Category: Mediawatch

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Flogging passports

It (supposedly) takes quite some time to draft a legal notice and amendments to the Citizenship Act setting up a scheme to sell citizenship – Identity Malta. I am sure that somebody in the Taghna Lkoll government did not hit upon this halfwit idea while perusing through a September edition of the Economist. (Click here: If Austria and Cyprus can do it then why can’t we?). The Draft Legal Notice in question has already been uploaded through the Running Commentary network and we will oblige by adding a link here (out of courtesy of course). So what could have prompted Muscat and his crew to decide that it is a good idea to start selling the Maltese passport like it was some gourmet pastizz for the rich and famous?

The gist of the Economist article linked above could already point you in the right direction as to what kind of clients one can expect when one sets up shop in the market for readily available EU documents (just add cash).

“One category of applicants consists of rich people from emerging economies seeking convenience and security. Many are Chinese, though since the Arab spring demand is growing from the Middle East. A second is made up of citizens of rich countries who wish to disguise their origins when visiting dangerous places.” – Selling citizenship, Papers Please (The Economist, 28th September 2013).

We’ve all heard of people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. That kind of client would not really be in the market for an EU passport that comes tied so easily with national obligations such as the European Arrest Warrant. No sir. The market is out there for people who are rich enough to want to get a foothold into the EU – an EU passport that allows them to roam around the continent and act as EU nationals. The nouveau riches of this world – from Moscow to Guangdong would jump at the opportunity of being considered an EU citizen and this for what they would consider a handful of pennies.

So while we already know that our government is willing to sell a hold in our energy company for a pittance (yep, two Gareth Bales remember) and that the real push behind that memorandum of misunderstanding is the foothold that a Chinese company gets in the European market (see That China Connection) we now discover that the prostitution of national assets does not stop there. This latest move must not only be put in the light of recent events though – it jars even when you look at it from a wider picture and here are a few conclusions that this blog has reached:

1) An EU passport is a good thing to have – part I

For a party that spends most of its time denigrating the EU and speaking of it in the third person plural while emphasising the “Us” vs “them” scenarios this is one hell of a giant step: it is recognising the value of having an EU passport. It actually put a price on it. 650,000 euros and Joe’s your uncle. Would the Labour party have recognised the worth of EU citizenship a decade ago we’d surely be in a much better place – there would be so many more Maltese voters who are not afflicted by a sudden bout of Tourette’s whenever the good old continental grouping is mentioned.

2) An EU passport is a good thing to have – part II

So, having sussed out that there is something advantageous about owning a passe par tout l’EU thingy in hand what do the great thinkers in the Taghna Lkoll fold do? They opt to debase it and sell it to people with cash searching for a convenient base. Mind you it’s not like we did not have similar schemes aimed at attracting fat ducks before – we never gave them a passport though. Even our permanent resident scheme ran into quite a bit of controversy (as did the High Net Worth Individual scheme). Those schemes had an added value that the amount that a person seeking residence needed to invest went to a property owner in Malta – not as a cash payment to the government of Malta. So who are we really in the market for? you’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see this one coming. Għami iżraq as we say in the vernacular.

3) Suddenly we’re not so full up and outnumbered

Not that this probably matters in the Taghna Lkoll Cosmic View of things but here have a government that has been weeping at every available opportunity that our country cannot deal with the influx of more immigrants that we are inundated and that we are practically the victims and nobody will help us. That same government is now setting up shop selling citizenship, yes, selling citizenship to anyone who can afford it. I thought that the Italian government’s token move of awarding citizenship posthumously to the victims of the Lampedusa tragedy was tragicomic but this… well this one takes the cake. There is no shame, no pride either in this Taghna Lkoll government. The way it flings itself from one inconsistency to another while barking at whoever criticises it with feeble excuses based on illogical fallacies is beyond pathetic.

4) Taghna Lkoll?

I saved the best for last. This scheme is yet another dagger in the whole Taghna Lkoll farce. Let us imagine that Malta was one big cake (I know that between iced buns and free for alls Taghna Lkollytes will quickly take to the metaphor) and that Joseph Muscat’s hullabaloo before the election was all about how this cake was for all of us to share rightly and equitably. Let us think for one minute how, always basing ourselves on Labour’s protestations before the election, this cake was half-baked and barely had enough to provide for us all. What has our prime confectioner gone and done? Well, while the cake has not got any larger he has decided to invite guests over to stay and join la grande abbuffata. Yes sir. It’s officially Tagħhom Ukoll now without so much as a bye your leave. But they are rich I hear you say… they pay money…. sure and they will be queuing for those free health services, those free allowances and buying the same property to which every other Maltese national is entitled.

Small ideas for small minds. I guess that really sums it up.

UPDATE

Early feedback to this post shows that there might be more to it than just a Taghna Lkoll ploy. Henley, the firm mentioned in the Economist report might have an interest that goes further back than March of this year.

A pre-Taghna Lkoll conference in Dubai discusses Global Residence & Citizenship Schemes (with Maltese participants).

Reuters on Henley.

 

Categories
Mediawatch Transport

Case Closed

F**k “tu quoque“, Muscat has resorted to an all new tactic straight out of the immense book of playground logic. The idea of claiming that whatever bad his party in government was doing had already been done by the nationalist party in government was beginning to run thin. So just before “talk to the hand ‘coz the face ain’t listening” and “sticks and stones won’t break my bones” he has taken up another of the playground greats: “I’m not playing”. This, mind you, from a man who sits as the Prime Minister of a supposèd democratic republic.

The latest hissy fit comes in the context of RefaloGate. Interviewed by the Times Muscat stated categorically that as far as he was concerned the case was closed.  Muscat is obviously labouring under the illusion that quod Muscat dixit veritatis habet rigorem – anything that he says is automatically true or right because he says it. So he fobs off the journalist de tour by telling him (1) Refalo acted in accordance with Gozo Channel policy, (2) therefore for Joseph Muscat the case is closed.

Thankfully the Times does not stop there. It does point out that “Speaking to Times of Malta on condition of anonymity, various Gozo Channel employees denied such a policy existed. In practice, it always used to send one of its ferries relieved from the shuttle service empty to dock for the night at Mġarr.”

Somehow the contrasting versions, the foot shuffling and the inability of Anton Refalo to give a clear answer to any question make me more inclined to believe the anonymous Gozo Channel employees. As for Muscat, his latest tactic reminds me of the kid at school who brought the ball for footie during the break. The moment his side was losing or the moment he contested a hot decision he would pick the ball place it under his arms and walk off huffing and puffing. “The game is over”.

Sadly for Muscat this is not a playground and politics is not about his personal football. The case is far from closed, it remains an open sore that will continue to fester and remind the people that “Taghna Lkoll” was nothing but words…. small ideas for small people.

Categories
Mediawatch

Your bus is on fire

Yesterdays Indy had an article about an “Arriva-like” bus that caught fire in the Land Hesse in Germany. It got me thinking a little about these Mercedes Citaro buses and all the problems they have faced: not just in Malta but also in the UK and Germany to mention but a few. You may probably have heard of the Boeing Dreamliner’s issues (the 787) that forced most of the newly launched planes to be grounded. That is the way to go normally – it’s not the first time we have heard of a major car company calling back a particular model due to its defective nature being dangerous to users.

So why does the Mercedes-Citaro model (not sure if more specification is needed here) not get called back too? The more we hear about buses catching fire or stalling the more I wonder whether we are not all too eager to rush to blame the planning and the purchasing (which was atrocious of course) and whether we forget that there is a manufacturer that should to a certain extent be made responsible for certain shortcomings.

In other words while the planning and introduction of the Arriva service was definitely just a few steps short of a cosmic failure this should not overshadow the fact that the problem with these buses (aside from the ridiculous idea of putting behemoths on Malta’s tiny roads) is also something technical that should be traced back to the maker.

That, if nothing else, should justify the reasonable grounding of a large part of Arriva’s fleet until a solution to these spontaneous combustions is found.

Categories
Mediawatch Politics

Where’s the plague when you need it?

It’s become too much of a cliché for people like us to yell “A plague on both your houses” at the PLPN and all they represent. The first line of defence is always that your repetition of the PLPN mantra is an obsession. Hand on heart however, how many can sincerely say that this is not the era of the proverbial fecal matter hitting the rotating device. We’re knee deep in doo-doo and the rot is only obscured from the man-in-the-street’s eyes because he is high on a double dose of “Taghna Lkoll” pills and post-trouncing of the nasty PN euphoria.

Here at J’accuse I should be popping champagne bottles and rejoicing that our warnings of a dire future that would be caused by this obsession with a race to mediocrity have been (are in still in the process of being) proven right. Naysayers will chime in with that ever so wonderful chorus – “Sure but we had not alternative other than to vote in more of the same”. Right. It’s not like observations such as those that often were to be found in the posts on this blog were only directed at the creation of a credible third alternative. No, they were and are also directed at the fact that as a nation of supposed discerning voters we stop enabling the farce and the circus that are the Nationalist and Labour parties.

What did we do instead? We immersed ourselves in this delectable Maltese version of the war of the roses and threw all caution to the wind. Seven months of Labour and what do we have as a result? In your face appointments that defy reason, unshamefaced cavorting with people of questionable history and the selling out of the nation as an outpost to (parts of) the Chinese behemoth. Elsewhere these ugly warts of Labour’s je ne sais quoi are being dutifully exposed. Well done and more – though it took some people quite some time to notice that the Chinese deal is all about the PV market (Liang Mizzi’s appointment being only yet another unpleasant spin-off of the “già che ci siamo“) kind. Focusing just on one minister – take Anton “Minimum Wage” Refalo as a random example … opens up a pandora’s box of no nos that only serve to demonstrate Labour’s inability to conceive of what democratic representation and the rule of law is about.

Meanwhile Joseph Muscat has turned into photo-op PM hoofing around the world trying to get his not so attractive mug in as many photo shoots as possible. When he is not giving lessons to the United Nations as to how to notice that the REAL sufferers in world immigration are the Maltese he is teaching the United States the secrets of Malta’s economic success (So we are successful now?) to FOX news journalists. Back home his cabinet is engaged in a free for all that makes a herd of pigs battling at a trough look like a silver service  dinner at the Ritz.

The opposition is lost in its own thoughts but is increasingly sending out signals that all is not too well and settled in its house. This blog has already voiced its opinion as to what the early steps in the rebuilding of the PN should be so we will not go there again. As far as we concerned the real measure of the EU Parliament campaign for the PN will not be so much how well it fares vote wise but really how much of the old strategies (read vote driven) still survive. Will the candidates be chosen purely on their propensity to attract votes and their marketability (are we still in DJ’s and popular faces mode?) or will their be a block of political thinkers being pushed? I suspect the temptation to go along with the old fashioned “motley crew” is still very much what the PN is about. Tant pis. It will be a missed chance to inject real quality.

So yes, we are left with wishing a plague upon both their houses. There will not be of course and the population is entitled to dream that everything is fine and dandy for a while longer. That is until the sums are made and the result is not very much to their liking. Pleasures yet to come.

 

In un paese pieno di coglioni, ci mancano le palle. 

Categories
Mediawatch

Di che pasta sei fatto?

It appears now that Dario Fo has waded into the fold à proposi the raging controversy provoked by the comments of Barilla Chief Guido Barilla about the place of homosexuals in his company’s advertisements. Interviewed on a radio and asked whether the famous Barilla adverts could be “improved” by including reference to homosexual couples Barilla had categorically stated that there was no place for homosexuals in his company’s advertising.

Here is what Barilla had to say to La Zanzara (the programme where the interview took place):

La nostra è una famiglia classica dove la donna ha un ruolo fondamentale. Noi abbiamo un concetto differente rispetto alla famiglia gay. Per noi il concetto di famiglia sacrale rimane un valore fondamentale dell’azienda. (Ours is a classic family in which the woman plays a fundamental role. We have a different concept to that of a gay family. For us the concept of the “sacred” family remains a fundamental value for the company).

My first reaction was very much in the line of shock. Such words are the kind of words that should not be uttered because they reinforce certain attitudes and mentalities that are downright discriminatory. Yes, I too was affected by the initial shock value that was very obviously what the Zanzara interviewer wanted to obtain.

A few breaths and organisings of thoughts later though the source of my anger had shifted dramatically. This was after all an assault on a private entrepreneur’s right to advertise and sell his or her product as he best deems fit. Barilla have over the years built a type of advertising timbre based around the concept of the family. It’s a utopic ideal of a family – recognised by Italian sociologists as the “Mulino Bianco” Family. Mulino Bianco is in fact a trademark created to distinguish Barilla’s pasta from the non-pasta range of products. The idea of the Mulino Bianco Family was born in the early ’90s:

Agli inizi degli anni novanta la strategia comunicativa dell’azienda cambiò puntando sul “ritorno in campagna”. Nell’episodio iniziale del 1990 della Famiglia del Mulino, una famiglia media italiana, il padre Federico giornalista, la madre Giulia insegnante elementare, i due figli Andrea e Linda e il nonno, esprimono il desiderio di vivere nel verde e si trasferiscono in campagna. Sullo sfondo del mulino di Chiusdino, vennero ambientati una serie di episodi di vita quotidiana della famiglia. La Famiglia del Mulino assurse ben presto lo stereotipo della “famiglia perfetta” inserita in un luogo fiabesco. La pubblicità della Famiglia del Mulino andò avanti per tutta la prima metà degli anni Novanta.

In his open letter to Guido Barilla, nobel laureate Dario Fo is appealing to the company owner to “improve” the ads and catch up with the signs of times – reflect new attitudes to society and family. All well and good. It is a choice Barilla has and can make if it likes. Yet it is a choice. It cannot and should not be bullied into making it. Other companies like Ikea (and apparently now pasta rival Buitoni) will have hooked onto the possibility of attracting clients from other segments of the market (though I find it hard to see that a specialist “pasta-eating homosexual” consumer market existed before this fuss was kicked up and a boycott encouraged).

Guido Barilla may have committed a commercial hara kiri by stating that “gays can shop elsewhere” and he will have to pay the consequences for that. His opinions apart though one cannot but take stock of the collective bullying of one company simply because it opts not to include a new stereotype in its vision for selling its products. Had Barilla simply stated “We are happy enough with our advertising as it is thank you very much” would that have still provoked the ire of the internet? I’d like to think not.

The absurdity lies in the question originally put to Guido Barilla. Why the hell should I want to influence (or rather impose) a company as to how it advertises its products? What is all this rubbish about political correctness or (worse) being so easily offended. I do not see much of a difference between a muslim mother asking for a cross to be removed in a school and a gay lobby group insisting on Barilla having a gay-friendly advert. Where do we stop? Should I as a gluten-intolerant coeliac feel offended unless Barilla inserts a cameo role for the sad man at the table who is obliged to pass on the delicious looking plate of spaghetti pummarola because “Hey! I’m intolerant” (sad face and all?).

Just because the likes of Ikea think it is trendy to promote their products with new commercials thought up to be more gay friendly does not mean that other companies are obliged to follow suit. This is a huge fuss being kicked up for nothing (or at least for the not-so-carefully chosen words by Guido Barilla).

Just eat your bloody pasta e non scassate i coglioni.

 

Categories
Mediawatch

I know nothing

“I know nothing” can be quite an intelligent motto to carry around – particularly if it is as an expression of the Socratic paradox (scio me nescire). An appreciation of the limits of one’s knowledge is an important tool to carry about in life. Ignorance of the kind that is basically the mere absence of knowledge is a tool badly wielded. I am not sure whether feigned ignorance is any better either. At the end of the day “I know nothing” outside the comfort zone of the aforementioned Socratic paradox becomes a sort of Manuel-ish expression. Manuel as in the waiter from Barcelona.

Minister Chris Cardona and I were course colleagues and I would hate for him to fall under the category of ignorant advocates that our beloved faculty and university seem all too ready to produce nowadays. My worry is quite egoistic I admit though I am sure that Cardona’s latest flurry of denials of knowledge (a polite way of saying “proclamations of ignorance”) is probably based on the stressful nature of his post and the undeniably hard time he must be having catching up with all things commercial – what with his ever so unsuitable qualification as a lawyer.

So here he was faced by a Times’ journalist and posed with the question of whether something was not amiss with Malta Enterprise’s direct appointment of the wife of Energy Minister Mizzi to some post as an envoy for procurement of business from the Far East. Our modern day Lord MacCartney is none other than Sai Mizzi Liang the Chinese born wife of Minister Mizzi. Chris Cardona decided to faff through different phases that bordered between justification and denial:

1) I had no idea : “Don’t ask me I don’t know” was the gist, just before he proceeded to assume that ME (Malta Enterprise) needed a specialised person, that the recruitment system works in that manner and that ME picked out the person that best fitted what they deemed they needed.

2) How I think it should be done : Next Cardona gave us a lesson in opinion or “how I think it should be done”. Certain appointments should be made on the need that you have, he explains. Righto Mr. Minister but that is not legal is it? As in, it’s not why we have laws? Appointing people on the need that you feel you have is what, for want of a better word, an autocrat or a despot can do. For us mere democrats there’s boards and exams and calls for applications.

3) It’s always been like this : Inevitably this one had to be slipped in. Those nasty nationalists were apparently (or allegedly since Cardona was on a roll of assumptions there) doing the same thing in the past (really? How many Minister’s wives were appointed as envoys anywhere?). Far be it from me to look into evidence of the murky nationalist past – I don’t need to anyway. Aren’t we supposed to have a transparent and meritocratic government? Isn’t this the change they voted for? What rubbish.

4) The appointment was done in good faith: When facts fail you head for religion. We are to take the Minister’s word on the fact that he trusts that whoever made the appointment made it in good faith. Of course we do Chris. Somehow though I have a feeling it should not be working like that. Especially not with the loads a bull your government fed the people about meritocracy.

5) She is specialised: And then came the best part. Pressed for more answers by the journalist, Cardona had to answer the rather irritating question “But what is Sai Mizzi Liang specialised in?”. He starts off with a bit of mumbling about the fact that she is specialised in the “negozju” (commerce) of these nations but then cuts off suddenly and concludes: “She’s from there, she has a natural knowledge base”. So it is ignorance. Of the craziest kind. Still, you couldn’t expect anything less from a government flouting Vienna Convention rules in its appointment of diplomats. Ah the law… such a fickle thing.

To conclude I present you with a useless bit of our constitution that will soon (probably) fall redundant and be replaced by a new article entitled “On Appointment by Hunch, Good Faith and Nationality”. Enjoy it while it lasts. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. (Subarticle 6 is particularly juicy).

 

Article 110 of the Constitution of Malta

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, power to make appointments to public offices and to remove and to exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in any such offices shall vest in the Prime Minister, acting on therecommendation of the Public Service Commission:

Provided that the Prime Minister may, acting on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission, delegate in writing, subject to such conditions as may be specified in the instrument of delegation, any of the powers referred to in this sub-article to such public officer or other authority as may be specified in that instrument.

(2) A delegation of a power under this article –

(a) shall be without prejudice to the exercise of that power by the Prime Minister acting on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission;

(b) may authorise the public officer or other authority concerned to exercise that power either with or without reference to the Public Service Commission; and

(c) in respect of recruitment to public offices from outside the public service, shall, unless such recruitment is made after a public examination advertised in the Gazette, be exercised only through an employment service provided out of public funds which ensures that no distinction, exclusion or preference is made or given in favour or against any person by reason of his political opinion and which provides opportunity for employment solely in the best interests of the public service and of the nation generally.

(…)

(6) Recruitment for employment with any body established by the Constitution or by or under any other law, or with any partnership or other body in which the Government of Malta, or any such body as aforesaid, have a controlling interest or over which they have effective control, shall, unless such recruitment is made after a public examination duly advertised, be made through an employment service as provided in sub-article (2) of this article.