LONDON -- On the historic Mediterranean island of Malta there will take place in a few weeks time a meeting of nations with colossal potential significance for world peace and development.
Yet the irony is that it will hardly be noticed by the world's media or by public opinion.
The meeting will be the biannual gathering of the heads of government of the 52 member-states of the Commonwealth -- the association or club of mostly English-speaking nations who in former times were connected in one way or another with the so-called British Commonwealth, which in turn grew out of the now almost forgotten British Empire.