They boil everything down to the money they can get and the money they lose
Centuries of scrabbling around for a gruesome meal of snails or worse to keep body and soul together as subsistence peasants living in caves has warped the Maltese mind.
There’s total anarchy in Libya and Tripoli airport is under attack by militias using rocket launchers. Planes on the ground have been written off due to damage, Libya’s airspace is closed to traffic and communication has been completely disrupted.
But what is the most pressing concern of Malta’s powers that be? We’re losing revenue because Libya’s airspace is closed, and Egypt and Tunisia are getting ‘our’ money instead.
I quote from Times of Malta:
Brigadier (rtd) Carm Vassallo, chief executive at Malta Air Traffic Services told Times of Malta yesterday that the closure of Libya’s airspace has reduced air traffic over Malta as aircraft avoid the central Mediterranean corridor.
He said any air traffic between Europe and Africa had to avoid Libya and this meant aircraft were diverted over Egypt and Tunisia.
“Since Malta’s airspace happens to be above Libya’s, any north-south traffic that used to pass over us is being lost. The Libyan airspace closure has hit us badly because it also means loss of revenue,” Brig. Vassallo said.
32 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Has anyone rung Muscat for his opinion?
Line busy, asking for instructions.
Does anyone need to?
His opinion on this subject is an open secret:
“Let’s be prudent. We might disrupt China’s plans for the Mediterranean and for Malta’s logistical centre. Those direct flights from China’s Eastern and Southern provinces are being diverted as we speak.”
Ahjar le, ghax Muscat b’hal issa miskin imhabbat biex igibilna l-flus mic-Cina.
Next: the AFM will get a CEO.
Now Muscat will start to worry.
When Tunisia had those uprisings which started the Arab Spring (which never came to be), Muscat’s reaction was that Malta should grab the opportunity and poach Tunisia’s tourists.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/8403/updated-we-had-a-good-laugh-pl-on-satirical-mock-campaign#.U8WoJyjg63V
On Sunday, Muscat maintained that the government should have already unleashed a massive tourism publicity campaign with the intent to draw tourists to Malta, in the light of the on-going instability in North Africa.
He said that millions of tourists were planning to go to countries such as Tunisia and Egypt – major tourism destinations – and that Malta should be “aggressively promoting” its own attractions.
The remarks have led to individuals designing and circulating pictures depicting a mock Visit Malta tourism campaign, juxtaposing the wide-spread social chaos and suffering with a cynically humorous upbeat promotional message.
Too bad those snail loving Maltese could not get their hands on these slimy giant African beauties for a full meal deal.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/giant-african-snails-seized-at-los-angeles-airport-1.2707050
Maybe someone should ask Dr Gonzi how we managed during the previous crisis.
We all have to thank Mintoff for the loss of revenue, as Arnold Cassola rightly pointed out back in 2011: “What, however, many have failed to point out is that when we became independent, Malta’s airspace control and SAR area was much bigger, actually stretching from Chad to Greece and, therefore, covering a much larger area than today. For some reason or other, in the 1970s or 1980s, Mr Mintoff ceded the area covering Chad, Sudan and Libya to Col Gaddafi. I do not recall anyone worrying about our airspace area then. Why did Mr Mintoff cede this enormous area to the Libyan tyrant? Why was this done in a hush-hush manner?”
If Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi can use public monies to send the latter’s estranged wife a gross salary of over Euro 5,000 a month, plus free family car, house, telephone, medicals, travel under the cover of an “ambassadorial” role and still face the cameras, they are corrupt and should admit to it.
If Joseph ‘China Boy’ Muscat says he could have handled this scandal better, he has to say how he could have done it better.
If China Boy is blinded by the surplus millions lying in Beijing coffers and thinks that these corrupt communist mandarins are some sort of altruistic lovers of a small island in the Med, he is not only corrupt but also flaking stupid.
Trillions, not millions.
Muscat is a Super One reporter. Would Charlon Gouder make a suitable prime minister?
As usual, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Please, put your mind at rest about Malta’s position in all this. We have a Memorandum of Understanding, remember? Manuel Mallia signed it.
We have two. Muscat had signed one with Ali Zeidan to stabilise fuel prices.
I’d like to see him call Libya in on that agreement.
I expect much better from Carm Vassallo.
We can now expect our fat leader and his tourism minion to advertise for more visitors to Malta to make the most of disruption in North Africa. Shame Libya never had a tourism market to lose.
The questions should have been addressed to Muscat. He’s responsible for policy and leadership.
We get to hear him faffing around all the way from China about silk roads in the Mediterranean, but when he’s back home with a crisis on our doorstep, he disappears.
Where is he? Has anyone seen him?
There are two further things to learn from this.
We either expect to make money or shoot down anything that flies over us. It’s our airspace, taghna ukoll. Hallas man. Oh look a bird, that doesn’t pay, shoot it down it’s on our airspace.
Then there’s another act of money which I find even more repulsive. The act of buying people and particularly those most vulnerable.
When we shame people like Willie Mangion, Frederick Testa and others like them, we are missing a more important point. These people somehow failed in life and were desperate.
Who knows how many more of those 36,000 were in the same hapless position and were ignored and trampled upon by the previous government? Shunned by people who should have known better because it was THEIR business to see that ‘ħadd ma jaqa’ lura’ – remember that fake slogan used by both parties?
What I find even more revolting is that Joseph Muscat is buying up these people as though they were objects and not humans. What’s more, he’s doing this with money that doesn’t even belong to him.
Muscat has also bought out the JPOs, the Franco Debonos and the Lou Bondis of this wrenched state, who weren’t desperate for money but wanted it anyway.
Worse still, Muscat doesn’t buy people to help them out. He doesn’t buy people because he needs them. What difference does a Mangion or Testa do to a majoririty of 36,000? What difference does it make to his image if Lou Bondi is working for his office or not? Zilch. Nothing. Zero.
Muscat buys people to gloat over them, to add to his possessions, to secure his dominance and bolster his self-confidence. He buys them to gloat over their scalps. “Look, even X is now working for me and has to please me to keep in favour.”
Some people, particularly those coming from a certain background, require that constant self-assurance and peace of mind. When Aristotle Onassis grew exceptionally wealthy he always kept a wad of dollars in his pocket which he secretly stroked for comfort when dealing with people to whom he felt inferior.
Today some collect lap dancers, Fabergé eggs or stash thousands of euros under the mattress. It all boils down to the same thing – a need for security.
Joseph Muscat collects people. Oh yes, and money, too.
It is not Muscat who needs to be ashamed, but those who allowed themselves to be bought.
Anthony, Il-huta minn rasha tinten.
I consider some of those bought, victims of circumstances whereas Joseph Muscat’s gloating is primitive and very similar to that of invading armies in early history where the victor plundered the village raped the women and children and executed the men.
In all probability collecting cocks and wives can also be a trait of lack of self assurance.
Rather seems that for some, brain development was stunted but not their ability to reproduce to a position of dominant representation.
I can just visualize the spin doctors with their list of ‘who to blame if things go south’, making the entry ‘the loss of income from air traffic due to Libyan turmoil’, and the satisfied grin which never reaches the eyes!
”Compassion and empathy? Hahaha, those feelings are for those who consider honour and genuine support as a way of life, nothing to do with us” the spin doctors and their clients deduce.
What is happening to the Maltese stranded in Libya? Why hasn’t our foreign office told them to evacuate?
Is it deemed more important to lose lives than to lose money?
What is Minister George Vella doing about this crisis? Is he hoping it will vanish and save him some bother
Excellent point.
Tripoli’s isolated, the airport taken over and all we got was how the Maltese embassy stuck to business as usual.
What strikes me is there is not one word about it in the German press.
Indeed, many of those commenting on the Sai Mizzi issue are complaining because they earn significantly less.
I just hope that what the Times of Malta quoted wasn’t the only thing Carm Vassallo had to say, as he seems quite a gentleman. But then life is so very full of surprises.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140715/local/more-contracts-published-as-pn-says-sai-mizzi-gave-wrong-figure-about-her-basic-salary.527837
‘..It said the PN was persisting in being negative and the only time that the Leader of the Opposition was positive was when he ‘kept his mouth shut’…’
How about this government ensuring the Leader of the Opposition be positive then?
What gravitas and style. Exactly what is they think they’re doing, brushing legitimate questions aside with their ridiculous energija pozittiva mantra?
They look and sound like ageing hippies tanked up on drugs.
http://maltarightnow.com/news/2014/07/15/joe-debono-grech-jindahal-fxoghol-il-pulizija/
What was that Muscat had promised about peace in the Middle East and democracy in North Africa?
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/02/in-labours-electoral-programme-its-going-to-solve-the-middle-east-crisis/
Ghax ma tarax kemm iggieldu fiz-zmien Gonzi?
Quick, get a marketing campaign together let’s snap up all the tourists that would have gone there this summer.