Pay for a ticket to China for Saviour Balzan, and he loses his critical faculties (not that he has many where Labour is concerned)
Published:
July 13, 2014 at 1:09am
Saviour Balzan – or as John Dalli might have it, Mister BS – is singing for his supper in China.
He flew all the way there as the prime minister’s guest to send us back stinging, acerbic, insightful reportage on Sino-Maltese relations and how our prime minister figures as China’s tool.
Joseph Muscat was “chosen” to be a keynote speaker at one of the workshops during the Eco-Forum he attended, Mister BS reports.
The workshop was called, hilariously, BUILDING GREEN SILK ROAD ECONOMIC BELT.
Muscat wasn’t chosen, Saviour. He was the only prime minister there – a fact you did not see fit to report, because you are there at his behest.
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http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/41076/blue_silk_road_initiative_welcomed_by_maltese_premier#.U8HB28uKAdU
Is the silk green or blue?
[Daphne – Joseph Muscat is colour blind, Antoine. He tells us about it all the time.]
It’s Chinese silk, Antoine.
The stuff they flog off to us is rubbish. If you want real pure silk, get it from Uzbekistan.
The green silk road is ecology, the blue silk road is the sea.
The trouble with China’s metaphors and aphorisms is they don’t work outside China, unless your surname’s Muscat and you’re a prime minister.
Here’s where China’s green silk and blue silk roads lead to in Jamaica. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/25/1294644/-Why-Is-Jamaica-Selling-Out-Its-Environment-to-a-Blacklisted-International-Conglomerate#
Malta’s up next. That’s the same company with which Muscat’s signed an agreement about a permanent link across the Gozo channel – and other projects too, though he’s not saying anything about Marsaxlokk for now.
Don’t believe it when he says the agreement isn’t binding. Blacklisted CCCC did a “free” feasibility study in Kenya too. http://mobile.nation.co.ke/news/Shadowy-figures-pushing-rail-deal-says-Keter/-/1950946/2156652/-/format/xhtml/-/oi2cqdz/-/index.html
Perhaps the PN could get in touch with Mr.Keter, invite him to speak at the party’s independence events this September.
I’m sure there’s others from the Caribbean, Taiwan and sub-Saharan Africa. A political flashmob.
Don’t worry about the colour of silk Antoine, China just lumped all under the title- ‘New’.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2014-07/12/content_17739237.htm
Isn’t it obvious that the whole set up is wrong? Inviting journalists and paying for their ‘holiday’ can’t produce independent writing.
If a journalist from The Malta Independent is invited next time and manages to dig up some unsavoury stuff, that newspaper will never be invited again. I don’t see a way out seeing that Maltese media houses don’t have the budget to pay for these things themselves.
[Daphne – Of course they have the money. They just don’t have the right attitude.]
There is nothing we know more from BS of Malta Today, or The Times, about the Prime Minister’s visit to China that we would not have known from the media controlled by the Chinese government, like China Daily and Xinhua. Actually, I think that the Chinese media give us better insight and more detail than the “selected” Maltese media about how China views its relationship with their ‘servants’ in Malta.
More transparency, or more cookies?
Xinhua’s reports about the 2010 and 2014 agreements are almost identical.
This week’s MOU formalised the agreement Muscat signed with China when he was in opposition.
2010
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6944809.html
Muscat was grateful for China-aided projects in Malta, saying his country as a member of the European Union would work for the further development of bilateral relations as well as the China-EU relations.
2014
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-07/09/c_133472212.htm
Muscat said Malta-China relations, based on mutual understanding and mutual respect, have seen great development in recent years… Malta will utilize its geographical advantage to purse greater achievements in EU-China cooperation.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/china-toxic-air-pollution-nuclear-winter-scientists
Green belt my foot. The tree planted by Joseph Muscat won’t live long.
“Chinese scientists have warned that the country’s toxic air pollution is now so bad that it resembles a nuclear winter, slowing photosynthesis in plants – and potentially wreaking havoc on the country’s food supply.”
90% of groundwater in China is contaminated beyond use.
60% beyond any possible treatment.
They’ve poisoned their primary source of water, acid rain literally burning their provinces.
Have a look at this place, the world’s most polluted place. China boasts16 of the top 20 worldwide.
http://www.vice.com/toxic/toxic-linfen-china
And do they have a problem with corruption. It’s technical, scientific and economical decisions gone wild. Basically a regime clutching at straws, poisoning its people to keep up with the west.
Doing business with China as things stand is NOT sustainable, we get to share the potential risk and will pay for this globalised mistake, Saviour Balzan.
It’s not as if their idea of capitalism led to freedom and wealth. When we do, they won’t change.
And those scientists will be silenced.
“Muscat said Mizzi Liang was also receiving the same perks as other Maltese diplomatic staff. “The real issue with Mizzi Liang was her link to a minister… when you remove that issue, she remains the best person suited for the job. The results are already showing clearly.”
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/41126/muscat_china_is_dying_to_invest_we_shouldnt_miss_out
Muscat is admitting that Sai Mizzi’s ‘link to a minister’ is an issue. He should have continued that it doesn’t really matter since it is a PL minister.
The story would have been very different if her ‘link’ was to a PN minister.
What results? This is the main issue with that envoy, whose role can only be termed a double dealer.
She works on visas and Muscat sells her services to the Chinese as being in our interests.
The problem with Muscat is that he concocted his grand designs before the world changed. And what a change, leaving him to patch the remains of a strategy no-one he targetted six years ago needs or wants.
A road goes from one place to another. A belt goes around and joins up with itself. Confucius he say: Whatever its colour, road belt is contradictory.
The silk road which never was, desperate for trade.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/06/17/world-bank-economist-china-may-face-us-style-financial-crisis/
It’s one major mismatch of internal and external forces, exposed to an untested perverted economic model, no democracy, no stress tests.
What it implies for our driven local entrepreneurs may be even worse than the frenzy for property in Bulgaria, or individual businessmen had by Nigerian scams.
What we have here is a Labour government working actively against this country’s interests.
An economic bloodbath which will have Maltatoday and Times of Malta pointing fingers at everyone else when it happens.
Wonder how Gasan, Fenech, the other Hili and the various Grace Borgs expect to close their deals and get a return.
This PM is familiar with shortselling remember, Crystal clear financing no doubt.
One of Labour’s greatest mysteries during the electoral campaign was how their 500 page volume shirked any relevant percentage capital investment.
Guess why.