The New York Times: we’re selling passports because we’re “motivated in part by economic stress and in part by what some call crass opportunism”. And the picture they’ve carefully chosen is an indicator of what they really think.
There was yet another article about the sale of Maltese passports in The York Times yesterday.
Europe
Give Malta Your Tired and Huddled, and Rich
By DAN BILEFSKY JAN. 31, 2014
PARIS — Having been besieged by the Ottomans, and ruled over the centuries by foreign invaders from the Greeks to the Romans to Napoleon, the tiny Mediterranean island nation of Malta has seen plenty of unwelcome interlopers.
But now, it seems, these foreigners are quite welcome — if they are willing to hand over 1.15 million euros, or $1.55 million, to buy a Maltese passport.
Motivated in part by economic stress, and in part by what some call crass opportunism, the idyllic island 50 miles south of Sicily is selling citizenship for $880,000 in cash and $677,000 in property and investments to applicants 18 or older willing to pay the price.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/world/europe/give-malta-your-tired-and-huddled-and-rich.html?_r=0
For ignoramuses like me: this is a poem engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
The title of the poem and the first two lines refer to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The poem talks about the millions of immigrants who came to the United States (many of them through Ellis Island at the port of New York).
The “air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame” refers to New York City and Brooklyn, not yet consolidated into one unit in 1883.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I feel that I’m being humiliated by my government, knowing the context in which this article is being written.
[Daphne – Well, that will teach me once again not to take anything for granted. I took it for granted that everyone knows the lines ‘Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore’ come from the Statue of Liberty.]
Massive.
I’m going to express what they think about him in rhyming slang:
Sick bed
How powerful the PN must be. They even have control over the New York Times.
m.arabianbusiness.com/for-sale-uae-firms-offer-1m-eu-passports-wealthy-clients-536740.html?page
As The New York Times says, we used to be besieged and colonised. But now Joseph Muscat thinks that we can besiege and colonise Europe by issuing European passports from Malta.
What a dangerous man they have at the helm in Malta. Europe must be having nightmares: Mintoff is back from the dead.
In my opinion it won’t be long before the European countries take some action against Malta.
A picture speaks a thousand words. That is professional journalism/newspaper that Malta desperately needs.
Geez, the photo….ugh.
Muscat never looks you straight in the eye. He’s always reading from the left or right teleprompters.
This morning on Rai Due.
The journalist’s comment at the end that somehow the impression is that Malta welcomes billionaires arms wide open, whereas immigrants risk a salvo is just Italianspeak for Lega Nord.
The Socialist MEP, Toia, makes it a point to distance the group from Muscat’s Labour.
And finally, Laura Comi, Forza Italia, made reference to the immigration question to pile up the pressure, any trust to cooperate and manage the situation now gone.
Italians have understood who Muscat is, even because they remember their Mintoff.
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-d4c8e809-e3d0-4e26-9f55-2314d18fdbcb.html
As Antoine Vella once mentioned here, Andreotti had described Mintoff as “Quel Venditore di Tappeti.”
Joseph Muscat has gone one better. Muscat is the “Venditore di Passaporti.”
Good coverage for American investors. I would say reading this they will now put Malta at the top of their favourite places to invest in.
It just gets more embarrassing – apart from worrying – by the day.
More embarrassment. Receiving innumerable emails from North American colleagues.
Most ask, ‘Who is this funny looking guy? Is he really in charge? Can he actually sell passports with no strings?’
Look who’s talking! Your Justin Bieber isn’t really prime minister material, is he? Now there’s an embarrassment. Har har har, ya boo sucks to you!
Ah, but Justin Bieber has more “Likes” on Facebook than Joseph Muscat.
And Bieber is “young.”
Umm, Justin Bieber is Canadian.
So is our Harry.
Hits the nail squarely on the head, does this feature.
Crass opportunism is what this is really all about. Full stop.
The country perforce being under economic stress is however the message perceived by the more serious world economies and investors.
Both scenarios pose both an embarrassment and a threat, defiling our sentiments and undermining our image and good standing.
Thank you, Prime Minister, for continuing to bring ridicule. You may be many things, but a statesman you most certainly are not.
Malta was never ‘ruled over by the Greeks’.
Yes, it was: the Byzantines.
Eastern Romans, please. Ρωμαίοι.
http://members.tripod.com/wckfc_library/mencius.htm
Economic stress.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-02-02/news/top-pharmaceutical-company-snubs-malta-invests-155m-in-iceland-3845357574/
‘…Sources told this newspaper that one of the reasons the company hesitated over its plans to invest in Malta was because of the bureaucratic procedures that foreign companies are required to go through in establishing a business here, despite the new government’s pro-business attitude…’
Nsomma, burokrazija zejda.