Sunday, December 30, 2018
Over 230 people take part in annual Thomas Smith Christmas Charity Swim
233 people braved the cold sea and took part in the 20th edition of the Thomas Smith Christmas Charity Swim on Sunday morning.
The youngest swimmer was just two years old, and the oldest 82.
After the company topped up the donations with a generous contribution, the total collected is of €10,000. The funds go towards the Malta Community Chest Fund Foundation.
The event was held at the pier below Independence Garden in Sliema. President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca attended the event and handed out medals to the participants.
Over €110,00 in donations have been raised over the 20 years in which the event has been held.
Photos: Luke Zerafa
from The Malta Independent http://bit.ly/2Q8MTdP
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Delia warns of action against those taking advantage of his personal situation
Opposition Leader Adrian Delia on Sunday reiterated that personal issues should remain private – something he says both he and his wife Nickie Vella de Fremeaux agreed on in court.
He warned, however, that he would take action against those who were taking advantage of his personal struggles to score political points.
The couple is currently undergoing separation proceedings. On Saturday, a court granted the PN Leader access to his children. Delia is currently facing calls to step down after court documents leaked onto social media alleged that he had been violent and abusive towards his wife and children. The PN Leader has denied the claims.
Vella de Fremeaux had filed for separation from her husband of 17 years earlier this year.
Speaking on the party's radio station, Delia stated that he would take action when he finds those taking advantage of the current situation.
Corinthia development
Moving on to the ongoing public land debacle in St George's Bay, he spoke of the current plans by Corinthia Group to build up to 100,000 square meters of property.
Delia insisted that this situation highlighted the government's "arrogance and incompetence", mentioning the fact that whilst PN was in favour of projects and investments, things must be done fairly.
"We are in favour of development, but we will never agree that public land will be given to someone directly without the correct negotiations and price."
For this reason, he said, the PN does not back the deal.
Abortion
Delia also commented on a report published on the PN's Sunday newspaper, which claimed that the government is considering legalising abortion in the near future.
Whilst hoping this was not true, he said that he fears that it is. "We've always made it clear that we cannot accept abortion. As a party, we will fight to our last breath so that abortion is not legalized in Malta. They can make whichever arguments they from – from the moment of conception, there is life."
He ended the interview by thanking his supporters for their words and support, calling for people to help those who are in need in, especially in this time of the year.
from The Malta Independent http://bit.ly/2AlbZBc
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Adrian Delia says he will find those using personal troubles to undermine his leadership
The embattled PN leader reiterated that both he and his wife had agreed that they would not be discussing their family's matters with the media, insisting that attacks on his leadership only strengthened his resolve
from MaltaToday News http://bit.ly/2RtazyA
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A year in review: 'The toughest year' - US immigration changes dominated 2018
Children torn from their parents, refugees turned away, tear gas fired on asylum-seekers, and a president who says he's making good on promises to protect the nation's borders. In a breathless 2018, they were just a handful of headlines on immigration, one of the year's most dominant issues.
Combined with a relentless stream of administrative memos and changes in regulation and enforcement, it represented a government bombardment on virtually every type of immigration — a bold follow-up to the opening salvo of President Donald Trump's first year in office.
For those who champion Trump and believe that cracking down on immigration translates to better lives for Americans, it has been a year of fulfillment of campaign promises. For those who've watched in horror, it harkened back to other points in the country's history, when fear of new arrivals led the U.S. to refuse entry to various groups and when open discrimination of certain ethnicities prevailed.
"This is our generation's sort of existential moment," said Frank Sharry, head of pro-immigration group America's Voice. "Are we going to continue to be a nation that practices 'e pluribus unum' and welcomes people from around the world to make this country better? Or are we going to shut the door?"
Throughout 2018, the answer has largely been the latter.
Even as roundups and deportations persist in targeting those who enter the U.S. illegally, the Trump administration has pushed beyond that to redefine what legal immigration looks like, too. It has slowed down or altogether halted many seeking to come to the country for a job offer or through their relationship to a citizen, and narrowed the chances of finding a home here as a refugee or asylum seeker. Jarring visuals of children in detention centers and other enforcement actions have dissuaded some from seeking to come here at all.
"There has been this constant chip, chip, chipping away at the legal immigration system using every tool of the executive branch," said Doug Rand, who worked in the Obama administration before helping found Boundless Immigration, which helps people navigate the immigration system.
The year neared its close with the administration saying those seeking asylum would be forced to wait in Mexico, a major shift that immediately spurred questions of legality from opponents. Meantime, the possibility of a government shutdown loomed as Trump and Democrats once again butted heads over funding to build a wall along the border with Mexico.
Even without it, though, the policies he's pursued have effectively put up a virtual wall.
"That is far more effective than a border wall ever would be," said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Even top-tier computer programmers, architects, engineers and other professionals with job offers in the U.S. saw their applications for H1-B visas under much more scrutiny; a means of expediting processing of those visas was ended under Trump, and bids for work authorization have been met by what employers and immigration attorneys say seem like endless requests for evidence to prove seemingly straightforward facts.
Still, the odds of those professionals eventually gaining clearance to enter the U.S. are better than for many others.
Trump's so-called "travel ban," the first iteration of which was unveiled in the president's first week in office, was upheld in June by the U.S. Supreme Court, stopping most visas for residents of mostly Muslim Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as North Korea and Venezuela. Though the policy allows for waivers, initial data showed few such applications were actually approved, effectively shutting the door to most from those nations.
It's had very real consequences for people like Soolmaz Dadgari, an Iranian who came to the U.S. in 2017 so her 4-year-old daughter, Arina, could take part in an experimental study to treat a rare genetic disorder. Dadgari's husband has been unable to get a visa to join them, and sanctions make it hard for him to send money. She alone cares for a child who can't walk or talk and requires 24-hour help, as well as another 11-year-old daughter.
Dadgari has considered returning home but knows she needs to remain for her daughter's treatment. Still, the situation has affected the way she views the U.S., which she had always regarded as the best place in the world.
"I have no hope," she said.
Even as wars, persecution and famine have continued around the world, the U.S. capped refugee admissions at 45,000 for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the lowest ceiling since the State Department began tracking the figure in 1980. Far fewer were actually admitted in that time frame: about 21,000 refugees. The number is likely to fall further, with the cap for the current fiscal year set at 30,000.
Meantime, tens of thousands fleeing violence in Central America sought asylum in the U.S. this year. The Trump administration responded by narrowing who is eligible, declaring that neither those escaping gang violence or domestic abuse nor those who cross the border illegally qualify. Both changes have been blocked by federal courts.
Some seeking refuge in the U.S. are stuck in untenable positions.
Ivis Muñoz, 26, decided to join a caravan leaving Honduras in mid-October. A gang member had shot him in the thigh and threatened to kill him. Muñoz planned to seek asylum in the U.S. but learned along his journey that he was unlikely to be accepted.
His first night in Tijuana, Mexico, he slept on the beach until rocks rained down on him and other migrants and a man shouted in the darkness: "Go back to your country!" Now he's a few hours east in Mexicali, his aching leg full of bullet fragments, overwhelmed and scared by his reality.
"I don't know what to do," said Munoz, a coffee farmer from the Honduran town of Atima. "I want to go to the United States, though I'm scared they'll send me back. I'm afraid to be in Honduras, but I don't feel safe here either."
At every turn, there were policy changes. One proposed rule would restrict visas or legal permanent residence for those receiving certain government benefits for low-income people, such as food stamps. Hundreds of immigrant enlistees in the Army were discharged or had their contracts cancelled, though some were later reinstated. Even some U.S. citizens were targeted by a "denaturalization task force" looking for naturalized Americans with past infractions.
More than any other shifts in policy, the Trump administration's move to separate apprehended migrant children from their parents shook people around the world. Though Trump eventually ended widespread use of the practice, the scars remain for those affected.
Evelin Roxana Meyer of La Union, Honduras, thought 2018 would be the year things turned around for her family. They've struggled to pay off a loan for the grocery store they run out of their home, so her husband, Douglas, and son, Eduardo, set off for the United States in hopes of finding work. Instead, the two were picked up by Border Patrol agents and separated.
The father was deported, but it took weeks before the parents knew where Eduardo was taken. He spent four months in detention, turning 12 alone at a facility in Brownsville, Texas. The once-affectionate boy returned home angry in September. He rarely goes out, spending most of his time in his room watching TV. He's refused to go to school and will have to repeat the sixth grade. He talks back to his parents and hits his little sister, whom he used to be close to. The family doesn't know what to do to help him.
"This was the toughest year of all," said 38-year-old Meyer.
Polling finds a big majority of Americans still view the country's openness to immigrants as essential to the nation's identity. But the profound shift in government policies on the subject threatens that idea of the U.S. as a welcoming land of opportunity for all.
Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University, sees Trump's immigration overhaul as the continuation of a tug-of-war that's played out since the nation's founding, between what many see as bedrock American ideals and a pattern of nevertheless being hostile to newcomers.
"The country, unfortunately, has had an incongruence with the myth of America versus the reality of America," said Greer, who authored "Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream." ''Trump's really fine with blowing up the myth."
Sharry thinks the country's reputation suffers when its leaders close the doors to others: "They've put a million people on the road to deportation. They've ripped thousands of kids from their parents. They've gutted refugee protection at our border. They're building and expanding detention centers. They're trying to scare low-income immigrants from using health and other services. They've taken aim at legal immigration. They've slashed refugee admissions. That's a pretty relentless assault on a core principal of the American experiment."
Others see it far differently.
Neil Gouveia came to the U.S. from Guyana as a 7-year-old. His family waited years to earn visas, then waited again to become citizens. His parents made the difficult choice to leave behind his 9-year-old sister, who had cerebral palsy and wasn't granted a visa.
Gouveia considered himself a typical "liberal New Yorker" until 2016, when he was drawn to Trump for what he believed was his strength on national security. Gouveia is gay and said the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, particularly shook him.
He wasn't offended when Trump referred to parts of the world as "shithole countries," and doesn't see anything inherently wrong in separating immigrant children from the adults they arrive with. He thinks, ultimately, it will all lead to greater dialogue and better policies. And he still believes America stands as a beacon for much of the world.
"At the end of the day, people will say what they want to say about America, but there's hardly anyone who still wouldn't want to come here," said Gouveia, 39, a collegiate fundraiser. "They still know it's like winning the lottery."
Daniel Stein heads the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports restrictive immigration measures. He agrees the year's immigration imagery has had "a huge political impact on the psyche of the nation," but argues it has moved more people to his side of the debate. And to those who see the year as an extended assault on a cornerstone American value, he's unmoved.
"They have a vivid imagination," Stein said. "We have one of the world's most generous immigration programs."
That's little comfort to Buena Ventura Martin Godinez, a 29-year-old mother of two who carried her 9-month-old son across the border in May, fleeing threats from violent gangsters in her hometown of San Juan Atitan, Guatemala. She was caught in Arizona and held for a week at a detention center with her baby. When her husband followed two weeks later with their 7-year-old daughter, they weren't so lucky.
The girl was sent to a facility in Michigan and kept there for six weeks; the father went to an Atlanta jail, where he still awaits deportation. Her family fractured, Godinez now regrets the day she ever headed to the U.S.
"I came looking for a better life ... and everything went wrong," she said from the five-room house in Homestead, Florida, that she and her two children share with nine others. "I thought that it was true that it is a country that gives opportunities. But it is not."
Godinez notices changes in her children. Her daughter, always so sweet and obedient, cries incessantly and struggles in school. Her son keeps falling ill, his temperament now trademarked by screaming, crying and sighing.
"This is the worst year I ever had," she said.
from The Malta Independent http://bit.ly/2Ao6jGO
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TMIS Editorial: Stranded at sea? Bah humbug!
What a complete lack of Yuletide spirit the government has shown towards its fellow man over the last week by flatly refusing to take in two separate groups of migrants rescued on the high seas.
This comes in the same week during which the country published its latest list of millionaires and billionaires who have purchased Maltese, and European, citizenship for a consideration of cold hard cash.
But it takes a cold, hard heart to embrace one group so willingly and to shun another so willingly depending on their material worth is an abhorrent concept not only at this time of the year but at any time of the year and there is something wrong with a society that accepts such actions as normal.
A Spanish aid boat operated by the non-profit group Proactiva Open Arms carrying over 300 migrants rescued at sea has now arrived in Spain, putting an end to a week-long journey across the western Mediterranean.
The boat, operated by the non-profit group Proactiva Open Arms, docked at the Spanish port of Algeciras, and had to travel to Spain after Malta refused it permission to dock and Italy and other countries also refused to help. Spain's Foreign Ministry said Malta denied the aid boat, with migrants of 19 different nationalities aboard, permission to dock and the boat's calls to Italy and France reportedly went unanswered.
The Maltese government can hide behinds legal arguments ad infinitum but the fact of the matter is that it is the humanitarian spirit that counts here, not the technocratic drivel and the legalese.
It is not just that there are a lot of people out there in this country that would want to see such a humanitarian spirit demonstrated in their name; many, we are sure, feel quite the opposite, but the government could have very well seized this opportunity as a chance to instruct, to lead by example and to even use the Christmas spirit as an excuse.
That, many would say, would show weakness as Malta, Italy and other Mediterranean states continue to arm wrestle over responsibilities for migrants rescued at sea. We, however, beg to differ. Showing humanitarianism is a demonstration of strength that will also earn the country kudos and a slightly better hand to play around the negotiating table, if one were to wax cynical about such matters.
The government has been all but silent on the two requests, save for last Saturday having stated that it had airlifted a mother and newborn baby to safety for medical attention.
And it also comes at Christmastime. As pointed by the Bishops of Malta and Gozo yesterday, the situation over the last few days with the people left onboard the Open Arms and those still – at the time of going to print – on board another rescue vessel refused by Malta, the Sea Watch 3, present an invitation to express solidarity in a concrete manner. They said it is a matter of great concern that Malta and Europe at large are refusing to offer shelter and assistance.
The Sea Watch 3 and its 32 rescued migrants is, in fact, still without a port and it would be a noble gesture indeed if Malta were to offer them and the ship's crew safe haven for the New Year rather than leaving them in political limbo on the high seas.
These most recent episodes, showing our refusal to accept stranded migrants, is also somewhat tone-deaf coming as it does in the same month in which Malta signed up for the United Nation's Global Compact on Migration with no small amount of fanfare.
That compact is not legally binding and a core guiding principle of the final text explicitly affirms the sovereign right of states to determine their national migration policy and their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction in accordance with international law.
But wouldn't it be great if we were to show a little humanitarian initiative, to lead the way as it were, without having to twist the arms of fellow EU leaders into lending a helping hand, and just show some of those people stranded at sea a little Christian compassion at this special time of the year?
from The Malta Independent http://bit.ly/2EV7CAJ
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