By train and ferry

You don't have to leave the ground to make the most of Malta, says Mark Smith who reached the island by train and ferry:

Tell someone you're travelling to Malta by train and ferry, and the first thing they are likely to ask is how long the journey will take. "A couple of days southbound, a day or two for the return," you say, nonchalantly. They wrinkle their noses, perhaps contemplating the discomfort and exhaustion of a long-haul flight. But with overland travel you're not strapped to a seat willing each minute to pass. The journey is part of the holiday, and there's lots to see and do on the way. Time with family or friends on a train or ship is time well spent, a chance to catch up over a glass or two, free from the day-to-day distractions of doorbells and call centres.

I spent a week in Malta with a couple of friends. We took the Eurostar to Paris, where we changed on to the sleeper to Venice. We chatted into the night over dinner in the restaurant car, as French villages swept past in the moonlight. Next morning, the train rumbled slowly across the causeway into central Venice, a full day of exploring ahead of us. Another overnight train whisked us south to Sicily...At Messina, the train is shunted on to a ferry, and you can stay in your carriage or climb on deck to watch Sicily loom in the morning mist. Once across the straits, the train hugs the Sicilian coastline all the way to Syracuse.

The evening catamaran from Pozzallo, south of Syracuse, takes just 90 minutes to Malta. We sailed into Valletta harbour after dark, the lights of the capital ablaze to the right and those of Vittoriosa to the left, with a sense of arrival that air travellers will never know. We stepped ashore on to one of the friendliest islands in the Mediterranean, welcomed by people who share 150 years of their history with Britain, but who appear none the worse for it. Indeed, the Maltese seem to have a soft spot for Brits..

At the top of our list was Mdina, Malta's former capital in the centre of the island, a traffic-free walled city full of palaces, churches and religious houses. We took a bus to Cirkewwa for the ferry to Gozo; and on a boat trip around the coast we visited the "azure window" rock archway and Fungus Rock, named for its medicinal fungus cultivated by the Knights of Malta...

Petroleum

EC calls on Malta to adjust import monopoly for petroleum products, writes Clare Watson in the Energy Business Review:

The European Commission has called on Malta to adjust its monopoly for the importation, storage and wholesale of petroleum products, after the country failed to comply with competition legislation that should have been adopted on its accession to the EU. The European Commission's (EC) formal request follows Malta's failure to comply with the EU Accession Treaty, which forbids discrimination between member states' nationals with regard to commercial state monopolies.

The commission said that, although the treaty obliges member states to adjust any state monopolies, no trading licenses have been issued in Malta and Enemalta Corporation is still the only company authorized to import, store and supply petroleum at the wholesale level for the national fuel market. Malta was required to comply with this objective of the treaty no later than January 1, 2006, and now has two months to confirm to the EC that it has implemented the measures required to fulfill its obligations under the Accession Treaty.

EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "Malta is maintaining discriminatory measures in favor of the commercial state monopoly which stops any potential new entrants from getting into the wholesale petroleum market. On accession, Malta committed itself to adapt its rules. Eighteen months after this should have been done, it is clearly now urgent that the necessary changes are made." The EC said that, although Malta has claimed that the necessary legislative measures are under discussion, they have not been adopted so far

Airport Tax

EU to take Malta to court over airport tax, Nina Chestney reports in Forbes.com

The European Commission said it will take Malta to court over the airport tax levied at Malta International Airport. The commission said the tax discriminates between air passengers. The Commission has therefore decided to lodge a formal complaint to the European Court of Justice.

'The airport tax is discriminatory as it is only levied on air passengers beginning an international journey from Malta airport, but not levied if the passenger had started the journey outside Malta. The tax therefore puts an unfair burden on residents in Malta, and makes it more difficult for them to receive and provide services in other member states,' the EU executive said.

Added to that, domestic destinations are exempted from the airport tax. According to the commission, the airport tax should not differentiate between domestic and other intra-community flights.

Tidal wave

This week's edition of The Economist has a feature about Malta and the way the island is coping with the 'wave of migrants'. From The Economist:

No event has been awaited in Malta with greater eagerness than the start of Operation Nautilus II. After a pilot scheme last year, the hope was that patrol boats, helicopters and aircraft from all over the European Union would converge on the seas between Malta and Libya, to keep at bay the tide of migrants surging into the EU's smallest and most crowded member...Without Libya's help, Frontex's patrols will be unable to send migrants back. Instead, the agency's spokesman says, they will be “informed that what they are doing [is] illegal and given life-jackets”. If their vessel is in distress, they will be rescued and taken to the nearest safe place—perhaps Lampedusa or Pantelleria, two Italian islands, but often Malta itself. Far from deterring migration to the island, Nautilus II could end up making it faster and safer.

Anti-immigrant feeling is running high in Malta. On June 9th a new far-right party, Azzjoni Nazzjonali, appeared. The solution of its leader, Josie Muscat, is to ship new arrivals “to the edge of our territorial waters and say ‘We're sorry, but this is where our responsibility stops'”. His views are extreme, but both mainstream parties agree that Malta is at bursting-point. “The numbers who came to Malta last year are equivalent to half our birth rate,” says the prime minister, Lawrence Gonzi. “There is no way Malta can absorb them.” His answer is to get other EU countries to help with the repatriation of migrants who are refused refugee or similar status; and to share out what he calls the “excess numbers” of those who do.

What few in Malta acknowledge is that its immigrants are a consequence of EU entry three years ago. With few exceptions, those who land in Malta want to get to Italy or farther north. Until they joined the EU in 2004, the Maltese did little to stop them pursuing their journey (often with travel documents valid only in Maltese airspace, issued by a Roman Catholic church group). But EU entry stopped that by imposing the so-called “Dublin system”, which puts responsibility for asylum-seekers on the country where they first arrive.

Malta may be densely populated (three times more than the Netherlands), but its immigrant population is still tiny. Officials say they have no precise total, but their estimate is below 3,000—fewer than the commonly touted figure of 7,000 arrivals since 2002, and less than 1% of the island's 400,000 population. Malta's EU partners could be forgiven for feeling that, as in other respects, the union's southernmost member is just catching up with them.

Sicily and Malta

Martin from Tinadeblog compares the cultures of Sicily & Malta:

The two islands have a lot of cultural similarities. Located on the west of the southern end of the Italian peninsula, separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, Sicily is autonomous region of Italy. Located to the South of Sicily (Italy), the East of Tunisia, and the North of Libya, the Republic of Malta is Island country of Southern Europe..

Sicilian culture's influence on Maltese culture is evident in the local cuisine, with its emphasis on olive oil, pasta, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables (especially the tomato), traditional appetizers such as caponata (Maltese: "kapunata") and rice balls (arancini), speciality dishes such as rice timbale (Maltese: "ross fil-forn"), and sweets such as the cassata and cannoli.

Sicilian culture's influence on the Maltese culture is also evident in many of the local superstitions, in simple children's nursery rhymes, and in the devotion to certain saints, especially St. Agatha. Centuries of dependence on the Diocese of Palermo brought many Sicilian religious traditions to Malta, including the Christmas crib (Maltese: "il-presepju"), the ritual visiting of several Altars of Repose on Good Friday (Maltese: "is-sepulkri"), and the graphic, grim realism of traditional Maltese religious images and sculpture.

Inquiry demand

Demand grows for full Lockerbie inquiry, writes Magnus Linklater in the London Times:

Pressure is growing for a full public inquiry into the Lockerbie disaster, in response to new evidence that suggests a miscarriage of justice took place in the trial of the Libyan convicted of the bombing. A judicial review of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s conviction is to decide this week whether to refer his case back to the Appeal Court. If it does, al-Megrahi would almost certainly be cleared.

“Where that would leave the Scottish judicial system and the Scottish police, God knows,” said Tam Dalyell, the former MP who has long campaigned for an inquiry. Jim Swire, whose daughter, Flora, died in the 1988 bombing, described al-Megrahi’s conviction as “one of the most disgraceful miscarriages of justice in history”.

The Libyan is serving a life sentence in a Scottish jail for his part in placing a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over the town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people. The repercussions of a referral for Britain and the US would be far-reaching. The trial of al-Megrahi and his co-accused, Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was the most expensive criminal prosecution carried out by Britain. It was held in a specially constituted court in The Netherlands and is estimated to have cost about £80 million.

..The prosecution case was that the two Libyans smuggled the bomb aboard a flight from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was switched to a connecting flight, via Heathrow, to New York. In the course of the trial, weaknesses in the prosecution case emerged...Now new evidence has been produced to challenge further the safety of the conviction: — The Maltese shopkeeper, whose identification of al-Meg-rahi was crucial, changed his story several times in the course of inquiries, first identifying Abu Talb as the man who had entered his shop, then contradicting his evidence about individual items he had sold...

Update: Unpicking the Lockerbie truth, from UK Sunday Times; Revealed, from Scotland's Sunday Herald

'Malta cops draw blank'

The reported sightings of missing Madeleine McCann have continued to be reported widely around the world. In this report, Bruce Walker writes in the Sunday Glasgow Herald that her parents 'clung to hope' last night after being told there was no evidence she was in Malta despite the numerous sightings:

..Police received 14 reports from people claiming to have seen the four-year-old on the island. But officers yesterday revealed there was no firm evidence to suggest she was there. A spokesman said: "So far, police investigations have yielded negative results. We will continue investigating this case."

..Maltese police said the first report of a girl matching Madeleine's description went back three weeks. A local woman said she saw a girl who looked like her in the capital city, Valletta, a week earlier. On June 17, police looked into a sighting by two English women near the Valletta bus terminal. A Maltese man also reported seeing a girl he thought was Madeleine at an outdoor religious feast last Sunday. He took a photo of the girl on his mobile phone but the image did not match Madeleine's features.

The police received another two reports on Friday. But yesterday, police admitted the dozens of leads had so far yielded nothing. Madeleine's parents, Scots-born Gerry and wife Kate, have refused to give up hope of finding their daughter alive. And yesterday, they revealed there would be a new phase in their campaign to raise awareness of the hunt to find her - focusing on events rather than them...

Drowning off the coast

While more arrivals are imminent, David Willey of BBCNews reports twenty-four Africans drowning after a dinghy capsized south of Malta, according to the captain of an Italian fishing boat:

..The captain of the trawler said the incident happened some 21 miles (33km) south of Malta. A single survivor was rescued and other vessels are searching the area for more possible survivors. Almost every day this month, Italian coastguards have been picking up dozens of exhausted African migrants. They attempt to make the choppy crossing from North Africa in fragile and unseaworthy rubber dinghies. Few of the passengers know how to swim and few of the traffickers operating the rubber dinghies provide life jackets..

The Italian authorities have recently extended the reception centre for illegal immigrants on the island, but it is already overflowing with people. As quickly as the police process the immigrants and fly them out or put them on a ferry to the mainland, more arrive. Laura Boldrini, a spokesperson for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sicily, says this summer looks like establishing new records of people drowned or missing in the Mediterranean. It has become a sad ritual of death and desperation, she said.

Madeleine McCann 'sightings' in Malta

Police launched a full-scale search in Malta after at least five alleged sightings of Madeleine McCann by British holidaymakers. Fiona Govan in Valletta reports for The Telegraph:

..As Gerry and Kate McCann prepared to mark the 50th day since their daughter disappeared, the focus switched to the Mediterranean island. Its capital, Valetta, was "locked-down" on Saturday night after a holidaying British couple reported seeing a blonde girl who "looked remarkably similar" to Madeleine. As reports emerged in Malta today, a further four independent witnesses came forward, claiming to have seen "the same" blonde girl in central and north parts of the island. According to some reports the blonde girl looked to be "enjoying herself" in the company of adults - casting doubt on whether it could be the missing four-year-old.

However police in Malta are taking the claims "seriously" and have launched checks at airports and harbours. There have been a string of potential sightings of Madeleine across the world in the past seven weeks - including in Morocco, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland, north Portugal and north Wales. However this is the first time since she went missing that there has been more than one alleged sighting in the same area...The first witnesses - a British couple holidaying in Malta - contacted the local police on Saturday night claiming they had seen a girl matching Madeleine's description with a couple on Republic St in Valetta, the main street in the capital.

According to Maltese law, a magisterial inquest was launched and the witnesses gave formal evidence of what they had seen in a private court hearing in front of magistrate Miriam Hayman. Police sources said officers have been carrying out checks at airports and harbours. Photographs of the young girl have been distributed to police and officials working at ports. Police have tightened security arrangements at the Malta International Airport and at other entry and exit points. Plain clothes officers were also making inquiries at holiday resorts. They were seen at St George's Bay, a popular family resort on the east coast of the island, and at Manoel Island Marina - where Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich often berths his superyacht...

From ITV News: Maltese investigate McCann sighting

Who pays the ferryman

Jonathan Miller, foreign affairs correspondent for Channel 4 News, tackles Malta's immigration crisis and writes in his blog that if Malta reduced the size of its 'ridiculously huge SAR zone', it wouldn't have so many immigrants:

We have all fallen in love with our taxi driver, Francis - although his friends call him Francisco. He's 60, with silver hair and a wicked streak. And he's the proud owner of Taxi Number 2. It's a 1974 highly polished, buttermilk Mercedes 200D with black leather seats - and, um, no seatbelts. Francisco's driven it for 29 years. He says it has the original engine and claims he's done a million miles in it. A stunning achievement on an island the size of a sixpence, 24 miles top to tail.

.More remarkable still is that this lump of limestone, smack in the middle of the Med, has a maritime Search and Rescue Zone - they call it the "SAR Zone" in the business - larger than that of any other Mediterranean country. A nation the size of the London borough of Southwark responsible for rescuing vessels in distress in an area the size of the British Isles - a swathe of water stretching from Tunisia to Crete. The dimensions of the challenge become clear when you realise that Malta has but two tiny Cessna spotter planes and a handful of small naval patrol boats at its disposal

With the annual clandestine invasion now in full swing, there are ever more boats to rescue. In recent days the Maltese Navy's been running a shuttle service, ferrying boatloads of African illegals to shore from their overcrowded, sinking dinghies. SAR 24/7. The EU has accused Malta of "violating its obligation to save lives at sea" after some immigrant boats the Maltese were aware of (but didn't assist) dropped off the radar. The Maltese, meanwhile, brand the deaths of African migrants "a European failure" because the EU hasn't delivered the boats and planes it's promised for a rapid response force in the southern Med. It's an unseemly spat given that people are dying at sea.

The argument is not so much about the Search and Rescue bit, but about what happens to the illegals once they've been searched for and rescued. As Malta's so tiny, it doesn¿t want to give a home to everyone rescued in its vast SAR zone. Unlike St Paul, who was shipwrecked in Malta and rewarded with patron sainthood, modern shipwreckees are unwelcome. Hence Malta's refusal to sign an amendment to international maritime law meaning that the nation that rescues becomes responsible for their fate. The Home Affairs Minister, Tonio Borg, told me that the 7,500 illegals who've landed over the past five years is, in per capita terms, the equivalent of 1.4 million arriving in Germany.

Then it dawned. I could single-handedly solve Malta's crisis. Pure inspiration. And so simple. I'd be made a Knight of St John. If Malta reduced the size of its ridiculously huge SAR zone, it wouldn't have so many immigrants. Turns out the SAR zone is a colonial hangover: when the island was under British rule, Whitehall wanted strategic uber-control of the Med and had a couple of Nimrods based out of Malta. A far cry from those two Cessnas. So, why don't the Maltesers just ask the Greeks and the Italians take more of the strain?

Sadly, no knighthood awaits. Malta has no desire to reduce its SAR zone because the maritime area corresponds exactly to the commercial airspace over which Malta's accountants preside. The over-flight fees rake in £5 million a year. For a small place, that's a fair whack of (almost) free money. Even after factoring in the cost of scooping thousands of half-dead Africans out of the water and keeping them banged up behind wire for 18 months, Malta's still healthily in the black, I'm informed. Obviously, the fewer who make it to the island, the more profitable it all becomes. I do hate to be cynical but, like me in Francisco's magnificent car, Malta, it appears, is just along for the ride

Photo Gallery

Euro resolution

MEPs voted to support Malta in adopting the euro on 1 January 2008. From the European Parliament website:

..They also adopted a resolution seeking a formal agreement with the Council and Commission to improve the way Parliament is consulted on future euro area enlargements. The EU summit will take a political decision on the two countries' applications this week, then the ECOFIN Council will makes its formal decision on the legislation on 10 July.

While there was overwhelming support for the applications from Cyprus (585 in favour, 14 against, 90 abstentions) and Malta (610 in favour, 12 against, 74 abstentions), MEPs were concerned that the timetable they were being asked to follow in adopting their opinion was too short. To avoid this happening in future, they adopted - by 552 votes in favour to 37 against and 43 abstentions - a separate resolution urging the Commission and Council to come to a formal inter-institutional agreement with Parliament with a view to ensuring MEPs have at least two months to consider proposals to enlarge the euro area..

While Parliament's opinions on euro area enlargement are only advisory, the Council cannot take its formal decision until MEPs have adopted their resolution. EU leaders are set to make the political decision on Cyprus and Malta at their summit this week, with the necessary legislation being adopted by Finance Ministers at the 10 July meeting of the ECOFIN Council.

The main criteria set out in the treaty for entering the euro area are to have appropriately adapted all the relevant national legislation and to be in line with the convergence criteria covering inflation, national debt, budget deficits and interest rates. The applicant’s currency should also have been in the Exchange Rate Mechanism II for over two years.

Station to nowhere

Malta offers a way station to nowhere, writes Jennifer Carlile in MSNBC:

A migrant flood has overwhelmed the tiny sun-splashed island nation of Malta over the past five years, stirring charges of human-rights violations, taxing the nation’s tiny navy and fueling xenophobia. The rocky archipelago, about 55 miles off the coast of Sicily, is best known as a tourist destination. But the start of summer brings mostly African migrants, crossing the Mediterranean in rickety overcrowded boats, on their way to seeking a better life in Europe. Boatloads appear almost daily. "All of a sudden we saw quite a phenomenon; hundreds and hundreds of migrants started appearing in our waters," said Lt. Col. Emmanuel Mallia, the officer in charge of Malta's air, land and sea operations...Escape from the island is near impossible. "Malta's a stone in the sea," said Somali immigrant Mohammed Abdullahi Hassan, who has dreams of living elsewhere in Europe or even the United States..

Further fueling tensions are worries that terrorists could use Malta as a jumping-off point for attacks in Europe. In April, it was reported that a Libyan terrorist arrested in Britain made it from Malta to the United Kingdom in 2002 after paying smugglers 2,000 British pounds ($3,977). The man, identified as "AS" is "an Islamic extremist who has engaged actively and as a senior member with a terrorist group clearly engaged in support work for jihadist activities," wrote Britain's Special Immigration Appeals Commission, adding that his cell was probably about to go into the operational stage of an attack in Europe.

Immigrants “are heading for Europe because it’s like the American dream; they’re just taking advantage of us,” said Martin Degiorgio, spokesperson for the Republican National Alliance, adding that even genuine refugees could have opted to go to other African countries. If migrants can’t be repatriated, “we cannot allow them out of (closed) detention centers,” said Degiorgio, whose license plate reads “DVX”, which is Latin for “Duce,” the title adopted by Italy's World War II fascist leader Benito Mussolini...

More from MSNBC: ‘We can't go forward and we can't go back’- Hundreds of migrants live communally in a field near Malta's main airport; From Deutsche Welle: Human Rights Groups Slam EU Migration Policies.

Let's make a Maltese cross

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker discusses an article by Roland Rudd:

"Surely you don't want to be run by Malta?" was the headline over a piece in The Daily Telegraph last week. Some of us sad followers of the more arcane details of EU politics assumed that this was a long overdue attack on the fact that Britain's fishing waters, once the richest in the world, are now run by a gentleman from Malta called Joe Borg.

When I met Mr Borg as Malta's foreign minister in 1999, I little thought that this dim little apparatchik would one day, as the EU's fisheries commissioner, exercise more power over our fishing waters and our near-defunct fishing industry than any minister in Britain. But, alas, the Telegraph article, by the chairman of Business for New Europe, was not concerned with the realities of how we are already "run by Malta". It was merely endorsing the EU constitution's proposal that the EU should put an end to the farce of its six-monthly "rotating presidency" and, like any self-respecting state, be given a permanent president. But only, presumably, so long as he is not Maltese.

How to run Europe

Surely we don't want to be run by Malta, writes Roland Rudd, the founding chairman of Business for New Europe:

If you want an analogy that illustrates one particularly odd element of the EU, consider what it would be like to have a rotating editorship of The Daily Telegraph. It would change every six months, to allow all the paper's journalists a shot at the top job. And while we are playing at equality, let's ensure the paper does not take a clear line on any big foreign issue of the day, and instead gives the title of foreign editor to anyone who wants it. "Not a good way to run a newspaper," I hear you say. And how right you are. Nor is it a blueprint to run a company, or any organisation, including the EU. So why are plans to end such an anachronism, by having a full-time president, being met with howls of protests? Is not an elected presidency (renewable every 30 months) preferable to a six-month rotating one between all member states?

Take Malta. I am a great fan of the place, and spent many happy summers there as a child, but I am left wondering what the island state can achieve in its half-year presidency. The same goes for many of the smaller member states. There is even a limit to what the large member states, such as Britain, can achieve for the EU in a mere six months. And while it has no foreign policy representative, the EU will lack the clarity of thought and purpose to influence world opinion at a time when confidence in American foreign policy is at an all-time low. The argument against these proposals is fairly prosaic. Out comes the Euro-sceptics' canard that it would transfer power to Brussels and must therefore be vehemently opposed. It was the same when Margaret Thatcher signed up to the Single European Act (1986), and more markedly when John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty (1992).

Another thin end of the wedge argument is that, if you allow these changes to go forward, who knows where it will end? In fact, the Euro-sceptics do say where it will end: in a European super-state. To be fair to them, the last time changes were being proposed to the way the EU is run, it was as part of a new constitution that contained some things which many agree were superfluous and unwarranted - the charter of fundamental rights (which carried a danger of jeopardising Britain's labour market) - and other things that smacked of empire-building - such as a new European flag and anthem. Another proposal that raised anxiety levels was the idea of the constitution replacing all existing EU treaties.

This time, the proposed changes to the constitution are likely to be contained in a treaty focused on simplifying and streamlining the decision-making process in a union that has grown to 27 member states and clearly needs to update its institutions and procedures to reflect its size. A better voting structure for example, called double-majority voting, would make voting weights in the European Council proportionate to population. This would allow a measure to pass if 55 per cent of member states voted for it, provided they represented 65 per cent of the EU's population. The effect would be to rebalance the voting weights, so that larger states were fairly represented. Those who call for Britain to exert greater influence in the EU will be reassured by an increase in voting weight of 45 per cent from the present position...

Strangest Souvenir

'Missionary by trade, world traveler by default', blogger Jamie Fehr narrates a story of how he was enticed to get a membership card to a casino in Malta:

..I was in Malta for top secret missionary business and while there I realized that I might like to buy something. To do that, a prerequisite is money, Maltese money to be exact. So I inquired at the front desk of the hotel in which I was staying as to where I might find an ATM, and they told me that I could find one in the casino, which was down at the end of some long shady hallway. I went for a walk (the truth is that I was accompanied by several friends/coworkers but for the intents and purposes of this story as I relate it to you, I acted alone) and when I finally arrived at the casinos hotel entrance, I asked the lady at that desk where I might be able to find an ATM, and she also informed me that it was IN the casino and that I couldn’t get to it unless I was a casino member.

So I asked her if membership costs money, she said no and proceeded to very quickly make me a membership and about 30 seconds later, I had a membership card and was in the casino scouting for this ATM that was supposedly IN the casino. When I couldn’t find it I asked a guy at a roulette table where it might be, and he told me it was located in the casino main entrance. I went to the main entrance, and still didn’t see this phantom ATM. So I asked the lady that was working that desk and she told me it was just out the door and a few steps up the street. I followed her directions and sure enough, there it was, fully accessible to the general public. I don’t really wonder why I was repeatedly told that it was IN the casino, but I really wished the staff of the Dolmen Hotel could have been up-front with me.

'Special difficulty'

During a visit to Malta, EC President Barroso urged EU states to help Malta on immigration, from EUBusiness:

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday he recognised the "special difficulty" Malta faced from illegal immigration and said member states must help it tackle the problem. "They must put the principle of solidarity into action by providing help to Malta and other member states in managing the influx of illegal immigrants," he told Malta's parliament. The island EU nation, with a population of around 400,000, has rescued some 7,000 people in waters off its coast in the last five years, with scores picked up -- some clinging to tuna farm cages, others dead -- in May alone.

Barroso heard pleas from Malta's government and opposition for EU help with the problem, with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi saying that "last summer more died crossing the Mediterranean than in the Lebanon conflict." The EU Commission president described these events as a "human tragedy for desperate people who are ruthlessly and unforgiveably exploited", and acknowledged the difficulties Malta faced. Many people in the rest of Europe were "simply unaware that the search and rescue area and jurisdiction of Malta is larger than the land mass of the United Kingdom, clearly disproportionate to its resources," he said..

Migration would be a central theme of the EU-Africa summit later this year, he added, and the EU Commission would draw up practical guidelines for managing Europe's external border, covering search and rescue operations. "The commission cannot solve all the problems, not least (because) we don't have boats or planes. But I recognise that more should be done, especially by member states," Barroso said. "Member states have planes, member states have boats, have resources which they can put at the disposal of a member state that has special difficulty. Some political resistance is yet to be overcome." ...

Pakistan ties

Pakistan and Malta agreed to continue ongoing cooperation at international forums, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan:

Pakistan and Malta Wednesday agreed to continue the ongoing cooperation between the two countries in the United Nations and other international forums as well.This was observed in a meeting of Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri and Foreign Minister of Malta Dr. Michael Frendo here. The two foreign ministers reviewed bilateral ties with a view to strengthening relations between Pakistan and Malta in all spheres, especially trade and investment.

Foreign Minister Kasuri emphasized the need for exchanging trade delegations to exploit true potential for enhancing economic cooperation between the two countries, which are the "gateways" to their respective regions. Dr. Michael Frendo agreed to send an expert delegation to Pakistan to seek opportunities for enhancing bilateral trade relations. Foreign Minister Kasuri sought Malta's support for Pakistan's initiative for equitable market access to the European Union through a Free Trade Agreement or similar mechanism...

French Malta

Politique, a blog about French politics from a french perspective, comments on how President Sarkozy featured temporarily in the Malta tourism website:

When I first wrote about Sarkozy's visit to Malta immediately following his presidential victory, I mistakenly referred to it as the "French island of Malta," when it is of course its own sovereign republic. Perhaps no longer. Today the top of the official Malta Tourism Office website has a prominent picture of Sarkozy, saying proudly: "Like Monsieur President of the Republic, come to recharge at Malta!" All the more reason to... Update: Apparently (and unfortunately) this ad campaign was retired Tuesday morning, Le Figaro details.

Solidarity mechanisms

EU unlikely to meet Malta's call for help with illegal migration, from The Earth Times:

European Union countries are unlikely to meet Malta's call for more solidarity in dealing with illegal immigrants and refugees, EU diplomats said Monday. While member states had discussed the issue of burden-sharing in illegal migration for more than 15 years, "so far, physical burden- sharing has not happened," EU diplomats said. Faced with daily boatloads of mainly African migrants, tiny Malta has suggested that the EU set up a solidarity mechanism under which member states would have to admit a number of would-be immigrants in proportion with that EU country's national population.

However, EU diplomats hinted that the bloc's governments were unlikely to agree on such a scheme as the issue already had been under discussion since the mid 1990s, when the EU saw an influx of refugees following the conflicts in former Yugoslavia. Germany was then in the frontline, admitting more than 500,000 refugees from the Balkan states, EU diplomats said. At the time, EU governments even disagreed on giving financial support to frontline member states, diplomats said, adding that governments could also refuse to make money available for Malta.

EU interior ministers are due to discuss Malta's appeal for more solidarity between the EU's 27 member states following a recent series of refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. EU officials have accused Maltese authorities of failing to meet their international duties to save lives by refusing to admit migrants rescued by vessels outside its search and rescue area. Officials in Malta deny they have ever left migrants at sea in distress. Last week, 27 shipwrecked Africans spent three days clinging to tuna nets in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them. Italian navy forces eventually picked them up...

BBC News: Malta wants EU help; International Herald Tribune: EU Nations refuse to split up refugee burden.

Energy prospects

In the third part of a series of articles, former foreign minister Alex Sceberras Trigona explores the world of oil exploration and electoral campaigning. From The Times:

The same governmental silence prevailing over what is happening to the licences, granted in the North and East of Malta to MedOil and to Global/RWE respectively, also shrouds what is happening to the licences south of Malta...All pointers therefore suggest preparations for a huge public relations exercise during the forthcoming electoral campaign, instead of securing firm commitments. One wonders, after all, whether MedOil could have got away without "dropping" its licence by adopting similar diplomatic wording with a "farm-in operator"!

It might be far better for Malta's bargaining strength to sub-divide existing blocks into Malta-sized plots. Over the past three decades the United Kingdom, Norway and Denmark have all been granting licences on plots of 100 square kilometres each, thus Global's area would have been subdivided into 30 plots and MOG's into 50 plots. Especially now that much more geological information has been accumulated by the government over nearly 50 years of exploration, licencees may be given the right to choose where to drill a first well, but relinquishment of the rest of the block or blocks cannot be as slow as envisaged under the present relinquishment terms. It should aim to be simultaneous with production. Why should a licencee having a number of blocks keep the rest of, say, 5,000 square kilometres of Malta's continental shelf "frozen" while only one singular solitary drill is in production?..

..Above all else, Maltese youth must be much better prepared to handle oil matters. This is advisable not only to administer our own oil fields better but because we could again be in a position to offer petroleum servicing to neighbouring Libya as we used to do in the 1970s and 1980s. When I was councillor of the American University of Cairo (AUC) our Wardija branch was then a most sought after post-graduate school in petroleum studies. Malta needs re-establishing a Petroleum Studies Centre to train petroleum engineers, petroleum accountants, petroleum geologists, petroleum diplomats and petroleum lawyers. Whether this will be done by the government directly or through the University, without partners or with a foreign university or universities in a joint venture, it must be done immediately. Time is of the essence.

Read Dr Sceberras Trigona's complete series of 3 articles (pdf) - Malta's Energy Prospects(1); Malta's Energy Prospects(2); Malta's Energy Prospects(3).

Thoroughbreds

Steve Attard believes Saskawea could give him first win in major race, Kevin McGran writes in The Toronto Star:

Steve Attard would never let his kids do what he did: quit school at 14 to work full-time at the racetrack. "I'm not happy about it now; I would rather have an education, too," the trainer said. "That's why my two daughters (Leta and Sarah), they're both at Queen's University in Kingston and make sure they stay away from the racetrack." It's a different story for Attard and his wife Sharon, who doubles as assistant trainer. Neither could stay away from the racetrack. They come from a different era and Steve, in particular, from a family nuts about horse

One uncle is hall of fame jockey Larry Attard. His two uncles, Sid and Tino, both trainers, will have horses in the Queen's Plate at the end of the month. Cousins Paul and Kevin are also trainers. Both Sid and Tino Attard have won the Oaks, Canada's premier race for 3-year-old fillies. Now Steve figures it's time to make his mark with Saskawea today in the $500,000 race at Woodbine. A victory would be the biggest in 20 years on his own as a trainer.

Attard remembers the day he confronted his parents and told them to sign off with the principal to let him out of school or he'd skip off and do it himself. His parents, immigrants from Malta, weren't happy. But they came from a horse background. His father, Joe, was a steelworker who helped build the Gardiner Expressway. He bought a quarter horse and eventually would have some success racing thoroughbreds at Woodbine, saddling speedster Parisianprospector, a stakes winner of $559,000 and My Imperial. "He brought everybody from Malta over," Steve Attard said. "They lived with us, worked with us. We all worked together and everybody became a trainer. "It was all in the family."...

Mini-breaks

MPs take wives on mini-breaks to the sun...and taxpayer foots bill, by Jonathan Oliver in The Daily Mail:

MPs are enjoying taxpayer-funded "mini-breaks" to European capitals accompanied by their spouses in an extraordinary Commons expenses scam. The Mail on Sunday can today reveal how politicians exploit a loophole that allows them to take foreign excursions anywhere in the European Union – and then claim back the costs from Westminster authorities. Using an obscure rule introduced in the late Nineties, MPs are allowed to make up to three trips each year to mainland Europe to learn about the inner workings of the EU.

But the system is now open to widespread abuse, as politicians use official meetings lasting only a few minutes to justify the cost and reason behind their visit. Two former MPs have now blown the whistle on the abuse, where MPs are reimbursed for club-class return air fares and "subsistence" costs of up to £200 a day. One ex-Labour backbencher, who asked not be named, said: "It was normal practice. I went to Cyprus and of course everyone went to Malta to chase the sun." ..

..The second former MP recalled: "We went to Malta one February in search of warmth and it was the coldest winter in 50 years. We met the High Commissioner for an hour or so but that was it. "A particular high spot was four days in Cyprus when the briefing consisted of a ten-minute phone call with a High Commission official and no meetings at all. In Bucharest in Romania a winery tour was arranged."...

No holding camp

Malta says it will not be EU's migrant holding camp, from Reuters Africa:

Malta, which has been harshly criticised by the European Union over its handling of shipwrecked migrants, will tell the EU it will not be made a holding camp for people trying to get to Europe illegally. Foreign Minister Michael Frendo said the tiny Mediterranean island state will ask the other 26 EU member countries to take a share of migrants rescued at sea outside Maltese waters as they try to cross the sea from Africa. "The responsibility is of the whole EU," Frendo told Reuters by telephone. "I would not accept that Malta should be the holding place for the whole of Europe."

The EU's top official in charge of migration issues, Franco Frattini, told an Italian newspaper at the weekend that Malta had violated its obligation to save lives at sea when it hesitated in picking up shipwrecked migrants that Malta said were in Libyan waters. "You can't hide behind a type of legal-bureaucratic argument while letting people die," Frattini said. But he acknowledged Malta faced unique problems, being positioned between the southern tip of Italy and the north African coast and being so small...

EUObserver: European failure

Clusters

SmartCity Malta to draw from experience of Dubai's knowledge-based industry clusters, from AME info:

SmartCity Malta, a new knowledge-based industry cluster that is being developed by SmartCity in Malta, will draw from the experience and expertise of Dubai's successful knowledge-based industry clusters like Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City, said Fareed Abdulrahman, Executive Director of SmartCity in Dubai.

Speaking at a workshop on the topic, 'Malta - Your ideal business partner in the Mediterranean' organized by the Consulate General of Malta and the Malta Trade Centre, Dubai in collaboration with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Abdulrahman said: 'We will be bringing to SmartCity Malta several concepts that have been successful in Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City.'

In April this year, SmartCity, a joint venture between TECOM Investments and Sama Dubai, both Dubai Holding companies, signed an agreement with the government of Malta to develop SmartCity Malta, a new knowledge-based industry cluster that will create a new hub of ICT and media excellence in the heart of the Mediterranean region. SmartCity's objective is to build a global network of industry clusters based on the models of DIC and DMC. SmartCity Kochi, in the south Indian state of Kerala, joined SmartCity Malta as the second project in SmartCity's global network, following an agreement signed last month.

Abdulrahman said that one of the concepts successful in DIC and DMC that will be implemented in SmartCity Malta is the one-stop-shop. 'The idea behind this concept is to help businesses eliminate the bureaucratic hassles in setting up a company so that they can stay focused on their core competencies...

No Mediterranean policing

Malta 'lashes out at EU migration policies', Dan Bilefsky reports for The International Herald Tribune:

Malta's foreign minister lashed out Monday at what he called the European Union's incoherent migration policies, saying that his tiny island nation was being asked to take in migrants for whom it is not legally responsible. Last week, 27 shipwrecked Africans said they spent three days clinging to the tuna nets of a vessel in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them. The incident prompted a sharp rebuke from Franco Frattini, the EU commissioner in charge of migration issues, who on Sunday accused Malta of hiding behind bureaucratic arguments while lives were being put at risk.

The criticism was echoed by the Council of Europe, a pan-European body that works to promote human rights, which called on the Maltese authorities "to soften their stance on providing assistance to irregular migrants whose lives are in danger." But the Maltese foreign minister, Michael Frendo, retorted that the African refugees had spent only a day clinging to the tuna nets. He said Malta was not responsible under international law to take in the migrants since they were in the search-and-rescue area of Libya. He stressed that Malta had received assurances from Libya that it would rescue the migrants, who were eventually picked up by the Italian Navy. "If the European Commission is sincere in its indignation, then it should push other EU countries to share the burden," he said. "Malta cannot become a holding area for all of Europe."

More international reports; Reuters: Not a policeman of the Mediterranean; Malta under fire; Army chief attacks Frattini

Saint George

Pope turns Maltese priest into Saint George, Nick Pisa writes in The Telegraph:

The Pope canonised a Maltese priest yesterday who has been credited with the miracle recovery of a boy who was suffering from a terminal liver disease. Eric Catania was just a few weeks old when doctors diagnosed a severe liver malfunction and his only hope of survival was considered to be a transplant. But as time went on, no suitable donor was found and Eric's condition began to deteriorate rapidly. As a last resort, his Roman Catholic parents prayed to Father George Preca, a priest revered for his holiness in the island of Malta where the family lives..

The Pope told a crowd of 40,000 faithful: "A friend of Jesus and a witness of the sanctity that comes from him was George Preca. "He was a dedicated priest, from his preaching to his spiritual guidance to his administration of the Sacraments and above all through the example of his life." Referring to all the newly created saints, he said: "Let us be attracted by their example, let us be guided by their teachings." Investigations into the elevation of Father George ended in June 2004 after 38 medical and theological experts had given evidence. The documents were sent to Rome where six months later the Congregation for the Causes of Saints agreed that the case was valid...

More stories here

Responsibilities

The TMIS editorial contrasts the Preca canonisation ceremony at the Vatican with the way "Malta’s name has been shamed all over the civilised world this past week". It questions why we seem to find it so difficult to think outside the legal box. Meanwhile, The IHT reports that an EU immigration official has criticized Malta for failing to meet its international responsibilities to save lives at sea:

..Commissioner Franco Frattini, in charge of migration issues, said he wanted a formal undertaking from the island at a meeting of EU interior ministers on June 11 that it would not allow such an incident to take place again. "The obligation to save lives at sea comes from international tradition that no country has ever violated in such a manifest way," Frattini told La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper. Last week, 27 shipwrecked Africans spent three days clinging to tuna nets in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them. They were eventually picked up by the Italian Navy.

A French Navy ship found 18 bodies floating south of Malta on Friday just days after the Maltese authorities said they had lost contact with a boat that was photographed carrying 53 African migrants. The frigate, La Motte-Piquet, was due Sunday to dock in the French port of Toulon and be met by the French immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux.

Malta refused to allow a Spanish tugboat to land another 26 would-be migrants on the grounds that they were picked up in seas that fall under Libya's responsibility. Spain decided to take them in. Malta argues it is not obliged under international law to take in migrants if they are in Libya's search and rescue area, but Frattini accused the country, one of the EU's newest and smallest members, of ignoring its responsibilities. "You can't hide behind a type of legal-bureaucratic argument while letting people die," Frattini said. Frattini said the EU was providing help, including a marine patrol force around Malta, Sicily and Libya to be launched later this month, and Malta had to do its part in return.

The Council of Europe, a pan-European body that works to promote human rights, also criticized the Valletta government. The council's human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, said his office would "urge the Maltese authorities to soften their stance on providing assistance to irregular migrants whose lives are in danger." A Maltese patrol boat recovered 29 migrants Saturday from a boat drifting 135 kilometers, or 84 miles, off the island's coast. On Friday, the Maltese home affairs minister, Tonio Borg, told The Times, a Maltese newspaper, that the island was doing all it could...

More immigrants landed

The second Saint Paul

The canonisation ceremony for Dun Gorg Preca was extensively reported in the Maltese media. From MaltaMediaNews:

"San Gorg is the first saint of your sweet island. He is your second father after St. Paul," Pope Benedict XVI said at the end of the Sunday mass which led to the canonisation of Dun Gorg Preca. The bad weather did not keep thousands from flocking to Peter's Square to participate in the two-hour long function led by Pope Benedict XVI. However it is estimated that approximately 20,000 pilgrims made it to the Square in contrast to the 30,000 tickets which were given out. Five thousand Maltese pilgrims attended Dun Ġorġ Preca's canonisation ceremony at the Vatican.

The thousands of Maltese soaked in the rain in St. Peter?s Square cheered every time the name of Gorg Preca was mentioned during the celebration. Some of them waved Maltese flags...In his homily, Pope Benedict XVI asked San Gorg to help both the Maltese and international Church be the faithful echo of Christ. The offertory on behalf of the Maltese was presented by the two MUSEUM Superior Generals and Amadeo Preca, a relative of San Gorg Preca..

Maltese living in Brussels and Luxembourg joined other pilgrims in Rome. Local airline company Air Malta carried out extra flights to meet the increased demand for the Maltese pilgrims traveling to Rome for the canonisation ceremony on Saturday. Organisers emphasized that the garments; a package including a cap, scarf, badge and booklet must be worn during the function so that Maltese and Gozitan pilgrims could be distinguished from others of other nations. Maltese pilgrims attended a prayer vigil on Saturday 2nd June which was held at Basilica Sta Maria Maggiore in Rome...

Killing Mintoff

Washington DC journalist Wayne Madsen tells of a plot to kill former prime minister Dom Mintoff:

..Agca told a fantasy story about his orders to kill the Pope coming from a Bulgarian "control officer" and that he had also been involved in a plot to kill Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, and Malta's Prime Minister Dom Mintoff. In fact, there was a plot to overthrow and possibly kill Mintoff, Allende-style, but it was being crafted by U.S. Navy intelligence in conjunction with the neo-fascist and renegade Italian intelligence elements in Rome. The U.S. Navy wanted to overthrow Mintoff to gain access to its former NATO base on the island nation off the Libyan coast. Bourguiba was not popular with the neo-cons because he allowed Yasir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization to maintain its headquarters-in-exile in Tunis...

Gender inequality

Malta clashes with Council of Europe over 'gender inequality'...All is not well between the island and the Council of Europe, reports The Daily Mail:

The Maltese government has clashed with the Council of Europe by shortlisting three male judges for European Court nominations even though the Council said one must be a woman. Member states of the Council, a pan-European organisation that aims to protect human rights, nominate three people, one of whom is chosen to sit at the European Court. Malta's present judge, a man, just turned 70 and will retire.

Last month a legal affairs committee of the Council of Europe proposed that one-gender short lists may be accepted in exceptional circumstances, but an Equal Opportunities Committee rejected the proposal. Malta's list, submitted last summer, contains its three most senior judges. The Maltese government said its female applicants were not competent enough for the post and the Council of Europe rejected the list in March.

The Equal Opportunities Committee said Malta's explanation was insufficient, and that Malta had several competent female judges and magistrates in its judiciary. "The true impediment to including a qualified woman candidate on the list submitted by Malta appears not to be a lack of qualified female candidates but a lack of respect for the principle of gender equality," the committee was quoted as saying by the Times of Malta newspaper.

Maltese Justice Minister Tonio Borg rejected the claim, telling the paper: "That's not true. I repeat, it is not true." He said the Mediterranean island's list could not be rejected on grounds of gender and Malta would ask the Council's Committee of Ministers to send the matter to the European Court. Legal experts said that while a judge in Malta needs to have practiced law for 12 years, there is no such requirement to sit on the bench in the European Court. Borg said he did not rule out nominating someone for having fewer years of experience, but he felt European Court judges should have as much experience as those in Malta, since they can overrule the Maltese courts.