You need a fairly large-scale map of the world to spot Malta, a small archipelago of three tiny islands south of Sicily. But as small as Malta is on the world stage, it has loomed large in the history of the great civilizations that have ebbed and flowed in the Mediterranean over the centuries.

In fact, Malta boasts archeological sites that predate the Pyramids of Giza by a thousand years. These Neolithic relics are joined by remains from the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Knights of St. John, French and British, just some of the armies and empires which have claimed the island as their own.

The layers of civilization are captured in the people themselves: a unique mix of ethnic types whose native language belongs to the Semitic group, but with original Arabic words mixed with many imported from Italian, and others from French and English.

Maltese is the only Semitic language written in Latin script.

A positive legacy of many decades of British rule, is that almost everyone in Malta speaks English fluently.

Malta's attraction to empire builders over the ages has been its location in the channel that divides Europe and Africa at the narrowest point of the Mediterranean, half-way between the Straits of Gibraltar and Cyprus, and its abundance of natural harbors, which rank among the best in Europe.

Malta today is known as a sun, sand and sea destination, but archeologically it is one of the most richly endowed places on earth.

Interestingly, the location of Neolithic temples in Malta cannot be linked to related sites in neighboring countries or to other ruins that would help scientists figure out an anthropological picture of the peoples who must have come there to worship.

The isolation of these ancient worship sites suggests that Malta was a destination for pilgrims thousands of years before the Christian era.

As with all the other significant historical and pre-historical remains on the Maltese islands, the fine natural ports explain why ancient peoples chose this place to build.

For a visitor, Malta offers a great number and variety of interesting places to see in a relatively small area. The main island itself is a little like a network of suburbs, with many of its small towns and villages merging into a continuum of buildings.

The Maltese themselves often take trips to the second largest island, Gozo, to get away from it all, enjoying the greater openness and greenery there, not to mention the Ggantija temple, which one British author recently said made Stonehenge look like a pile of stones.

Malta has been linked to Libya in recent decades. This came about first because Socialist Prime Minister Dom Mintoff set it on a fiercely independent course in the 60s, following independence from Britain, and Libya offered financial assistance.

More recently, Malta has been one of the few places from which one can reach Libya without taking an airplane. Ferries connect the island to Libya once every two days, when the weather is not too rough.

But Malta's strong linguistic and historical ties to the Middle East will always make it a bridge of sorts between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Now featuring a liberal financial regime and drawing close to the European Union without actually seeking membership, it is an island that can help facilitate improved relations between the north and south.

SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS WITH YELTSIN

Whenever Boris Yeltsin is mentioned, it often calls to mind the incident in Red Square, following his ascendance to power, when he was asked whether his favorite author was Tolstoi or Dostoyevsky. Shrugging his shoulders, Yeltsin replied Pushkin instead. Considering Russia's long and eminent list of literary giants, who enriched her literary canon making it as varied and dramatic as the Russian character, history and society, and bearing in mind that it is a nation that in one century moved from the Tzar to Lenin, and today, at the close of the 20th century, has a leader who was the first president-elect and will be the last secretary-general of the communist party as well as being a final threat to his ministers despite all this, Yeltsin could only come up with one favorite author.

Whenever Yeltsin takes a political decision, falls sick, awakens from a coma, sends tanks towards parliament, sleeps in the plane, while the Irish president is waiting for him, or does not attend the commonwealth conference that is to be convened under his chairmanship whenever anything of this sort happens, I try to remember in which Russian guise or mold I have previously seen that man. I always remember Pushkin's short story "The Gambler," and although I cannot recall the details now, I remember that the plot centers on an officer who learns the secrets of gambling from an old woman. The old woman warns the man against gambling more than once, otherwise he would end up losing everything. Imbued with confidence, the officer heads off for the casino armed with his secret and wins the first time he plays. He wins a second time too, by which time his greed overcomes him and he throws all his money in the third game and loses everything.

Boris Yeltsin too has no concept of moderation and tends only to extremes. To prove how healthy he was during his last election campaign he carried on dancing till he collapsed and was rushed to hospital. Before that he opposed the coup aimed at toppling Gorbachev, but then later ousted Gorbachev himself. More recently, when it suited him he made good use of General Lebed for his election victory but then got rid of him immediately afterwards. His latest act following his release from hospital and subsequent recovery was to disband his government and discharge all his ministers. Of course, this could occur anywhere in the world, but Yeltsin is the first elected "democratic" president in Russia who declared only two days after his election that every corrupt official would be sentenced to death.

Old habits die hard they say... what Yeltsin probably meant to say was that all erring officials would stand trial, and whoever proved guilty would face not simply imprisonment but capital punishment i.e. immediate death.

For a head of state to call for capital punishment with no precedence is a dire solution not implemented even in the days of the Tzar, nor during Stalin's purges. Seemingly, there are no moderate solutions for Yeltsin Parliament can be attacked by tanks and ministers can be axed at random.

When Yeltsin warned against an air strike on Iraq, he immediately resorted to warnings against a Third World War, despite knowing full well that technically speaking, there would be no Third World War in our day. Even if the eventuality were there, it couldn't be called World War III because nothing and no one would survive to call it that.

I cannot recall a president who has humiliated his government to the same extent and in the terrible manner Boris Yeltsin has. I do not think that this century has witnessed a Cabinet reshuffle in Moscow as under Yeltsin. It is almost as if he saw his ministers in a bad nightmare and upon waking, decided to initiate a purge against them.

It is difficult to distinguish between reality and nightmare in Moscow. The designated head of government is a former energy minister and the outgoing head of government gained around $5 million from gas deals. Yeltsin himself is accountable for $50 million, donated to his election campaign by a Jewish Russian. Moscow is also poor, and the Russia Hotel, the biggest hotel in the country, is earmarked for demolition since no one cares to buy it and the Mafia occupies its halls as it does the rest of the hotels. And now Boris Yeltsin is threatening his ministers with death on the eve of the general elections of the year 2000, after recently telling kindergarten children that he would not participate, while simultaneously stating to elders that he is still undecided.

SAMIR ATALLAH

This article appeared in Al Sharq Al Awsat on 27 March

AFRICA, THE NEXT TIGER

Two-and-a-half years ago, France's minister for overseas development, Jacques Godfrain, started an international conference suggesting that "Africa is on the way to becoming the tiger of the 21st century following the pattern of the tiger economies of South East Asia 30 years ago."

Few people predicted their fabulous growth rates. He observed, "Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were at war. Malaysia and Cambodia were battling communist insurrection. South Korea was still emerging from a debilitating war... but look what they achieved and now it is going to be the same story with Africa."

At the time, Godfrain was widely disparaged. Today, it seems, half the world is jumping on the African bandwagon.

What was yesterday's disaster continent is tomorrow's tropical repository of unrealized, latent possibilities.

President Bill Clinton may have his own reasons for taking such a long trip to Africa, but his troubles at home rebound to Africa's advantage. It gives Africa the break and boost it is ready for.

No country illustrates Africa's potential more than the desert democracy of Botswana, a well-chosen stop on Clinton's itinerary, one that would not have even been considered for such a visit 20 years ago. These days it has growth rates that make even (pre-crash) South East Asia look slow off the mark 16 percent a year in the 1970s and, in the 1980s, 11 percent.

In the 90s, hit by drought and the collapse of the diamond market, which accounts for a third of the national income, it still managed a healthy 6-7 percent.

It is no use blaming Botswana's success on diamonds. Of course it helps. But Nigeria has been swimming in oil for decades and has nothing to show for it. The Congo under Mobutu and now under Kabila remains "the heart of darkness," despite its fabulous deposits of not just diamonds, but copper, bauxite and gold. At least half the African continent has something the world desperately wants. In fact the remarkable thing about Botswana's development is that once the shine was off the diamond market, it successfully redirected its energy and resources into non-traditional exports vehicle assembly, textiles and food processing.

The rewards for the people of Botswana are tangible life expectancy, school enrollment and health care have improved dramatically. And now Botswana is cutting its tax rates, privatizing government departments, eliminating crop subsidies and turning its attention to the plight of rural and low-income urban households.

Botswana is undoubtedly Africa's flagship but boats are leaving port all over the continent countries as diverse as the (violence-free) Ivory Coast, (war-torn) Angola, (once-run-by-mad-man) Uganda, (landlocked, eroded, mineral-poor) Lesotho and (ex-private fiefdom) Malawi have all thrown off the shackles, economic and political, of the past and have hit growth rates of tiger proportions. And over half of sub-Saharan African countries have averaged economic growth rates of 4 percent in recent years not enough to erase the decline and damage of the last two decades any time soon, but nevertheless giving hope for the next generation that it has a future.

A telling sign of Africa's new maturity was the extraordinary reception for the two white men who visited Africa this week, Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton. There was no sign of what would be more than understandable, a current of hostility to what Clinton had the courage to be open and contrite about a history of exploitation from the days of slavery right up to the recent past when, "during the Cold War... we dealt with countries in Africa based more on how they stood in the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, than how they stood in the struggle for their own people's aspirations."

The African character remains as it always was, the most generous and least complicated in the best sense, the people most ready to turn over a new leaf and let bygones be bygones.

If only Nigeria, Africa's most populated and potentially wealthiest country, could become part of the new Africa, the continent then could be said to have truly broken with its own bad past of despotic tyranny and gross economic mismanagement. In Nigeria a cruel and vicious military regime continues to hold unchallenged sway, its political opponents all under lock and key. The Pope rightly decided to concentrate his energies there. Clinton took the easy option and gave the country a pass. But only when mighty Nigeria takes the same walk in the sun, as modest Botswana has done will the continent be assured of the future it deserves.