Are we doing enough to secure greater quantities of fish in order to cover human consumption requirements? We’re told repeatedly that it’s healthier to eat fish than other foods. Programmes to rear and catch fish of all possible species have largely multiplied, as have the volumes of fish for sale on markets, especially stocks caught by “industrial methods” of fishing.
The irony in this was, and still is, that these “industrial methods” are being applied not in a factory situation, but to conduct a hunt for live creatures. So, fish stocks in the oceans have gotten depleted with some species being driven close to extinction.
It’s crucial that this is brought to a stop. Indeed, so-called conservation programmes are being implemented to prevent the extinction of fish in the seas... but their outcome remains unclear. Apparently success has been registered in this regard with species like herring and cod in the Atlantic.
The problem caused by conservation programmes do not arise because “industrial” concerns are being prevented from doing their work, but because as they get implemented, while possibly not ending up without fish in the sea, we will end up without so-called “traditional” fishermen.
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ABORTION IN POLAND
When the Soviet Union ran the “Eastern” bloc, in Poland -- like with other countries living in the Soviet shadow -- abortion was also used as a “contraceptive” and was quite prevalent. When the Poles got rid of the Soviet grip, they initially anchored abortion within the mainstream practices of Western Europe. It was recognised as women’s legal right to autonomy over their bodies and their lives. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church maintained its opposition to the practice and gradually, access to abortion became increasingly restricted.
As of a year ago, the latest changes implemented by a government which proclaims its commitment to the defence of family values, has practically prohibited abortion.
I do not consider this to be acceptable. It is just not correct for abortion or whatever other legal right has been exended to citizens -- any right that has been recognised by laws that are operative -- to be revoked as a result of government decision or in the wake of a change of government.
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THE FUTURE OF AIR MALTA
Does Air Malta have a future? Or shall it be wound down and out, even if in its place, another similar airline gets launched... as in Italy or Belgium?
Many reasons account for why the national airline continued to pile up problems over the years. These did not all arise because of EU rules or the emergence of Ryan Air. A string of mistaken strategic decisions, now forgotten, were taken; dubious as they happened to be, they put a huge heavy marker over the company’s development. To which, one needs to attach the mistakes of the political leadership, from both sides of the political divide, which obliged the company to carry excessive commercial burdens that drained much of the flexibility which it needed.
What a contrast all this made with Air Malta’s early years as one remembers them! At the time, it was a company which while maintaining the best standards then applicable, would show itself flexible and adventurous, while remaining profitable.