Here is one issue about the island’s tourism sector that I’ve always found puzzling: We claim that tourism is one of the country major money spinners. This should mean that it offers good business opportunities from which entrepreneurs and employees earn what is their due, while enough funds are generated for new investments and/or the modernisation of investments that are already in existence.

But no, at least not on the last point: you’ll find that practically all new investment being proposed for hotels of a certain size has to be levered either by public land bought at a discount from government, and/or tied to a project design that reserves part of it to the building of luxury and other apartments, for sale to Maltese and foreign buyers.

My question is: If really and truly tourism is well established in Malta, should not investments in hotels and their ancillaries, on their own, by virtue of their own rate of return, be a sufficiently interesting proposition?

Time after time we get the argument that no, a project for a freestanding hotel, all by itself, would not be viable. There is something really strange about this state of affairs.

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Arms

The process by which Europe wide controls are being introduced over the possession of firearms is coming to a close; or better say, is reaching some kind of agreement. Following last year’s terrorist attacks in France, security experts argued for member states to control better the possession and use of automatic weapons or of weapons that could be made to function in “automatic” mode.

The proposals made in this direction raised a storm among citizens from all EU member states: hunters, farmers, sportspeople in the shooting sector, museum curators, gun collectors. All had their reasons to show how the draft proposals were either too wideranging and would undermine their legitimate interests, or as laid out, would be ineffective.

During months of discussion, many counter-proposals were made and a number of compromises emerged, till on a range of issues, practically all countries will end up having have different restrictions. A reason for this, apart from the fact that the subject is itself technically very complex, arises from the very wide diversity in the use that is made of weapons across the European continent.

The question remains: will the arrangements being made offer enough security against terrorism? Anti-terrorist experts seem to have their doubts.

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The Olympics

The European football championship is over. So now ring in the Olympic Games.

Sport has become a major global industry. Its infrastructure is run on opaque and elitist lines.

This summer, the Olympics are being held in a country which is undergoing political and economic turmoil. They might help bring greater stability to it. Or they could make things much worse.

There should be little surprise at how such an industry has been subject to corruption. One would be astonished were the opposite to have happened and global sport were free of graft.

Effectively given current circumstances, corruption in sport benefits too many interests, so that it can hardly be suppressed in quick time.