Repubblika writes to the leaders meeting Joseph Muscat today

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2019-06-14T17:52:27+02:00Fri, 14th Jun '19, 17:51|

This is a letter sent today by Repubblika to the heads of state and government meeting Joseph Muscat in Valletta today:   Mr Emmanuel Macron, President of France Mr Nicos Anastasiades, President of Cyprus Mr Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy Mr Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece Mr Antonio Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal [...]

Made homeless by State inaction

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2019-06-14T17:42:25+02:00Fri, 14th Jun '19, 17:42|

The Prime Minister yesterday issued a royal decree ordering all excavations or demolitions stopped until further review of the rules that according to him are now causing buildings to collapse. Facebook has since yesterday been replete with debates interpreting that decree and trying to define limits around its absurdity. That's why royal decrees have been [...]

Physics

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2019-06-14T11:16:15+02:00Fri, 14th Jun '19, 11:16|

The leadership of the PN is drunk on a punch of factional politics. When MPs resort to WhatsApp groups or Facebook posts to express disagreement, subtly or not so much, with the line the party leadership takes that’s officially described as factionalism. It isn’t really. It’s venting of frustration: leaking pipes in a plumbing system [...]

Darren Debono: awaiting Italian trial for smuggling; sits on Maltese Premier footy committee

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2019-06-14T09:44:05+02:00Fri, 14th Jun '19, 09:44|

Darren Debono, who has been charged in Italy for smuggling Libyan fuel for Sicily’s Cosa Nostra has been elected to the committee of Premier League club Senglea Athletic FC and now sits on the “technical team” managing the club’s team. A report announcing the news on TVM, the national broadcaster, introduced Darren Debono as an [...]

German prosecutor complains Malta-licensed gaming franchises are a backdoor for laundering drugs money

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2019-06-14T09:15:33+02:00Fri, 14th Jun '19, 09:15|

German public TV NDR ran an investigation this week into links between sports betting shops in Germany and organised crime. The feature interviews the Chief Prosecutor responsible for organised crime in Frankfurt, Noah Krueger, who says his office is investigating whether several dozen betting shops have been used as fronts for operations laundering money for [...]

The rule of law collapses. So does your roof.

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2019-06-13T18:59:10+02:00Thu, 13th Jun '19, 18:59|

The Prime Minister ordered all permits for excavations and demolitions issued according to the laws of the land, suspended until he rewrites the law. He looks like “he’s doing something” in the face of a crisis. The crisis is his doing. Avoiding it was not just within his powers. It was his responsibility which he [...]

GUEST POST: When politics falls over your head

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2019-06-13T18:15:00+02:00Thu, 13th Jun '19, 18:15|

I sat down to write on the Prime Minister's intervention today after yet another collapse of a building that had the misfortune of being next door to something ironically termed 'development'. I still have some thoughts to add to the below but this guest post sent in by a regular contributor to this site sets [...]

International Free Speech NGOs beat Manwel Mallia to lobby EU-Med Summit on basic freedoms in Malta

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2019-06-13T16:10:42+02:00Thu, 13th Jun '19, 16:10|

Manwel Mallia was getting ready for battle this morning. But free speech and media freedom NGOs filed their appeal with the heads of government meeting in Malta tomorrow encouraging them to read Pieter Omtzigt's Council of Europe report and learn how Malta is systematically failing in guaranteeing the safety of journalists and upholding the rule [...]

No accounts for Pilatus Bank since 2016

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2019-06-13T15:58:30+02:00Thu, 13th Jun '19, 15:58|

The ‘Competent Person’ appointed by the MFSA to take control of Pilatus Bank has failed in his reporting duties according to law, an article by Godfrey Leone Ganado for this website says. Lawrence Connell, who worked as a financial regulator in the United States in the past, appears to have missed deadlines in submitting reports [...]

It’s alive! Alive, I tell you!

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2019-06-13T15:28:06+02:00Thu, 13th Jun '19, 15:28|

Robert Arrigo was not wrong in expressing frustration about some of the stuff people put on Facebook. Messaging in politics used to be a science. You had trained people who thought words through, evaluated them against the data they collected, tested them in focus groups, and exercised discipline and coordinated speakers to ensure the public [...]

Manwel Mallia, you’re gonna need a bigger boat

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2019-06-13T14:53:31+02:00Thu, 13th Jun '19, 14:53|

The story of Manwel Mallia sending a WhatsApp Group that includes Nationalist MPs the beginning of a conspiracy to “lobby against” a Council of Europe report is only superficially about him revealing strategy in the wrong chat window. This is not about Manwel Mallia typing on his phone without looking who exactly would be getting [...]

Goodbye Ivan

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2019-06-12T20:03:43+02:00Wed, 12th Jun '19, 20:03|

I knew Ivan Fenech for many years, never very well. I knew him mostly through what I heard others say of him. That he was smart, funny, kind, patient, civil and principled. And I knew him as everyone else did, one of the most recognisable pens on Maltese newspapers. I got to know him more [...]

This is the end

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2019-06-12T13:33:48+02:00Wed, 12th Jun '19, 13:33|

You might say that Adrian Delia’s brief and turbulent marriage with the PN is on the rocks if what you had in mind was the end of freefall from a plane without a parachute. But even now, his limbs shattered, his vision blurred, and blood pouring out of his nostrils, he still looks like he [...]

Konrad Mizzi is again ok with his own human rights

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2019-06-12T12:45:53+02:00Wed, 12th Jun '19, 12:45|

Konrad Mizzi has withdrawn his second human rights claim yesterday dispatching his lawyer John Bonello who ceded the case the Minister had filed. Konrad Mizzi filed a claim in the constitutional court that the right in the law that allowed Repubblika and Simon Busuttil to ask for an inquiry into the Panama Papers breached his [...]

Peter stays one

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2019-06-12T12:03:43+02:00Wed, 12th Jun '19, 12:03|

The Opposition has indicated it will not support the government’s bill to amend the Constitution to split the role of the Attorney General in two, retaining, even enhancing, the control the prime minister has on the institutions that are supposed to have the power to put handcuffs on him. That is welcome news. But only [...]

When is a university not a university? (6)

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2019-06-11T16:58:51+02:00Tue, 11th Jun '19, 16:58|

This is the sixth part of a series arising from an interview with an ex-staff member at the AUM. Part 1 is here. In Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back, Matthew D’Ancona writes: ‘There is a voice within each of us that resists lies, even if that voice has… been [...]

When is a university not a university? (5)

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2019-06-10T18:16:30+02:00Mon, 10th Jun '19, 16:17|

This is the fifth part of a series arising from an interview with an ex-staff member at the AUM. Part 1 is here. Despite his longstanding academic career and positions of serious responsibility in various academic institutions, including the honour of being the first university president in Azerbaijan at Khazar University, Baku, John Ryder has [...]

Repubblika: Put brakes on Constitutional changes

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2019-06-10T17:19:46+02:00Mon, 10th Jun '19, 15:16|

A Repubblika statement of earlier today: PARLIAMENT SHOULD NOT APPROVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS WITHOUT CONSULTATION Repubblika is concerned about the bill the government is piloting this evening at the House of Representatives to amend the Constitution and calls on Members of Parliament to reject the bill if they are serious about wanting proper Constitutional reforms that [...]

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