The similarities between the cases of Jan Kuciak and Daphne Caruana Galizia are inescapable. Both investigated the collusion between criminals and politicians. Both investigated the laundering of proceeds from crime in property development. Both were threatened in their lives and yet continued to work. Until both were killed. There are several similarities also in the [...]
British MPs yesterday grilled Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, entirely sceptical of his claim that his firm did not retain any client during the Brexit referendum. They did get some answers on the firm’s work in the United States advising political candidates on how to “micro-target” voters through data emerging from records of their behaviour [...]
This is a documentary broadcast on German National TV last week. Below is a loose English translation of the transcript. I should point out that some details, particularly from the interviews in Malta and English have gone through translations in both directions so in places they may not be completely accurate. https://youtu.be/QLD8xHrmC0A "Murder on Malta [...]
One of the probable lines of inquiry into the assassination of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his girlfriend will be the affairs of major businessman Marian Kočner. A report on The Spectator today says that last September, Ján Kuciak filed a criminal motion against Marian Kočner, for threatening him. Kočner owned a flat in a [...]
I will be away on a prior engagement on Friday but the action of Il-Kenniesa in Valletta with the theme ‘journalism is not a crime’ truly deserves the support of anyone who can make it. Reporters without Borders are also attending. Their lives too were transformed by the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia. And barely [...]
I used to think I could imagine how it might feel for the spin-doctors and the strategists of a suffering side of a poll to see their numbers stuck. The PN team had to dig deep into yesterday’s polls published by it-Torċa to find reasons for hope and they can’t have found much. Unless of [...]
Jan Kuciak, a 27 year old Slovak journalist, has been found dead with his partner today in his home outside Bratislava. They were shot in an assassination believed to be connected to his work as a journalist. Kuciak’s last story looked at suspected tax fraud connected to a luxury apartment complex in Bratislava. The case [...]
Yesterday I asked whether government has offered one or more of the three hoods accused of executing the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia immunity to turn state's evidence. There obviously has been no official response. But some colleagues who work the beat have told me of conversations they had on just the subject with senior [...]
By resident guest George Farrugia Calleja: In the very same week when allegations surface about how assorted MLP ministers did their level best to scrape up every single vote going by providing job after job after job in every single enterprise where you could find their sticky fingers, MaltaToday obligingly broke a "story" about how, [...]
The National Constituent Assembly in the heady days of the French Revolution sat down to write the second ever constitution that would give sovereignty to the people. Upon concluding their great work, they resolved to forbid themselves from running for the legislative assembly of the new France. Their intentions were noble. They wanted everyone to [...]
Three men have been behind bars for just shy of three months now. They are believed to have placed a bomb in the car of Daphne Caruana Galizia and detonated it to kill her fulfilling a contract commissioned by someone else. We do not know who that someone else is. At least one of those [...]
The government uses laws with discrimination in order to act against those that inconvenience it. The episode with the billboards showed that. It also enacts laws in order to show off the international assessors and the cronies that find reasons to thank their sodomisers just how transparent it is. It does so because it knows [...]
Sandro Chetcuti is paid for the government to advise it even as he lobbies it on behalf of developers. Why? Asked by Matthew Vella of Malta Today, he says he sees no conflict. To sustain his point he says he often consults the opposition too. No doubt he does. Matthew Vella’s report is really well [...]
What picture does The Wall Street Journal think of to accompany a story about the most corrupt countries that most restrict media freedom? This.
Resident guest George Farrugia Calleja: The revelations about Adrian Delia and his law firm, in a normal world, don't amount to much more than a bucket of luke-warm spit. It is only in the tabloid environment occupied by certain areas of the media (you reading this Independent?) or in the intentionally malign areas occupied by [...]
Many people who voted PN all their lives, like I have, say they could not continue to do so under the current circumstances. They want nothing better than seeing the corrupt gang that has its grip on our country booted out. But they are keen on a refreshing replacement and the options appear rather limited [...]
Some 48 hours after BugM posted his thread on Adrian Delia's alleged motivation for silence on Gasol, his office has issued a statement to clarify the facts. The response is plausible and largely reflects my comments of this morning. The comments board on my website was not in unanimous agreement with my assessment which obviously [...]
You've got to hand it to them. They do the look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it like pros. The professional purveyors of fabricated information, state-sanctioned invective, ambiguity between journalism and political power, present themselves without cracking a smile as trusted upholders of liberal democracies. A liberal democracy functions when you [...]
Sent in by a reader: I was an avid follower of Daphne and was just devastated at her horrific assassination. Then I found you and read your various dedications to her with tears in my eyes. I never made any comments on her blog though so many times I wanted to, but as an ex pat [...]
