The Societe Dante Alighieri is an officially recognised Italian non-
profit institution which is involved in the promotion of the Italian language and culture worldwide, with close to 500 committees. In all there are over 3,300 schools with over 100,000 students following full and part-time courses.
Summer classes are also held in Malta at the SDA Learning Centre in Valletta. Further details may be obtained on 2123-8408 between 5pm and 7 pm, Monday to Friday.
Maltese MPs attend 13th session of OSCE parliamentary assembly
MPs Frederick Azzopardi and Angelo Farrugia will participate in the 13th annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly which is being held in Edinburgh between 5th and 9th July.
In addition to debating the draft resolution on cooperation and partnership entitled Coping with New Security Threats, which forms the main theme of this session, some 300 parliamentarians from more than 50 participating states will also consider draft resolutions on a number of supplementary items, including torture, the fight against racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia, combating trafficking in human beings, Moldova, Ukraine, Kosovo, Belarus and the situation of national minorities in Latvia and Estonia.
Additionally, consideration will be given to draft resolutions on a total ban on anti-personnel landmines, the international status of Jerusalem as well as on several other specific OSCE issues, including the cooperation between the governmental and parliamentary dimensions of the OSCE and economic cooperation in the OSCE Mediterranean Dimension.
Participants will include parliamentarians from the USA, Canada and Europe, as well as from Central Asia and the Caucasus. The opening plenary session, on Monday, will be addressed by
the OSCE chairman-in-office, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy who, in accordance with established tradition, will also answer questions from the floor. OSCE secretary general Jan Kubis will also address the assembly.
The opening plenary session will be chaired by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly president Bruce George, chairman of the British House of Commons Defence Committee. The assembly will also hear reports from PA
president Bruce George, PA secretary general R. Spencer Oliver and PA treasurer Jerry Grafstein.
On Friday 9 July, the closing plenary session will adopt a final declaration. The assembly will also elect its president and other officers.
Nature Trust supports Malta’s confirmed stand against GM seeds
Nature Trust has supported Malta’s confirmed stand and eventual vote against the approval to import GT73, a genetically modified rapeseed, at EU level.
The vote by Environment Minister George Pullicino in the Council of Ministers confirms Malta’s vote in June. In the initial vote, 11 other countries voted against, nine voted in favour and four abstained.
Nature Trust has urged Malta to be part of the GMO-free zone in the name of public health, consumer rights, bio-diversity and farmer safeguards until clear
scientific evidence on the impact of GMOs in foods and food products is available. It has also urged government to maintain its stand at EU level so European citizens are protected from a technology, the safety profile of which has, up to now, been neither proven nor widely accepted.