an online calendar of events was one of the first things we built into the service. That website has now grown considerably since 1996, when it was first launched, and the events calendar section undoubtedly remains one of the most popular sources of information about what's on in Malta for tourists and other visitors to our country. However, there are other sites that offer similar information. Many times, these sites feature information that's not available on the official tourism website.

The most comprehensive site with details about what's on in Gozo comes from the island's Ministry. It's probably a little too official looking for some people's taste, and many of the events are indeed not exactly everyone's idea of fun. Still, it is a valuable resource no less.

Another site that features a fairly wide range of event listings is aboutmalta.com's X'Inhu Għaddej (What's On), which even attempted a TV tie-in a couple of years ago. This site is gear for all sorts of people, not just tourists. It's also very easy for event organizers to submit a listing of their own events. Actually, most of the items listed on aboutmalta.com calendar of events are submitted by the people organizing them. In this way, this service is quite useful not only for anyone interesting in finding out what's going on in the Maltese islands but also for anyone interested in publicizing any public event they've organized.

Submit an upcoming event to aboutmalta.com's X'Inhu Għaddej

After the Fox

Mozilla's Web browser Firefox is marking its first year on the Internet this week. In one year, the browser has grabbed 8.65% of the worldwide market and almost 14% of the European market, putting a dent in Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominance.

Since the debut of Firefox 1.0 last November, users have downloaded 106.4 million copies of the open-source Web browser, according to the Mozilla Foundation. Chris Beard, head of marketing and product management for Mozilla Corp. said that, "in the past year, Firefox helped validate the concept of an open-source browser and encourage its use through viral word-by-mouth marketing." And as Firefox enters its second year, several changes are in store. "In 2006, we plan to adopt a more aggressive product cycle," Beard said. "Firefox 2 will launch in the midpoint of next year and Firefox 3 will be out in the first quarter of 2007."

Microsoft IE is still very dominant in Malta. However, Firefox is gaining ground among all sorts of Internet users looking for a safer browser than Internet Explorer. According to XiTi Monitor, 11.6% of Internet users in Malta have Firefox on their computers. This figure doubled from XiTi's estimate for the previous month.

Owen Cutajar was one of the first Maltese adopters of Firefox last year, even before it was officially launched. Last June he asked one of my favourite questions when he blogged about the spread of Firefox.

A number of Maltese bloggers promote the free browser on their blogs: Diverse Ramblings and Kenneth's Online Repository are just two.

Do I need to add that I use Firefox too?

Get Firefox

Spread Firefox

Toni Sant to guest blog here

Toni Sant will be guest blogging on Wired Temples over the next four days and it is a great pleasure for me to welcome him here. I am anxious to see what he will do with this blog. Toni is the founder of MaltaMedia and a pioneer of Maltese blogging - he is a lecturer on Performance and Creative Technologies at the University of Hull's Scarborough campus but lives in New York City. Read his profile here. More on/by Toni: Toni Sant's Blog; On Wikipedia; Sunken (Is)Land/s; Malta's internet image

Previously on Wired Temples: 9/11 Attacks Remembrance; Podcasting project; Toni Sant's autobiography; The potential of digital communities; Toni's Blog birthday; St.Agatha's catacombs; Serving the common good; Wired Temples according to Toni Sant

Malta News Digest - November3 to November9

Wednesday9: From UEFA.com, Mark Chaplin reports from Malta on the UEFA executve committee meeting, and more; “Industrial Confidence still very low”-FOI; PM delivers reply to MLP leader’s reaction to Budget 2006, u iktar; Interview with Israeli ambassador; Il-Parmalat u ahna minn Reno Borg; Lino Spiteri dwar il-budget
Tuesday8: Maltese President meets Spanish Prime Minister; AD urges MEPs to vote for Toxic-Free Future; Obesity in Malta; Kulhadd b’xortih minn Toni Abela; Biex int tghix ahjar, minn Adrian Vassallo
Monday7: From Vietnam News Agency, Viet Nam, Malta see opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation relations; From Media Syndicate, World Leaders Boost For Holiday Island; Over 400 people could die in a pandemic flu outbreak; Malta has lowest rate of road deaths in Europe; MCESD: just another parliament, interview with Austin Gatt;
Place-names and surnames in Malta’s medieval history; Taking the internet forward by Censu Galea
Sunday6: From AME Info, Malta again at the Big 5 show; Concerns over new EU ethics panel which includes Maltese priest; From a hospital to the centre of the Commonwealth by Noel Grima; Saviour Balzan talks to the PM; Ellul Bonici ready to push for divorce in Labour Party; Grace Borg talks to Matthew Vella about Eurovision and government interference; Science without leadership as Malta lags behind Europe; Hajja gdida lill-Banjijiet Rumani minn Kurt Farrugia; Stejjer minn madwarna...minn Charles Flores
Saturday5: Milhuq ftehim fis-Sea Malta, minn Brandon Pisani; Il-furnara lura ghall-hatab!, minn Owen Galea; Pinocchio, minn Wenzu Mintoff
Friday4: From Catholic World News, Knights of Malta leader named for peace prize EU urges Malta to speed up Euro changeover plans; Runaway illegal immigrant arrested in Sicily; Friday Wisdom: Not acceptable by Alfred Mifsud; Bringing Europe closer to the people; Ma tistax tkun Nisrani u razzist; Ix-xoghol... lil hinn mil-lenti partiggjana, minn Marie-Louise Coleiro
Thursday3: Natural death of Freeport birds confirmed; First Austrian embassy in Malta officially open; Gonzi-Sant debate on RTK: Battle of wits; Bolkestein’s Services Directive: Education and essential services ‘should not be exposed to the free market’; Malta’s Lisbon Agenda strategy launched by Charlot Zahra

Forty Six Percent Geek

Complete with a new template ( the best so far), ambitous MaltaGirl is participating in NaNoWriMo 2005, the National Novel Writing Month. Follow her brave attempt to produce the required 50,000 words at Forty Six Percent Geek. Will it bring her fame? MaltaGirl explains:

..For the last few years, my basic principle when writing has been: write what you know. Whenever I write about something that I don't know much about, the results have been disasterous. That's why I usually blog about me, me, me, by the way, because that's the subject I know best ;-) So yes, for this novel the characters and the plot are drawing HEAVILY on my personal experiences... AND if other people can get away with writing a novel as a series of diary entries, then surely mine can be a series of blog entries! And in which case... might as well write it on a blog, eh? http://fortysixpercentgeek.blogspot.com/ Plus that means that YOU get to follow along as I churn out my laughably awful yet lengthy prose ...

Sepia toned houses

Emy is a juvenile justice youth worker from Victoria, Australia who blogs at Nomads - Europe 28.07.05. In this post she describes her last days in Malta before starting her way back to St Albans:

all the buildings and houses in malta are sepia toned. i don't know if that's by law or by choice, but it looks pretty cool against the blue sky and the bluer sea. i really wasn't expecting malta to be so beautiful. i knew the ocean was spos to be pretty amazing but even with that warning i can't believe how stunning it is. we've been on the go almost from the moment we got here... we stopped at a little island called comino, which has nothing but 2 resorts and a police station on it, then we went to paradise beach and a couple of other beautiful spots that the locals know. i can't wait to find somewhere to download photos to share with you guys. it was seriously the bluest water i've ever seen in my life. the closest i can think to describe it is the pictures of tropical islands you see in brochures sometimes, but that just doesn't do it justice...

yesterday we were shown another part of valletta. we were driven up to this beautiful lookout where you can see across the harbour all the way to the town on the other side. there's some summit happening in malta in the next couple of weeks or so, and there's guna be a lot of headhonchos here including the queen, and there's lots of preparations taking place around town at the moment. when we got to this lookout, there were a couple of guys dressed in militia uniforms, cleaning a cannon with what looked like a huge pipecleaner...

Miscellaneous Blogs (3)

Malta style desalination for Southern California

Mark J Scerri from Msida

The space of John Galea from Siggiewi

Grazzi Malta! and Malta Photos- from Japan

Great white shark caught in Malta - Markus

Australia vacation - Shaun Meilak from Nadur

Funkiblog - In Hawaii with Maltese grandparents

Students at M.Mortimer Girls' Junior Lyceum

Bird flu false alarm

Miss-understood Michelle

Deb and Neal's Shorg Files

The Shorg Files is a blog that documents Deb and Neal’s journeys and adventures in Switzerland.