Viewpoints

Taking up the volunteer baton as incoming executive president of Din l-Art Ħelwa, nothing is clearer to me in my first week of office than the continued value volunteer non-governmental-organisations bring to society, whichever social mission they support. When such organisations are established, it is usually because there is a function lacking within the government that is not fulfilling a...

Times of Malta, 11 August 2008 – Editorial St John’s Co-Cathedral houses Malta’s finest art treasures, and its splendour and historical importance test the limits of the lexicon. Words like lavish, opulent, striking and significant fall short of the mark. Not even Napoleon’s depredations in 1798 have dimmed its importance. It, therefore, behoves the foundation which has been entrusted with its care...

The Malta Independent, 12 August 2008 – The other day I wrote a letter to another daily newspaper on the inherent environmental contradictions on the local scene. One of the questions I raised was how can one take the government’s commitment in favour of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority reform seriously when the government appointed board members, at one stage...

Sunday Times of Malta, 10 August 2008 – Calculated on a per-capita basis, Malta is the ninth thirstiest country in the world. We are extracting groundwater from our aquifers at a rate that is more than twice the sustainable rate (possibly more, but we do not know for certain, as the greater part of the extraction is illegal) – which means...

Times of Malta, 23rd July 2008 – Editorial At the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean in Paris, the Prime Minister returned to his promise to invest in a 75-100 MW deep offshore wind farm 20 miles off Malta to be constructed in the next five years. However bold this project may look, such an announcement raises many questions. First of...

Maltatoday, 20 July 2008     At the summit of the Mediterranean Union in Paris last weekend, the Prime Minister spoke about climate change and rightly noted that Malta was among the first to put this topic on the agenda of an international forum. Nobody mentioned that we are falling among the last when it comes to doing...

Times of Malta, 21 July 2008, Editorial – The phrase “the environmental deficit” was used by The Times last autumn to describe the sins of omission and commission in Malta’s environment. It became part of the lexicon of the general election campaign when the Prime Minister promised that, if re-elected, he would overcome the environmental deficit as he had successfully conquered...

Maltatoday, 6th July 2008   A new chairman of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority has been appointed. We wish him well, recognising that he has a formidable task ahead to sort out the many insidious problems lurking within the organisation that he has accepted to captain. The current problems are not of his making, but he now has the duty of trying...