And back home on the cosy bubble-ranch, it's all about……buses
The Press Association reports on this afternoon’s massive demonstration in Rome:
Protesters in Rome smashed shop windows and torched cars as violence broke out during a demonstration in the Italian capital, part of worldwide protests against corporate greed and austerity measures.
The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in Canada and spread to cities across the US moved to Asia and Europe today, linking up with anti-austerity demonstrations that have raged across the debt-ridden continent for months.
Black smoke billowed into the air in Rome as a small group of violent protesters broke away from the main demonstration. They smashed car windows, set at least two vehicles on fire and assaulted two news crews of Sky Italia, the TV reported. Others burned Italian and EU flags.
Police were out in force as some 100,000 protesters were expected a day after Premier Silvio Berlusconi barely survived a confidence vote. Italy, with a national debt ratio second only to Greece in the 17-nation eurozone, is rapidly becoming a focus of concern in Europe’s debt crisis.
“People of Europe: Rise Up!” read a banner in Rome. Some peaceful demonstrators turned against the violent group and tried to stop them, hurling bottles at them, Sky and the ANSA news agency reported. Others fled, scared by the violence.
Protesters nicknamed “the indignant” also marched in other cities across the world.
In Frankfurt, continental Europe’s financial capital, some 5,000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank, while in London, around 500 people marched from St Paul’s cathedral to the nearby stock exchange.
Later in Rome, TV footage showed police in riot gear charging the protesters and firing water cannons at them.
The ANSA news agency said some protesters trashed offices of the Defence Ministry and of a labour agency, smashing windows with clubs, throwing paper bombs and firecrackers and setting cars on fire.
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Last night on his late night ONE radio show, even that whiner Tabone-Vassallo decided to join in the anti-Arriva fray in between one habitual anti-NATO/American diatribe and another .
A university student in Italy pays a yearly registration fee, and forks out a minimum of 500 euro a month to rent a room in a flat shared with others.
[Daphne – Perhaps we should be more specific. When one of my sons was at university in Rome, he paid more than that for a room in a flat shared with three other people. This flat was in a residential suburb – otherwise it wouldn’t have been affordable – and it took him 90 minutes to get to university on the underground and another 90 minutes back at the end of the day – a three-hour daily commute in hot and overcrowded conditions.]
The closer to university the higher the rents, as much as 880 euro.
They’re lucky if they ever get to see a lecturer, having to make do with the assistants, themselves on a monthly contract.
Upon graduating they consider themselves lucky if they manage to find work in a call centre, sometimes paid less than 200 euro a month.
The ones who won’t give up wait upon tables to be able to practise for free, to enhance their CVs, at times for years.
[Daphne – And you forget the now widespread system in which graduates work long hours for free, supposedly as an apprentice or ‘work experience’ only to be let go when the legal period is over, to be replaced by another free worker.]
When told university students in Malta received a stipend they would remain silent.
What was it the minister was doing on campus?
[Daphne – Telling them that even more money was going to be spent on them. I’m sorry if I sound like an angry parent here, but that’s how I feel right now. Where does that horrible sense of entitlement come from, if not from a major failure in parenting?]
Daphne do you agree with all this? I don’t! I disagree categorically that our students receive stipends particularly for those courses which do not contribute to the economy.
I disagree with the government for not making students pay back what they received during their term of education.
After all, a free education is an investment. Several of our academics have fled the island to seek pastures greener in foreign countries only to leave a black hole in our much needed human resources.
Our students should be given a loan ( subsidized and interest free) only to pay back once they have graduated and are in a stronger financial position to do so.
It is only those courses which are crucial to the current vacuum in our workforce such as the medical profession that should be given the due incentive and stipend to drive people towards that much needed profession.
We can not continue to dish out free education to more lawyers, architects, accountants, journalists and theatrical academics when the state is already burdened with so much weight. Obviously this proposal will not go down well with the students and will hurt a healthy segment of the voting population. But it is vital we act now before we are forced to take austerity measures ourselves!
What’s your point, Daphne? That we have to live with poor public transport because that’s what people in Italy do?
In Vienna you can rent an admittedly poor quality flat for €250/month, or less, within 15 minutes of the city centre on the underground (where a 1 year ticket will go down to €365 from 01.01.2012).
There’s no excuse for poor service anywhere.
As for graduates getting ripped off, I know of one young just-graduated lawyer in Malta who has been ‘apprenticed’ by an extremely well known legal firm for peanuts, on a 1 year contract subject to him successfully completing post-grad study in a very specialized field.
I get the feeling that it’s getting harder and harder for any employee to make a decent living in Malta and only a few entrepreneurs are making real money and this is not the way it should be, and it’s not only Malta. The divide between rich and poor is growing and the social unrest we are seeing is a direct consequence of this. There are many factors involved but when an airline pilot only earns about €25,000 a year and doesn’t have a permanent contract (as is happening in the U.S.) you really have to ask yourself if unbridled capitalism is the answer to the question of how to generate prosperity.
Are you implying we adopt ‘bridled’ capitalism, Tim? Whatever that is.
@ Harry
I’m merely suggesting that it isn’t a good idea to make graduates wait on tables in order to be able to ‘work’ for free for capitalists (those without a conscience, not all) until they get lucky and get work in a call centre.
“Upon graduating they consider themselves lucky if they manage to find work in a call centre, sometimes paid less than 200 euro a month.”
Don’t you think this is a huge waste of resources?
And not just buses. Have you heard that some people are having problems trying to open milk cartons? Another complained about the “dangerous” lid of yoghurt pots. Then there are all those problems associated with junk mail and not being able to park in the street where you live. We really have problems here.
Malta:
Inflation rate 2.7%
Unemployment rate 6%
Growth rate 2011 over 2%%
Projected growth rate 2012 @ 2.8%
Euro’s in Malta banks saved raised from approx 5 billion to 10 billion from 2008 to 2011
Net received EU funds over 1,000,000 euro per week
Budget deifict below 3% and going down
Some of the very best national data in Europe.
That’s why people are free to complain about buses as though a change in route or a delay is the end of their world.
While I agree that Maltese students have it relatively easy when compared to foreign countries the bus issue was not restricted to students only.
I am a daily commuter and I’ve seen not only students grumbling about being late but also those on their way to work, patients for hospital appointments. We are simply focusing on students because it was a university student who voice her concerns (I wholeheartedly disagree with the way she did it).
While a journey may take 1.5hrs in Italy you can hardy expect to take such a long time to travel on this island.
[Daphne – Charles, why is it OK for a journey on public transport to take 1.5 hours “in Italy” but not in Malta? Malta is now one city, and the sooner we get used to the idea, the better, because the change of mental perspective will allow the rest to fall into place.]
Then again, having said this one cannot blame Arriva, Austin Gatt or the government solely. It is evident that the morning traffic increased dramatically. The routes simply exacerbated the problem as they do not fit the local scene. This, Austin Gatt admitted himself today (proving everyone that he was not sitting cicci beqqi doing nothing but sincerely working hard to improve the situation).
I agree with you that Malta is one city with suburbs (irhula). This week took my son to MIA [Daphne – MIA. Sorry, but that’s another one that really makes me grit my teeth. MIA as distinct from what? Malta’s other airport? It’s the airport, not ‘MIA’. This is like ‘gejt bl-Arriva’. Excuse the outburst but these things make me really nervous.] as he was returning to work in Euroland.
We left home in the north at 07.00 and arrived at MIA 50 minutes later. It seems that half of Malta is moving south whilst other half is moving north at the same time. Took me another 50 minutes to get back home. And no, traffic jams are not Arriva’s fault but gridlock caused is caused by impatient drivers and mummies on the school run.
Thank your lucky stars you no longer have school-age children, Daphne.
My 9-year-old’s dictation list for next week (compiled by the (independent) school itself, if you please) consists of a group of words under the heading “Passatempi”, including:
it-televixin
it-televizjoni
il-plejstejxin
il-futbol
I’m serious.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t have known what my children’s dictation list was. I left them to it, and they survived pretty well.]
Maybe I should be glad that the list does not include “leptop” (which is how it actually appears in the dictionary). It does, however, include “il-kompjuter”, but “plejstejxin”? For heaven’s sake!
Do you really expect to spend almost 1 hour travelling from Zabbar to Paola every morning when the distance can be covered in a maximum of 20 minutes?
It is only a matter of distances. I would not accept 1.5 hours travelling time for the same distance in Italy neither.
[Daphne – Charles, it has always taken me almost an hour to get to Valletta from Mosta BY CAR in the morning rush-hour and to make the return tripbetween 5pm and 6.30pm.]
Daphne, that is precisely why it is difficult to point fingers at Arriva Company or Dr. Gatt because the main problem now is the terrible every-day morning traffic. Whether you’re a bus commuter or travel with a private car it is still the same hell.
The routes only play a very small factor in the prolonged journey times.
Ara, xi hlew, waslet ripple… I suppose they’ll be blaming the weather when the wave hits them… the debt wave, I mean…
Ghax il-bizniss sajkil, ta… hekk jaghmel dak… Keynes kollox spjegalna… But Sarko and Angelika have put their heads together to fiks de prowblem. Mela! Laurel and Hardy will fix it. No make-up required, just 1930s gentelmen’s attire and an Adolf moustache for Merkel… Bravi wisq!
Oh, I nearly forgot. They don’t do sarcasm here, which they call ‘irony’. Bailing out toxic EU banks.. now THAT is irony, dearest Maltese Europhilics. Just keep up the denial and you’ll all be fine.
Did you read The Times?
You don’t do sarcasm or irony very well, Kevvy, however you do weird very well.
May I ask? Is this Kev the very one who lives in Brussels, where he and his wife Sharon are employed?
Yes, Timer. Right there in the EP, where the peoples’ of Europe’s representatives sit. We work with those representing Euroceptics, Timer. Can your brain cell work around that riddle?
As Ronald Reagan once said, during a presidential debate, ‘There you go again!’. Weird, Kevvy. The guy just asked a question.
BTW, what’s a Euroceptic? Anything to do with a cetain kind of tank?
It’s an antiseptic for crocodile-skin wearing deserters of the Fifth Kanak Regiment allergic to payment in the euro denomination.
That’s not an acceptable (irrational?) response, Kevvy.
I detect either a total disappointment for not being able to galvanize an ‘Occupy the Conspiratists’ movement, to being relegated to a ‘Wash the Dishes’ movement.