The new EU budget presented today by Commission President Jean Claude Juncker comes with a new caveat that funding, particularly cohesion funds that Member States use to fund infrastructural and development projects, will only be granted to Member States that can demonstrate compliance with rule of law. An editorial in Le Monde this morning anticipated [...]

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Valletta's sister European Capital of Culture 2018 is teaching a lesson to the philistine failed gardeners running Valletta's program on what a self-respecting city should do when a journalist is killed. Leeuwarden has changed its cultural calendar to screen the film "Daphne: The Execution" by Carlo Bonini and Giuliano Foschini first screened in Malta a [...]

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Why does Malta's Brussels embassy need a full-time photographer assigned to it? Normally you'd think it wouldn't. But you would make an exception for the 6-month rotating Presidency when the calendar of photo-ops is busier than usual and hiring in freelancers might prove more expensive than giving someone a 6-month contract. That is what Dar [...]

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Some months ago I discussed at some length that chilling phrase ‘Pulizija Laburist’. With time it’s acquiring an even more ominous meaning. Toni Abela, then Deputy Leader of the Partit Laburista, knew of drug trafficking from a property of the party. To avoid embarrassment he sought a “pulizija Laburist” to cover the matter up. That [...]

The story of billionnaire Christopher Chandler and the news from the UK Parliament yesterday that Chandler was allegedly connected to Russian espionage might seem like a cold war spy story the Maltese can watch from their safe neutral distance. But it is not. Christopher Chandler is Maltese. So rephrase that headline in your head now. [...]

Around a fifth of this website's readership is from outside Malta. Most of those readers are Maltese people who made a home elsewhere. Their affection for the home country is tied to the memories of when they left it and they read of what is happening here now with a mix of fascination, horror, guilt, [...]

By Andrew Borg-Cardona (I M Beck as was): Of late, I have been tending to ignore Martin Scicluna, octogenarian columnist with the Times. His pieces spew forth an opinion that is so self-serving that annoyance sets in quickly, which is not conducive to my well-being. The man has a right to his opinion and to [...]