On the day we find out that the government has started a process to ban Repubblika, Christoph Schweiger on Twitter puts up a very pertinent observation about one of the speakers the president of Malta chose to preach national unity a few days ago. The gentleman concerned is Mr Mario Fava. Follow this thread. This [...]
A group of seven professionals working in myriad capacities within the literary and journalistic fields in Malta is inviting writers, editors, journalists, bloggers, publishers, academics, artists, and activists to a public meeting being held online on Zoom on Saturday 13 March 2021 from 10:00 onwards. The meeting will be the first of two intended to [...]
In yet another attack on democracy, the regulator of NGOs, wrote to Repubblika accusing the NGO of working for private interests, over-spending and acting as a propagandist for a political party. He included as evidence articles written by committee members of Repubblika and the fact that Repubblika made submissions to the inquiry investigating the killing [...]
Photo: Daryl Cauchi Herman Grech’s play They Blew Her Up is about the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia. It’s playing at the upstairs square theatre of St James Cavalier and seating was spread out for social distancing making it an up close, silent, emotional affair. The grim set orbited a jumble of metal [...]
Anġlu Farrugia did not dare to give a material response to the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life to the latter’s accusation that the former exceeded his powers when he dismissed George Hyzler’s report on Joseph Muscat’s unethical conduct. Instead, he got Ian Refalo to write a letter and he sent him that. Ian Refalo [...]
In the pantheon of press conferences given by prime minister Robert Abela in the past year or so, yesterday’s presser was bonkers, even by his dire standards. The first rule of a leaders’ club is not to appear weak in front of the people you govern. I use the words ‘leader’ and ‘govern’ very loosely [...]
Magistrate Nadine Lia recused herself from hearing the evidence against the people charged with supplying the bomb that killed Daphne in October 2017. The request for her recusal was made by lawyers appearing for the Caruana Galizia family and was supported by the prosecution in this case. Nadine Lia is the daughter-in-law of Paul Lia, [...]
In a recent but much happier press speech by Robert Abela, our prime minister told his audience he was the guardian angel of journalistic freedom. “I promise to be the strongest defender of all journalists,” he pledged. This was the end of last January, just over a month ago. Yesterday he lost his shit when [...]
The measure of a man is what he does with power. – Plato Unfortunately, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton put it in 1857. Roman emperors crowned themselves gods. Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor. In Ġenna Malta we do not have emperors – though some time ago we had [...]
Robert Abela's performance at today's press conference about the coronavirus was abysmal. The content was thin, his answers to journalists snide, the case he made on his government's behalf shallow and strained. At one point he must have realised just how badly he was doing because he told his audience he was not feeling too [...]
In a statement this afternoon Repubblika referred to the hard-hitting letter that standards czar George Hyzler sent earlier today to Speaker Anġlu Farrugia. The exchange followed the suppression of George Hyzler's conclusions that Joseph Muscat acted unethically when his thugs detained journalists in Castille on 29 November 2019. "It's clear to us that the Speaker [...]
The video of Robert Abela announcing we’d all be running come March made the rounds before today’s inevitable announcement of restrictive measures to try to rein in the rates of contagion from the covid disease. Even the most ambivalent and terminally unconcerned gasped at daily rates of infection of over 300. Deaths are creeping up [...]
George Hyzler, Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, told Speaker Anġlu Farrugia he had no authority to dismiss the Commissioner’s report that found Joseph Muscat breached ethics when he locked journalists up in Castille in 2019. Commissioner Hyzler complained the Speaker never asked him what he thought about such a decision. “I would have expressed [...]
Time can bring you down Time can bend your knees Time can break your heart Have you begging, please. - Eric Clapton Once again Robert Abela took centre stage. He always does it when there are good tidings. Tuesday week he took credit for il-Koħħu’s admission to being one of those who executed Daphne [...]
My wife got a call this morning on her mobile phone number. The number was withheld. "No Caller ID". The person who spoke to her asked for Mrs Delia and said she was calling from Owen Bonnici's office. Did she know Owen Bonnici has an office in Żurrieq? Would she like to visit him there? [...]
Chris Fearne yesterday waxed melodramatic because the Opposition challenged him with allegations that political and clientelistic interference was allowing people to skip the line while waiting for covid vaccination. While denying this was happening Chris Fearne went into a rage telling the Opposition Leader, that a member of the PN parliamentary group asked him to [...]
Sitting through the President’s national unity conference on Saturday I detected in the interventions of some people – though by no means in all – a recognition that Malta has reached extremes of divisiveness we all must make a conscious effort to crawl back from. Probably in a diplomatic effort to avoid disputes on interpretation [...]
This set of photos is by Jon Borg.
Mario Cutajar responded to a speech Jason Azzopardi gave in Parliament yesterday where the MP alleged collusion between the civil service chief an the guy who headed the police force around 2013 to intimidate a senior civil servant into resigning. Cutajar's statement is 8 paragraphs long. Seven and a half paragraphs do not address the [...]