Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/788859
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 2017 26 Letters With his proposed 6km bypass which threatened to cut through the rural village of Manikata now shelved, Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett admits he has racked his brains for finding a solution to an increasingly jammed Xemxija Hill. As a main artery connecting the rest of the island to Mellieha, but most impor- tantly Gozo, Xemxija already heaves with 23,000 cars passing up the hill every day. The area is a choke point of weekend driv- ers going to and coming from Gozo. Mugliett says the number is expected to reach 26,000 by 2010, and concedes that another alternative for a road that would bypass Xemxija and link up to the Mel- lieha bypass is facing problems as well. "It's a very tricky issue. I understand the environmental concern, and now that we shelved the road for Manikata, we are trying to find alternatives," he says, draw- ing an imaginary line that just brushes past the Simar bird sanctuary and into l- Imbordin, where a tunnel beneath Mizieb would emerge at Selmum Hill. "When we had problems with Manikata, we tried to shift the road here. Obvi- ously there are problems as well, mainly hydrological," he says referring to the Mizieb acquifer, a water body protected by European laws, and already endangered by illegal extraction of water. Originally, the Manikata proposal included a 499-metre tunnel that would cut right through prime agricultural land. Farmers in the area protested against the EU-funded Trans-European Network road, the irony being that the tilling of the land itself was funded by the EU. "We've racked our brains for a solu- tion, even for one that is environmentally friendly. It's a highly sensitive area. But the problem remains. By 2010, Xemxija Hill will not be able to handle the amount of traffic. The problem is that the road there narrows down and I doubt we can do anything at Mistra." But Malta also has a high car ownership, two cars per household, despite a very high registration tax of around 50.5 per cent over the cost, insurance and freight value of a car. And it generates Lm20 mil- lion for government every year. On an island 17 miles long, maybe it's high time for the government to stop providing motorways to please consumers' desire for more private transportation. "Registration tax is already very high. I can't see what we can do further. The only other way to dissuade car ownership would be through higher car licences… but that is not the books," Mugliett says. "But it's possible that in the future we will be pushed to reduce registration tax in favour of higher licence taxes based on emissions of CO2." Government is however against an emissions-based licence, that increases every year according to the car's increase in emissions. In its pre-budget document it claimed that since car traffic is "a serious environmental concern", keeping prices high through tax dissuades purchases. But it also means that it is cheaper to keep old cars on the road. High registra- tion tax dissuades drivers from replacing their older engines. And it makes it more attractive to buy cheaper second-hand im- ports, usually cars which can no longer be driven on Japanese roads due to their age. Mugliett, who is leading Valletta's park and ride project and the Vertical Connec- tion funicular railway, says ultimately the solution rests on facilitating alternative transportation and public transport. And if building new motorways means tearing up more countryside than what's been taken by the construction industry, it means politicians have to start leading a culture change on the environmental effects of private transport. News – 18 February, 2007 Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Consequences of garnishee orders A spurious philosopher It's a sin The present goings on about whether to abolish garnishee orders or not is on all forms of media. Another issue, at hand, is about critical libel. Pres- ently, what I've read and heard about garnishee order/s is all in favour of the journalist and the affected party is being left in the lurch. Nobody has sug- gested what ought to be done when a journalist abuses his/ her profession. What follows is about garnishee orders. I, for one, believe in freedom of expression but I also believe that the Attorney General (AG) and the Institute of Journalists (IoJ) must have a very balanced say in all of this. A number of steps that the AG and IoJ have to take, when a journalist abuses his/her profession (un- der the umbrella of "freedom of expression") cannot go amiss. No one has raided this point until now. These bodies (AG and IoJ) are also to take into consideration the harm that an individual journalist causes to the person in question plus the number of years it takes a court to decide on the case if the journalist is in the wrong. I, for one, also believe that €11,000 is not enough compensation when a journalist smears my character for a number of years until my case is heard in court, when the journalist is found guilty. Another valid point is that when a journalist loses a libel case, then s/he ought to pay the damages within a stipulated time frame as ordered by court. And, if the individual journal- ist decides not to pay within the said time frame, then the editor of the newspaper which s/he normally writes on, will decide that the said person won't be permitted to write until s/he would have settled such a bill. If the person is a blogger and ignores the court's outcome against him/her, then that blogger will have to pay an exorbitant fee for each time s/ he abuses of his/her blog post- ing. If s/he continues to abuse the court's outcome, then the police can intervene and carry on with their duties. These and other such related matters ought to be included when the abolition of garnishee orders takes place. One last comment – I believe that everything in life has its limitations (and not just with journalism), but once an indi- vidual decides to abuse these limitations or doesn't know where or what its limits are, then the responsible institu- tions should intervene and stop that individual, either legally, via official communication or otherwise until the problem is rectified. Leonard Schembri Gzira During an interesting discussion programme on television, Dr Robert Abela raised a few points in the Caruana Galizia-Cardona debacle which I found interest- ing. Abela mentioned previous cases when Caruana Galizia lost libel cases and had to be sued again in court in order to pay up. A second observation was how the Opposition inf lated the case to the proportion of a public protest and has acted as judge and jury in a court dispute that has not even started. What I also wished to update myself on is if Caruana Galicia has released the government land she allegedly had annexed to her own property. I also followed an article in the local press penned by Dr Kevin Aquilina who reasoned that a person who is prohibited by Maltese law to do something in Malta will also be in breach of the law if he does the same thing in a country where the same act is not illegal. In the story at issue, what we are talking about is a visit to a brothel abroad. Well opinions vary. In my case, what struck me most was recalling the 1960s years when I was a teenager. Lo- cal young friends of mine used to make the occasional visit to London to watch a game of football as Tottenham Hotspurs supporters, only to make their ritual visit to Soho to watch a striptease show! They were times when even if one voted Labour would have committed a sin! Brothels, whether legal or illegal, have existed since time immemo- rial. Many have read stories of brothel adventures from the Canterbury Tales or the Decam- eronne? By Kevin's measure, it is a sin in our times to visit a brothel, is it not? I admire how the Opposition has succeeded to create a mountain out of a molehill, to boot a fake one ap- parently, making it so obvious to all of us that the Opposition and Caruana Galizia are one and the same thing. I also wonder how some of our supposed intellec- tuals back such anti-democratic tactics from the Opposition, which has not yet come to terms with itself after the last electoral trashing. George Camilleri Sliema In trying to pontificate in his muddled thinking, with the letter "Jesus and Paul" (Febru- ary 5) John Guillaumier turned out to be a spurious philosopher. I think that he is wasting his time. It is a pity that his letters penetrate the correspondence columns with such alacrity, because no good is coming out of his numerous missives. Not for me. St Paul's letters and life can be regarded as the 5th gospel. After Christ's appear- ance on the way to Damascus, Paul was a completely changed man (Acts 9-22; 26:19-23) and thereafter he spent his life preaching Jesus as the promised Messiah and the Son of God. It was while at Antioch that he received the ultimate mission of the Holy Spirit i.e. to go to the nations and preach the glad tidings (Acts 9:30; 11:25; 13:1-3; Gal 1:21). No wonder St Paul is called "Alter Christus" and Apostle of the gentiles. What diffusion of Christ's words was lacking outside Pal- estine, Paul accomplished by his toil and doctrine elsewhere. Mr G. should come up with quotations from the book of life and adapt them with reference to the context. Even the liturgy of the day gives him the lie: For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2-2). There's no doubt that after the break from his former life as a pagan, Paul was consistently and steadfastly "Cor unum et anima sofa" with Jesus. Their mysteri- ous meeting was the root and the greatness of a faith which was strong enough to conquer the globe. John Azzopardi Zabbar Mugliett racked his brains but Xemxija is still a headache