Impunity

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2018-05-15T09:50:22+02:00Tue, 15th May '18, 09:50|

Joseph Muscat and his gang are hiding behind magisterial inquiries to assure the world allegations of crimes they are involved in are being investigated and if there’s anything to the allegations, prosecution would follow. Nothing could be further from the truth. In Malta Magistrates do not do police work. They are not detectives. They do [...]

This is how whistleblowers should be protected

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2018-05-15T07:36:44+02:00Tue, 15th May '18, 07:36|

South Australia is improving its whistleblower protection laws protecting public officers from any consequences should they decide to go public with the information they have if no action is taken on an internal complaint they would have filed. So basically if a state employee knows of any wrongdoing and after blowing the whistle internally feels [...]

The naked truth

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2018-05-15T09:20:31+02:00Tue, 15th May '18, 06:08|

This morning in front of his office. #Reżistenza. Photo for Reuters by Darrin Zammit Lupi. Here is the statement by #Reżistenza: The Emperor is Naked Turning Maltese citizenship into a commodity betrays its fundamental worth and few would be ready to purchase it were it not for the access it provides to the EU. The undermining [...]

Upstairs

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2018-05-14T17:42:23+02:00Mon, 14th May '18, 17:41|

The talk that Malta Today reports on that Magistrate Anthony Vella is on the short list for promotion to judgeship reached me as well. You never know if these snippets of chatter are coming from the same sources and you can never be sure of their accuracy because at this stage these would be ideas [...]

Idiot’s guides to what’s happening around you

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2018-05-14T15:15:09+02:00Mon, 14th May '18, 15:15|

Kristina Chetcuti on The Sunday Times is providing a public service not unlike Giovanni Bonello's series on institutionalised ignorance of our constitution. Her series is a handbook of clear precis of the convoluted mess Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and "someone more important than them" have set up to cover up the crimes they have committed. [...]

Ar’hemm ħej! Proud of their politics ta.

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2018-05-14T14:40:32+02:00Mon, 14th May '18, 14:38|

We're approaching the 16th of the month and Labour's spinmeisters are getting ready to neutralise any show of dissent or protest that is a monthly occurrence since Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed. No need to call the police, MEPA and the crane contractors because those are already standing by. When protesters set up banners in [...]

When Alfred Sant plays the fool

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2018-05-14T14:07:08+02:00Mon, 14th May '18, 14:07|

Don’t you for a minute think that Alfred Sant forgot Ali Sadr’s name on Xarabank last Friday. He used that mock innocent trick throughout the decades of his political career and it’s a confidence trickster’s way of disarming his victims into thinking he must be genuine. Alfred Sant knows very well who Ali Sadr is. [...]

Taking out an insurance

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2018-05-14T14:08:37+02:00Mon, 14th May '18, 08:09|

Blaming the losses from the Azerbaijan gas procurement deal on a hedging agreement to ensure pricing stability, as the prime minister did yesterday, is like blaming a sharp knife for a mortal stab wound. Both Joseph Muscat and his predecessor Alfred Sant screamed blue murder whenever a hedge on fuel procurement for our energy needs [...]

16th May. 19:30. In front of the law courts.

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2018-05-17T07:04:35+02:00Mon, 14th May '18, 06:55|

We have reached the 7-month mark since Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed. We are entering summer. Not one of the many vigils or protests or stories in the international press or any of the documentaries has had the effect of moving any single government official to assume some responsibility. Not one of the stories Daphne [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Round about the caldron go

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2018-05-13T09:11:21+02:00Sun, 13th May '18, 09:11|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "It started escalating when the suspicion of corruption at the highest level of government was confirmed by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s stories and then the Panama Papers. The toxicity, the tension and the poisoned environment have only got worse and in the last six months they have spun [...]

MONEY: From Past to Future

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2018-05-12T07:40:24+02:00Sat, 12th May '18, 07:40|

My piece in May's MONEY Magazine. Economists are optimistic when nobody else is. There is something Buddhist in the forecasting of the performance of an economy at least in so far as cycles and the alternation between ups and downs are concerned. But there is no eschatology in economics, not since Marx went out of [...]

Ali Sadr’s wife has permit to split in two a large Tower Road apartment. Plan is to be neighbours with Pilatus CEO Ghanbari.

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2018-05-11T21:09:25+02:00Fri, 11th May '18, 21:06|

The wife of Pilatus Bank owner and indicted bank fraud Ali Sadr acquired a permit to split a large waterfront apartment at 182, Tower Road, Sliema. Ali Sadr's wife, Yasemin Aral, acquired a permit to split half of the apartment where the bank's CEO Hamidreza Ghanbari lives so she can settle in Malta. The permit [...]

Now you see why all the laptop talk

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2018-05-11T20:17:53+02:00Fri, 11th May '18, 20:17|

The Castille-mandated campaign driven by mouthpieces Josef Caruana, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and others on the supposed existence of a laptop that Daphne Caruana Galizia used before her death and that, they argue, is being hidden from investigators in order to cover up information on the crime is now being seen for what it is. This [...]

GUEST POST: Themis at the President’s office

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2018-05-11T18:24:55+02:00Fri, 11th May '18, 18:24|

The author of this piece, known to me, reacted to this poster circulated by a quango set up by the President that will be discussing something called 'a feminist approach to rule of law'. Not in my name I was intrigued to learn of a forthcoming event organised by the President’s Foundation for Social Wellbeing [...]

The MGA double spin

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2018-05-11T18:06:49+02:00Fri, 11th May '18, 18:06|

The Gaming Authority’s reply to the Investigative Reporting Project (Italy)’s report on mafia infiltration into Malta’s gaming industry (carried by La Repubblica and the Times of Malta) was written by two authors. At least that’s my analysis of the clashing style that is immediately noticeable in their statement even on a first reading. Read the MGA [...]

GUEST POST: “Daphne was a cockroach” — Ryan Murdock

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2018-05-10T07:39:06+02:00Thu, 10th May '18, 07:39|

By guest author Ryan Murdock: “Daphne was a cockroach.” It was posted right there as a Facebook comment beneath my friend’s link to a Daphne Project article. And further down, by the same person, “she was just another cockroach that got stamped on.” It wasn’t the only such comment on this thread, and it was [...]

Cyprus Media Complaints Commission finds reporting was attack on Maria Efimova to damage her credibility and consequently undermine the weight of her revelations about Malta’s Prime Minister

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2018-05-09T14:29:48+02:00Wed, 9th May '18, 13:45|

The Cyprus Media Complaints Commission has ruled on a complaint on reporting in the Cypriot press, specifically a report in publication 'Reporter' that published wrongful allegations about Maria Efimova that were stated at the same time here in Malta in a series of Facebook posts by TVM news presenter Brian Hansford. The Commission "has come [...]

The rabbit runs through it

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2018-05-09T13:03:28+02:00Wed, 9th May '18, 13:03|

The Malta Independent reluctantly criticised TVM and its sister outlets for misleading their viewers by burying stories that embarrass the government. They made specific reference to reports in international press following up on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s stories. In burying them TVM plays into the government’s narrative nothing new has emerged. I say reluctantly because The [...]

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