I found it strange while reading the initial media reports about the great tragedy which occurred at Kordin industiral estate that so little was said about the works that were proceeding to build a new factory. What factory was it? Who was building it? Who was it for? How were the works being carried out?
Certainly these questions are not irrelevant to what happened.
When a building collapses, this does not happen as a matter of chance. It is important to get to know what made it happen as soon as the incident occurs.
Unfortunately, in recent years we have been registering too many accidents of this kind on construction sites... like we have been having too many traffic accidents and cases of domestic violence, among others.
The background to the Kordin tragedy has to be highlighted as an integral part of the story. For it is not just a background but a fundamental feature that allowed the tragedy to happen.
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STRINGENT CHALLENGE
The ongoing polemic about the change in the law regulating abortion is of the highest importance. It will also determine how as a society, we shall be forging a meaning for what unites us as a nation – namely the values and rules we wish to uphold.
As many others have already pointed out, the controversy cuts across both sides of the political divide. Within the parties, there are divergent views regarding abortion. It is difficult to comprehend how a compromise that would be satisfactory to all can be found, without one side or the other feeling it has given up on its values.
The challenge is a tough one for the Labour administration. It is not people’s spending power that is at issue, but the understanding that people have of their own humanity. When the divorce controversy erupted, the Lawrence Gonzi administration bombed. It failed to understand how people were feeling about the subject as well as the tactics of the pro-divorce camp. From the other side of the mirrior, the Labour government cannot afford to commit the same mistakes.
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FOOTBALL OR CHESS?
As the World Cup competiton proceeds, there arise doubts in the minds of people like myself who have no claim to any expert knowledge in this field. The games have certainly resulted in some surprising outcomes, as should be expected from similar encounters. The moves and counter-moves carried out by the teams at play were at times brilliant, at others obtuse. Again, as would have been expected.
What has been curious however is how games and their analyses have been conducted, differently from how I remember them being done in days long past. Instead of a switch between attack moves and tight, almost desperate defensive counterplay, games develop in set pieces that seem more like chess exercises than football.
Someone told me, rightly I guess: Why do you imagine that you can pontificate about today’s football? Matters have progressed hugely since Pele and his mates dominated World Cup competitions. OK, I agree. But chess is still chess and football still football.