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Douglas Kmiec has all the characteristics one would expect of an American ambassador (to malta - a small island off the coast of Sicily with a 99% devout Catholic population -P9) appointed by Barack Obama: intelligent, academic, articulate, soft-spoken and a strong believer in consensus, dialogue and engagement. The Pepperdine University professor of constitutional law is also a devout pro-life Catholic who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel for President Ronald Reagan and until recently considered himself to be a Republican. Why then did he endorse Barack Obama, who is in favour of keeping abortion legal, for President, when...

Desmond Zammit Marmarà Thursday, 3rd September 2009 1565 As Malta celebrates the historically important victory of the Great Siege of 1565, it is worthwhile to ponder on some important points usually overshadowed by the purely military aspect of the Great Siege. The events of 1565 took place against a background of the clash between the Christian and the Islamic religions as well as the contemporary dissonance between Western and Eastern cultures. Few people, however, are aware that commerce played a very important part in the Turkish decision to attack Malta. Attacks on Turkish shipping by ships flying the flag of...

Valletta, Malta, Jul 8, 2009 / 12:14 am (CNA).- The editor of a Malta newspaper has commented on President Barack Obama’s choice of Prof. Doug Kmiec as ambassador to Malta, describing the appointment as “somewhat of a poisoned chalice” and noting the controversies concerning Kmiec and his campaign to elect Obama to the American presidency.Noel Grima, editor of the Malta Independent Online, said that though Kmiec was a Catholic and a pro-life person he has “fallen foul” of some Catholic leaders for his public stances on abortion and other pro-life issues.Noting Kmiec’s past as a law school dean, a law...

President Obama has tapped a prominent conservative legal scholar to serve as ambassador to scenic Malta while handing a big donor the opportunity to represent the United States in the Netherlands. Obama will nominate Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan, to be ambassador to Malta, a small island nation in the Mediterranean just south of Italy. Kmiec caused a stir during the 2008 presidential election when he publicly backed Obama, citing healthcare costs and the Iraq war as his motivation. A committed Catholic, Kmiec was later denied...

I was one of those who went “toe to toe” with my colleague during the last hotly contested Presidential campaign in the United States of America. For me, it was never about my being an enthusiastic supporter of the other major candidate - I was not. It was about the threshold foundational concern that reveals the very heart of Catholic Social Justice thought, the inviolable dignity of every human life. This is the key to the whole social justice teaching of the Catholic Church. I contended then and now that it must also be the door through which we proceed...

Washington, DC -- President Barack Obama has named Douglas Kmiec, the Pepperdine University law professor who has become a key impediment to pro-life Catholics as the ambassador to Malta. The move is sure to spark opposition in Catholic circles given Malta's strongly pro-life stance.

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Global Foundries has sent a formal commitment letter to New York state for the construction of the Fab 2 project at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in upstate New York. The letter initiates the construction phase of the Fab 2 project and triggers the process of issuing state bonds for reimbursements payments and incentives to the company for the development of the estimated $4.2 billion wafer fab. The purchase of 223 acres of land from the campus is set for Wednesday (June 10). Global Foundries also has completed a development agreement with two New York townships which...

Professor Zvi C. Koren has recently given a lecture entitled 'The Fashionable Colours of Antiquity Uncovered by Scientific Analyses' at Heritage Malta's Institute of Conservation and Management of Cultural Heritage (ICMCH) in Bighi, Kalkara. Professor Koren's lecture was based upon the study of ancient colorants, which opens a historical window in the field of ancient technologies... The presentation discussed the various botanical and animal sources and the dyeing technologies associated with ancient colorants. The vegetal sources of dyestuffs that produce yellow, red and blue colours include amongst others, plant roots, leaves, flowers, tree bark and branches. These colours were also...

Former Mayor of D.C. Anthony Williams Washington D.C., Mar 25, 2009 / 02:25 pm (CNA).- Despite extreme positions on abortion and same-sex “marriage,” the Washington Post reports that Anthony Williams, a former mayor of Washington D.C., is being considered for membership in the Knights of Malta. However, Dr. Joseph Metz, an officer of the Order of Malta American Association, told CNA that anyone who does not agree with Church teachings will be denied admission. The Knights of Malta, who earned their name by operating on the Island of Malta for hundreds of years, were created “to care for and...

Preliminary archaeological studies in St George's Square, Valletta have uncovered an undocumented network of underground passageways, which could possibly connect to the Palace... The passageways were discovered on Tuesday when government employees from the Works Division under architect Claude Borg dug through a wall in a small room on Archbishop Street. After clearing debris and other material, they discovered that the passageway leads to under the Main Guard portico, parallel to the Palace... Further excavation works revealed that the central passageway had a number of corridors that led to other directions. One such corridor, at right angles with the central...

Albert P. Carey, President and CEO Frito-Lay North America 7701 Legacy Drive Plano, Texas 75024 Dear Mr. Carey, I would like to make a proposal for Frito Lay to consider. Please bear with me as I 'Lays' the ground work. If your not aware, New York State is offering 1.2 Billion dollar subsidy for a chip fabrication plant to be located in Saratoga New York. We the citizens of New York, are led to believe this is an effort to bring new jobs to the State –roughly 1,400 jobs. The State has been in lengthy discussions with Advanced Micro Devices...

The upcoming meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and his onetime rival Sen. John McCain was set in motion during a phone call over the weekend between Obama and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend. In an interview Friday, Graham said that Obama requested the meeting during a 20-minute phone call that the South Carolina senator described as a "pleasant" discussion about how they could work together effectively. "We just talked about the desire to find something meaningful to work on," Graham said. "He was very nice to me, said that he considered me a serious, reform-minded senator that he...

A cluster of five silos dating back to the Bronze Age period were recently discovered when excavation work, forming part of a project to extend the Luqa cemetery, was being carried out... various cisterns and silo pits had previously been discovered in the area known as Tal-Mejtin... Themistocles (Temi) Zammit -- who discovered, among others, the Hypogeum, Tarxien Temples, Hagar Qim, Mnajdra, and St Paul's Catacombs -- had unearthed a number of silos in the same area, while British archaeologist David Trump had also discovered another cluster of pits in the 1960s... The Bronze Age culture replaced the Temple culture,...

An archaeological discovery described as the most important in 18 years has been made at the site of the Tarxien temples. Malta Environment Planning Authority (Mepa) officials discovered megaliths and other remains, which are most probably prehistoric, during development works within the buffer zone of the Neolithic temples. ...It lies within a plot of land measuring 25 by eight metres towards the back of the plot. The megaliths and boulders were found together with pottery shards made up of rims, handles and bases in an area measuring roughly four by four metres. The shards have scratched and incised motifs which...

All, Have any of you been to Malta? If so, please share as much info as you can. I'm seriously looking at this as a potential retirement spot. It appears to have low taxes, great climate, does allow immigrants, decent economy, and is free from most natural disasters and not (yet) on the terrorism blip screen.

Malta's ruling Nationalist Party has won Saturday's general election by the slimmest margin in the Mediterranean state's four-decade history. The Nationalists beat the opposition Labour Party by some 1,500 votes - 0.5% of the nearly 300,000 votes cast, election officials said. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi appealed for unity among Malta's traditionally polarised voters. The election was the first since Malta joined the EU in 2004. Valletta celebrations The Nationalists' victory was announced after a close tally of votes which took more than 24 hours. The result sent supporters into the streets of the capital, Valletta, honking car horns and waving...

You would never know, by skimming through Le Monde, and Le Figaro, let alone the international media, that the Treaty of Lisbon, short of some deus ex machina, will be ratified sometime between now and February 8. The French news is full of American politics. This is another great decoy for Sarkozy. Besides his marriage (which is now old news), there is the great American election to distract the French from the scenario that will unfold in their National Assembly and Senate over the next two days.Those of you who know French may be interested in this video from Nicolas...

Cistern found to have been ancient tomb Studies at Limestone Heritage, the museum/park which traces the use of stone in Malta, have confirmed that a bell-shaped cistern in the Siggiewi quarry where the museum is located, is an ancient tomb of Punic or Roman origin. The studies were conducted by Dr Nicholas Vella, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the Department of Classics and Archaeology of the University of Malta. Entrance into the tomb is now through one of its two burial chambers but in antiquity the tomb was reached from the fields above, down a deep shaft. In later years,...

For two years, Frances Kinley-Manton says she lived with arthritis pain in her hips, a condition that kept her in a wheelchair. She wanted hip replacement surgery. But doctors at Britain's National Health Service said she was too fat for the operation. "They wouldn't even put me on a waiting list," Kinley-Manton recalled. Her doctor told the 210-pound woman to lose about 30 pounds before he would consider her for surgery. Unable to drop the weight through dieting, the 68-year-old Scotland resident took out a mortgage on her house to pay for a private operation on the Mediterranean island of...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 8, 2007Valleta, Malta (LifeNews.com) -- The head of the pro-abortion group that operates the abortion ship that has targeted the people of Ireland, Portugal and Poland is heading to Malta, one of the few European nations that makes abortion illegal. Rebecca Gomperts will visit the island nation on Wednesday to deliver a speech advocating legal abortions.Gomperts is the director of Women on Waves, the pro-abortion organization that has taken its converted tugboat to international waters outside pro-life nations to give women the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug.Her speech, “The Right to a Dignified Motherhood: The Crucial...

A series of tombs and silos, probably dating back to the Bronze Age and early Roman period, have been discovered on the site set to become the new US Embassy, in Ta' Qali... During an onsite visit yesterday, Cultural Superintendent Nathaniel Cutajar said the findings had been given a C grade, which in layman's terms means they could now be buried again, but not destroyed. The US Embassy is not yet sure what it will do, yet it is possible the finds will remain exposed and incorporated in the landscaping since the embassy will only take up a small portion...

International Planned Parenthood Federation Launches New Abortion Campaign in Europe Uses strongly anti-religious language By Maciej Golubiewski BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, August 31, 2007 (C-Fam.org) - Using strongly anti-religious language, the European branch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) has recently issued a document entitled "Why We Need to Talk about Abortion" calling for the legalization of abortion in the European Union (EU).  While acknowledging that the member states retain "ultimate responsibility" for abortion legislation, the IPPF-Europe urges the EU Commission and the European Parliamentarians to act "despite this mandate" to "drive the issues forward" and "keep them high on the...

A hot and fetid June night on the small Mediterranean island of Malta, and a Christian sentry patrolling at the foot of a fort on the Grand Harbour had spotted something drifting in the water. The alarm was raised. More of these strange objects drifted into view, and men waded into the shallows to drag them to the shore. What they found horrified even these battle-weary veterans: wooden crosses pushed out by the enemy to float in the harbour, and crucified on each was the headless body of a Christian knight. This was psychological warfare at its most brutal, a...

What is a fair voting system for the European Union? It looks as though, thanks to Poland, European leaders will be forced to debate this difficult question at their summit this week. Since the simplified draft treaty is substantively identical to the old and rejected constitution - minus some cosmetics - the voting system proposed is going to be the same one: passage of legislation requires a coalition of countries representing at least 55 per cent of the member states and 65 per cent of the population. The Poles have threatened a veto unless the second of those two numbers...

Today's canonization was marked by heavy rain: The rain was the most obvious protagonist of this morning’s canonization of 4 new saints, as it poured down relentlessly on the ocean of coloured umbrellas, on the sick, on the ministrants and bishops gathered in St Peter’s square. Every step of the ceremony, the readings, processions – with the exception of the rites preformed around the papal altar – were hindered by the opening and closing of the multi coloured umbrellas as they were passed from hand to hand, covering heads but drenching the shoulders and robes of the cardinals and 40...

LONDON (CNS) -- A surgeon who testified about the miraculous healing of a baby at a British hospital said he remains mystified by the child's recovery, the miracle that cleared the way for the canonization of Malta's first saint. Dr. Anil Dhawan, professor of pediatric hepatology at King's College Hospital, London, told Catholic News Service May 22 there was "no scientific explanation" for the full recovery of the Maltese boy who had undergone "devastating" liver failure. The Catholic Church has concluded that the baby was cured through the intercession of Father George Preca, a 20th-century priest who will be canonized...

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, April 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Dutch abortion boat has been granted government permission to perform abortions in international waters on women up to 7 weeks pregnant, despite a massive national and international outcry, the Times online reported earlier today. The boat has caused an uproar at home in the Netherlands and abroad. Condemned by governments and pro-life organizations as a propaganda tool for pro-abortion activists, the abortion boat has come under intense criticism for offering to perform abortions on women from countries where the procedure is illegal. Operated by Women on Waves, the abortion boat...

Emergence of a new picture of the Maltese holocene environment A new picture of the Maltese holocene environment is emerging through Katrin Fenech’s recent Ph.D. thesis entitled “Human-induced changes in the environment and landscape of the Maltese Islands from the Neolithic to the 15th century AD, as inferred from a scientific study of sediments from Marsa, Malta”. The thesis investigates current theories through scientific analyses of sediment. For this purpose, an 11.2m long sediment core was retrieved from the Marsa Sports Ground, with the help of a mechanical corer, in June 2002, financed by Linda Eneix of the OTS Foundation....

'Ancient artefacts brought over by Egyptians, not by traders' Natalino Fenech The triad discovered at an abandoned archaeological site in Gozo in 1713. Two members of the Egyptological Society of Malta are promoting the theory that the many ancient Egyptian artefacts unearthed in Malta were brought over by the Egyptians themselves, and not, as commonly thought, by traders. In an article titled Did The Ancient Egyptians Ever Reach Malta?, published in the Egyptian Egyptological journal, Anton Mifsud and Marta Farrugia analysed Egyptian artefacts found here and went through old and recently published material on which to base their conclusions. Dr...

The late Pope John Paul II praying in front of the remains of Blessed Gorg Preca at the MUSEUM chapel in Blata l-Bajda in May 2001 The Congregation for Sainthood Causes in Rome has approved a second miracle that should lead to the canonisation of the Blessed Gorg Preca, the Archbishop's Curia said yesterday. The decision was taken following a discussion held at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican headed by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins on Tuesday. The decision was originally expected in the middle of last year but was delayed. Pope John Paul II beatified Dun Gorg in...

Heritage Malta is organising two lectures in collaboration with the China Cultural Centre as a preview to the exhibition of terracotta soldiers that will open early next year. The lectures are being held on 30 November and 1 December at the National Museum of Archaeology, Republic Street, Valletta at 6pm. In the first lecture on 30 November, Dr Song Xinchao, Director-General of the Department of Museums in China will speak about "The Archaeological Finds of the Yangtze River" and the "Three Gorges Project"... In the second lecture on 1 December, Prof. Li Xiuzhen, from the Archaeological Department of the Museum...

The real prehistoric religion of Malta by NOEL GRIMA Forget the goddess theory, which you hear every tourist guide trying to explain the huge statues at the National Museum of Archaeology or while touring Hagar Qim. That may not have been the original religion of Malta. This was the startling starting point in a lecture “Ritual, Space and Structure in Prehistoric Malta and Gozo: New Observations on Old Matters”, given by Dr Caroline Malone, co-director, Xaghra Stone Circle excavation during the recent Heritage Malta international conference held at the Grand Hotel in Gozo. Dr Malone is senior tutor at Hughes...

VALLETTA, Malta, October 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com ) - Maltese Archbishop Mgr. Joseph Mercieca triggered an outpouring of criticism with his recent address calling for greater support and praise of mothers who remain home to care for their small children.The Archbishop called on the state to do everything in its power to help parents give their children the upbringing children deserve, stating that if young parents cannot raise their children together properly because both are “constrained” to work out of the home, that would be “sowing harm” in the lives of the children. Further, Archbishop Mercieca condemned the modern depiction...

If our cultural past isn't worth defending, why should our future be? ---------------------- Five years after the (a) all too predictable blowback to U.S. foreign policy born of decades of poverty and desperation or (b) controlled explosion by Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-Zionist agents (delete according to taste), I get a lot of mail on the lines of: C'mon, man, cut to the chase--are we gonna win or lose? Well, let me come at that in an evasive non-chase-cutting manner and circle around to it very gradually. I gave a speech in Sydney last month and among the audience was a lady called Pauline...

Dutch Millionaire's Daughter Released By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer Thu Sep 15, 2:34 PM ET Kidnappers released a Dutch multimillionaire's daughter unharmed, but it was unclear if any ransom was paid to the abductors, who had demanded 660 pounds of cocaine, police said Thursday. Claudia Melchers, 37, walked barefoot into a train station in the town of Arnhem on Wednesday night. Her appearance came 48 hours after two armed men gained entry into her Amsterdam apartment, bound her, bundled her into a plastic crate, and loaded her into a vehicle. "We don't know why she was released," said police...

The Cultural Heritage announced that after almost fifty years of silence, one of Malta's most fascinating Roman catacombs has been re-discovered by officers of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage within a traffic roundabout close to the Malta International Airport.

Patrols To Stop Immigrants Updated: 18:59, Monday July 24, 2006 European officials are preparing to launch sea patrols around Spain's Canary Islands to stem the flow of illegal immigrants trying to get to Europe. Waves of Africans have been pouring onto the Spanish islands, with more than 11,000 from the continent's poorest countries making the dangerous trip so far this year - doubling the total the whole of 2005. EU leaders say the surveillance patrols will begin in a few weeks as part of an initial emergency plan "to prevent and divert ships" trying to get to the islands. The...

"Eight countries - Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania Luxembourg and Malta - are blocking the idea that the EU should pay for projects using embryonic stem cells for genetic research. They insist the common EU budget should not be used for activities banned in some member states, despite the argument that such research could be crucial in finding cures for chronic diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's." "Germany has stepped up its resistance. Its research minister Annette Schavan sent a letter on Thursday (20 July) to the presidency condemning the idea of EU cash being used for stem cell...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - More than 300 illegal immigrants currently detained in a detention centres on Malta escaped on Tuesday (26 June) with the aim of marching to the Prime Minister's office in Valletta. Tuesday's break out was the second time in less than a week that irregular immigrants at Safi detention centre succeeded to pull down the boundary fences and run out of the detention centre. Those taking part in the protest were carrying banners saying "we want freedom" and "EU release us from our bondage". A large number of police officers and soldiers, some also wearing riot gear,...

A reader sent me a link to an article that included the following picture. I had some hope that it wouldn't be a Catholic Church, though this being predominately Catholic Malta I knew the chance was slim. The explanation behind the design is unintentionally hilarious. The type of stuff that makes parody difficult when real-world explanations like these exist.The designs for the Hal-Farrug church are the ones that will eventually be presented to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Prof. England said the church "has been conceived primarily as a church for our time; a composite structure based on a...

"Grottoes" (grottos?) can be both natural, man-made, or man-modified. Searching for grotto images finds many of these categories. This one struck me as pretty impressive, on the island of Malta. I had to shrink the image a bit; click on it for the full-size image. The second shot is of the notable tourist attraction Blue Grotto of Capri, Italy. There are a lot of pictures on the Web of this place; I couldn't find what I felt was a great one. The glow of the underwater illumination is pretty good; it appears that there is a considerable photographic challenge in...

VALLETTA, Malta -- Elegant white cruise ships slide into a perfect Mediterranean harbor, dropping hundreds of sun-blushed tourists to wander this former British colony's narrow alleyways dotted with pubs and classic red English telephone booths. But just beyond these postcard-perfect scenes, an unwanted flotilla of rickety fishing boats carrying desperate Africans is arriving, too. "See, there's one of them now," said Jesmond Saliba, pointing to an African man in jeans and sandals ambling along streets alive with white tourists. Saliba, 34, drives a horse-drawn taxi, as his father did. For generations in his family, more visitors meant more money. But...

ASSOCIATED PRESS ROME -- Italy's new research minister has touched off a political storm in this Roman Catholic country by saying he was open to embryonic stem cell research. The fuss began when University and Research Minister Fabio Mussi - a left-wing lawmaker from a former Communist Party - said during a visit to Brussels this week that he had removed Italy's signature from a "declaration of ethics" objecting to using European Union funds for embryonic stem cell research. The declaration had allowed its seven signatories to block any EU plans for funding such research in countries that allow it....

At the height of the morning commute on March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded in and around four train stations in Madrid. Almost 200 Spaniards were killed, and some 2,000 wounded. The next day, Spain seemed to be standing firm against terror, with demonstrators around the country wielding signs denouncing the “murderers” and “assassins.” Yet things did not hold. Seventy-two hours after the bombs had strewn arms, legs, heads, and other body parts over three train stations and a marshaling yard, the Spanish government of José María Aznar, a staunch ally of the United States and Great Britain in Iraq,...

EUROPE DAY Did you know there was a "Europe Day"? A day to celebrate the EU? Me neither. But May 9th is it. Here's some thoughts of mine on the poor doomed European Union: Question: What do you get when you take two world wars, add the two most malign ideologies of the century, throw in genocide, the collapse of religious institutions, radical secularism, a political elite sealed off from opinions it finds distasteful, spiraling social costs, deathbed demographics and growing numbers of an unassimilated immigrant population? Answer: You get Europe in the new millennium - mired in aggressive pacifism,...

The idea Canadians have replaced doxology with doughnuts is less Timmy than tinny ------------------------------ The other week, the Toronto Star assigned Kenneth Kidd to do a big story on Tim Hortons as an icon of Canadian identity. This was a couple of days before that odd incident with the fellow going into the men's room and blowing himself into a big bunch of Timbits, so nothing tricky was required, just the usual maple boosterism. And naturally the first thing Kidd did was call up the Canadian media's Mister Rent-A-Quote, Michael Adams, the author of Fire And Ice and American Backlash,...

BRUSSELS, May 2, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The European Union continues to favour the homosexual movement’s program at the expense of national sovereignty and religious rights. A new law coming into effect today effectively orders the countries of the Union to “facilitate” homosexual partners who have “married” in their home countries and want to live or travel in countries where their unions are not legally recognized. The law is intended to allow EU citizens to move around the Union as freely as they do within their own countries. The directive means that citizens within the EU will no longer be obliged...

Two days before Christmas, I was in a store in Vermont buying a last-minute gift when the owner’s twentysomething daughter walked in. “Thanks for the sweater, mom,” she said. “Kevin really liked his present, too.” “But it’s only the 23rd,” said the bewildered lady. “Mom,” sighed the kid, wearily. “How many times do I have to tell you? We always open our presents on the solstice.” A couple of weeks later, a neighbor of mine in New Hampshire got married. He’s a biker and a tattooist, and he’s deeply spiritual. So he and his bride were married in the middle...

The formal call made by the Security Council on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities and to reconsider its decision to reconstruct a heavy water reactor, which would give Iran access to plutonium, has fallen on deaf Iranian ears. The Council had also declared that "non-compliance" could lead to consequences that were not spelt out at the time. The International Atomic Energy Agency will today formally report to the Security Council on whether Teheran has complied with its demands. Iran has not only cocked a snook at the Security Council. Its maverick President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has since declared his...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Morten Messerschmidt, a member of the Council of Europe and of Denmark's Parliament for the Danish People's Party. He is involved in the debate about the effects of Muslim immigration to Europe, Islam and terrorism. FP: Morten Messerschmidt, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Messerschmidt: Thanks. FP: Tell us the impact that Muslim immigration is having on Europe. Messerschmidt: We are seeing over the entire continent how the extreme groups of Islam are trying to impose their fundamentalist ideology, which has created awful results in the Middle East, to our part of the world. We see it...