Today is considered by most Maltese as the peak of the summer holidays and a lengthy sombre contribution may well be the last thing that we would want to read. I am, therefore, putting together some thoughts that are meant to trigger further thinking and hopefully some action.

Mdina and Valletta

Over the last few weeks I have had the opportunity to visit Mdina a couple of times, and on every occasion I felt proud. The silent city was very much alive, but not noisy. Tourists were all over the place admiring the charm of Malta's old capital and the restaurants, cafés and shops were doing brisk business. I was also struck by how clean Mdina is and how well it is taken care of. I could not resist the temptation of comparing it to Valletta. During the day Valletta is also a very lively city, but at most times, it verges on being noisy. Unfortunately cleanliness is not one of Valletta's strong points. Even here, tourists are all over the place, but somehow I get the feeling that they do not feel so welcome. In the evening, in spite of very good efforts to attract people, unless there is some special event, Valletta becomes empty.

One also notices that Valletta is not taken care of at all, and although it should be just as charming as Mdina, one does not get that same feeling. I believe that, as a nation, we need to respect Valletta more, and we should do this by removing the taxis and hawkers from its entrance, by removing the street musicians, tattoo designers and the like from the streets, by giving it a though clean-up and throw the law book at anyone who litters the place. It will suddenly become more welcoming and will once more attract tourists and Maltese also in the evening.

Inflation and recession

Inflation keeps creeping upwards for reasons that are now known to all - price of fuel, price of cereals and foodstuffs, and a general increase in the price level because of the impact of the price of fuel. The news of this week is that the UK is expecting economic stagnation by next spring. The credit crunch is expected to continue as the shock waves continue to reverberate throughout the financial sector across the world. The forecasts on economic growth are all dismal and investments made by the small savers are certainly not giving the expected returns. We have certainly known better times before.

One wonders when our economy is going to be hit by the negative international economic outlook. We would be kidding ourselves if we were to assume that our economy will not be affected. For the moment we seem to be riding the storm because tourism is still performing well, the financial services sector is also performing well and the manufacturing sector is working hard to make efficiency gains to be able to face up to the competition. We should not be talking ourselves into a recession, because our recent history shows that our economy can be very resilient. However, neither should we be living in a fools' paradise. How can we be realistic and optimistic at the same time? If we know the answer to this question, we would be well placed to minimise the impact of the negative international situation.

The Olympics and Georgia

We are nearly half way through the Olympic Games being held in Beijing, while there is a conflict (which is very much akin to a war) in the Caucasus between Georgia and Russia. The conflict in the Caucasus is not the only one that we have in the world today; but it appears to be rather unique. It has to do with claims for independence by people living in a region in the north of Georgia, but it has more to do with the battle for economic supremacy between Russia and the US.

Essentially Russia would not like to have a government that has close economic links with the US in its backyard, as this would weaken its position in the region and for fear that other former Soviet republics go down the same route.

What does this have to do with the Olympic Games? The Olympics are the sports festival par excellence, but there is also a conflict for supremacy in the background. China and the US would each like to show the rest of the world that they are better than the other by winning more medals at the Games. Winning more medals is somehow seen as having more status and having a stronger economic prowess. We had been through something similar during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s between the former Soviet Union and the US.

My fear is that the economic situation is already very difficult with rising inflation and the near certainty of a world recession. We do not need increased international conflict to make it worse, especially since at the basis of that conflict is not some political ideology but the search for economic supremacy.