The 170,000 euro announced today for fireworks factories will attract those who do not approve of fireworks who will say this is a waste of tax-payers money. The point is as moot as it is predictable. I rather like fireworks -- when I'm awake. But I disapprove of the risks to life and limb and [...]
Here's a Nicola Tani report on industry journal GamingCompliance about developments since the Malta Gaming Authority gave in to pressure from Italy after news kept popping up of Italian organised crimes using Malta-licensed firms for money laundering. After all the defence that everything was as it should have been, we now know that was not [...]
Read this blog by veteran Sicilian journalist Luciano Mirone about the comings and goings between Catania and Malta of mafiosi that do not fit the stereotype of the uncouth Corleonesi but are sharp-suited smooth talkers here for business. Luciano Mirone's blog is here.
Kenneth Spiteri announced on his Facebook page just last week that he started a new job at Transport Malta. Go on. Give the man a 'like'. I cannot claim to understand their recruitment rules but just as he was starting there, he wrote in another Facebook comment that should he have the chance he’d blow [...]
I don’t want to start quoting myself like I’m some authority. But the heading of this piece is the same heading of a blog post I wrote on the 17th October, 2017. I was reminded of that when after the culture minister, the interior minister of Slovakia has now resigned. The culture minister had said [...]
The similarities between Jan Kuciak and Daphne Caruana Galizia were something to talk about for a while. Now the differences between Slovakia and Malta are a more obvious topic of discussion. The realities of the two countries are light years apart. True they are both European democracies that joined the EU on May 1st, 2004 [...]
Malta needs to have a long and hard think about our relationship with Russia. Please don’t push this too far from your mind on the usual Lilliputian pretext that we’re too small for anyone to care. Dom Mintoff has really ingrained in the collective psyche of this country the notion that we can act like [...]
Konrad Mizzi was formally informed five years ago today he would be a government minister with a desk at the Auberge de Castille. This had been part of the roadmap for some time and Konrad Mizzi knew the role he would play well. But a formal handshake with a prime minister in office is a [...]