The European Commission has finally expressed its concern about passport sales programs. Commissioner Vera Jourova gave a striking quote yesterday: “We don’t want any trojan horses in the EU”. When something is made to look like something else, it inevitably raises suspicion. Malta’s passport scheme is made to look like an attraction for investment to [...]
If the balance is tipped; if the scales are fixed to favour a side; if the blindfold on justice is removed and the sword wielded in the interests of someone against the other, justice becomes injustice and law becomes delinquency. In and of itself there is nothing outside the limits of the law for the [...]
When an idea is packaged as dogma and a group of powerful people go about ramming it down people’s throat insisting no questions are asked, someone somewhere is bound to ask questions. Threats of or material accusations of heresy make it even more inevitable that at least some start to wonder if something is [...]
Well not really. It’s a tale on how TVM, the national broadcaster covered statements by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch. First a disclaimer. Joseph Muscat has legitimised the logical fallacy of tu quoque. Being told in retort that I too covered the two statements differently does not hold water. I am not a news service. [...]
This Facebook post by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is remarkable. Firstly, of course, it relies on the idea that every time people go to bed, they wake up the next morning like goldfish, with no memory. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando accused David Casa of treachery and of knowingly speaking untruths to harm those around him. Perhaps, for [...]
The Malta Today results corroborated the earlier Lovin Malta survey that used a different methodology and got very near results on the voting intentions front showing a gap between the PL and PN of something between 94,000 and 100,000 votes: meaning that for any person intending to vote PN, two would be voting Labour. That [...]
In a short radio interview yesterday morning Adrian Delia continued with his self-immolation tour. He said the PN “lost its credibility and is not managing to show it renewed itself”. It has and it isn’t but not for the reasons being spun by the leadership of the party. There’s an attempt to give the hallucinating [...]
There is a significant logical gap in something Adrian Delia told The Sunday Times yesterday. “There is nothing in the 1,500 pages of the Egrant inquiry report, which has not been published so far in its entirety, which may alter its crystal-clear conclusions.” It’s never difficult to understand whose side Adrian Delia is on. To [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Fraud and forgery were a mainstay of Mossack Fonseca. It was their USP. Was this evaluated in the inquiry? ... Even if, for argument’s sake, the outcome of insufficient evidence to prosecute may be the right one, the Attorney General should consider exercising his discretion at law [...]
… said the wannabe diva. The soul-crushing climax of the Saviour Balzan interview with Michelle Muscat was, of course, the exhumation of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s remains for a crazed Sabbath dance choreographed by the interviewer and the interviewee. Then, with blood still dripping from her fangs, she went on to express surprise not everyone falls [...]
The government has been pushing the boundaries of its power for sometimes. During the last 8 months it has moved with unseemly haste to remove banners and posters of protest on baseless legal pretexts. A pair of such banners were raised by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s sons and husband asking “Why aren’t Keith Schembri and Konrad [...]
Not that it would ever occur to me to attend, but the misnomered August Moon Ball is on again tonight. And the odd tradition founded by President George Abela of dodging the August full moon to comply with the Muscats’ holiday plans continues. As the name implies, the idea initially was to have the [...]
Joseph Muscat visited the tomb of Francesco Buhagiar a predecessor of his in office who has been dead for 84 years. Nice little ceremony. The photographer had enough of an angle to picture the prime minister standing in front of the tomb but, oddly the prime minister stood on it to pay his respects. Quite [...]
It is only right that when Standard & Poor’s expresses concern about Malta’s banking sector, people in the financial services industry prick their ears. They should not be surprised. They have been close witnesses of what has been going on for some time. People who have to hunt every month know that the markets have [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States is evaluating disciplinary proceedings against a Tel-Aviv company part-owned by Maltese-passport holder Anatoly Hurgin. Hurgin and Alexander Aurovsky are shareholders of Ability Inc. The SEC, which oversees securities transactions has been investigating Ability, which provides interception, geolocation and cyber intelligence products to security agencies. Anatoly Hurgin [...]
The Maltese Community Council of Victoria (MCCV) presented a posthumous award to Daphne Caruana Galizia for services to the broader Maltese community and her valuable contribution to democracy in Malta through her fearless investigative journalism. A statement by the MCCV commented that Daphne’s assassination "exposed the fragility of democracy in Malta". Truth, freedom of expression and [...]
Even if the guys at the Central Bank were dragged to their laptops in the middle of the night to mitigate S&P’s comments about the harm to the reputation of Malta’s banking sector, the damage is considerable. We should never make the mistake of blaming S&P. It would be no different to the government blaming [...]
Read this post by Matthew Mizzi on Facebook.
On my behalf Andrew Borg Cardona sent the following to the editor of NET TV in response to a report where they said I lied about the Opposition voting in favour of the cannabis law when I said no such thing. So far they haven't reported it. L-Editur NetNews Nikteb ghan-nom ta’ Manwel Delia b’riferenza [...]
“Il-blogger Manuel Delia mgiddeb” screams the Net headline giving me half my professional title presumably because I’m still unworthy of the prefix ‘biċċa’. In reporting a letter to this website from the party’s new lawyer Vince Galea, Net TV reports that I lied to my readers saying the PN Parliamentary Group voted in favour of [...]