Thoughts and happenings from a life on Malta

Or so goes the advertising slogan of Mediterranean Bank, which I've been hearing on the radio recently.

From the financial angle, this catchphrase is not the wisest that could have been chosen. Look at Greece, a bankrupt country without even a national consensus on how to pull itself out of the deepening hole. Spain, with unemployment hitting a negative record of 21.3% in the first quarter of this year. In the southern Med we have Libya, an economy shattered by exploding bombs and gunfire, and Egypt, where the cronyism of the Mubarak regime allowed for untold millions of dollars to be siphoned off from the economy. To the east, Syria's ruling elite of power-hungry money-mongers is imposing too bloody an exchange rate for the freedom of the inhabitants.

So, is it really that great to be Mediterranean?

My little bit in support of those fighting for a better life in Tunisia is to bring this blogger's web site to your notice: A Tunisian Girl.

VOA spoke with Lina Ben Mhenni, a Tunisian linguistics teacher and activist who maintains a Facebook page and Twitter feed, as well as the blog “A Tunisian Girl.”  Though censored in her own country, her web pages and similar sites like them have been a primary source of news and information for journalists and observers outside the country. Existing restrictions in Tunisia have not deterred her.

“Everything is blocked here,” she says. “I use a proxy to access my blog, my Facebook profile, and …they censored my Twitter account. It is not accessible in Tunisia.”

Please visit and get an insider's view of what is happening to our neighbours.

Thanks.

"As Wikileaks continues to haemorrhage secrets that America would like to keep buried, there has been growing anger amongst Washington hawks asking why the world’s most powerful military cannot employ some of its considerable might to take the whistle-blowing website out.

Former vice president candidate Sarah Palin led the charge today calling on the US military to hunt Julian Assange “with the same urgency we pursue al-Qa'ida and Taliban leaders.” Although most US politicians have avoided advocating the assassination of Wikileaks’ founder, many have begun calling for cyber attacks on his website."

(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/could-us-military-take-wikileaks-offline-2147688.html)

I find it very worrying that the USA, ostensibly a beacon for freedom and human rights, can actually debate the possibility of putting out the flame of information. Although history shows that America can play as dirty as the worst of them, it has at least tried to keep a pair of white gloves on. Now the gloves are coming off, prepared as it is to burn its hands in order to put out that flame.