The incentive to be corrupt

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2020-01-20T18:36:51+01:00Mon, 20th Jan '20, 18:36|

Look at this tweet by minister Byron Camilleri. It is the same logic on the back of which Chris Fearne, in the run-up to Labour’s leadership election, said the PN was only really interested in abolishing partisan TV stations because it can’t afford its own. That may very well be the case but it’s all [...]

GUEST POST: Joseph Muscat did not betray me

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2020-01-20T18:03:16+01:00Mon, 20th Jan '20, 18:03|

By someone known to me. One consequence of climate change is the melting of ice that might have been frozen for countless years. This inevitably uncovers many things that had lain there undisturbed, shielded by the protecting ice, amongst which there are many skeletons. The dimensions of such revelations are much larger than that of [...]

LONG READ: The PN wants to catch them young

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2020-01-20T18:25:06+01:00Mon, 20th Jan '20, 17:57|

The Nationalist Party has started a recruitment drive for young people to sign up for a life in politics. It’s going to be a tough sell. And it really shouldn’t be. I don’t mean to suggest with what I’m about to say that it would not be desirable for us voters to have multiple political [...]

GUEST POST: No honeymoon, Robert

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2020-01-19T18:17:13+01:00Sun, 19th Jan '20, 16:42|

If you needed confirmation that Robert Abela’s premiership wasn’t going to get - or deserve - a honeymoon, Sunday’s papers provided it. On Malta Today, its owner Saviour Balzan wrote about how a bunch of craven cowards vomited their thoughts about the disgraced Joseph Muscat into his lap. These revolting turds weren’t named, but according [...]

Look like the innocent flower

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2020-01-19T18:16:19+01:00Sun, 19th Jan '20, 15:15|

In a normal country where we would have assumed the prime minister of the land would be committed to half-way decent governance, Silvio Valletta’s statement in his own defence today would be the last nail in his wife’s political coffin. Justyne Caruana should not last the day as government minister. We now know that in [...]

A little bit of honesty would have gone a long way

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2020-01-19T14:38:50+01:00Sun, 19th Jan '20, 14:35|

The Bank of Valletta did not take criticism very well. It took an indignant view of anyone interpreting its position as problematic and replied angrily to any warning that emerging signs put its future in doubt. Its new CEO gave an interview to Times of Malta’s Jacob Borg and departed from his predecessor’s fudging. He [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Unbearable lightness of normality in Malta

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2020-01-19T08:35:21+01:00Sun, 19th Jan '20, 08:35|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Robert Abela is not Joseph Muscat. 2020 is not 2019. And we are encouraged, particularly by those with plenty to hide including the embarrassment of having belonged to the corrupt regime we saw out over Christmas, “to look ahead and not dwell in the past”, to “return [...]

Mafia infiltration

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2020-01-19T08:32:22+01:00Sun, 19th Jan '20, 08:32|

Silvio Valletta went on a trip to watch football with Yorgen Fenech and that’s when the police Silvio Valletta was deputy chief of, suspected Yorgen Fenech was the mastermind behind Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. The Maltese government lost a human rights case filed by Daphne’s family saying Silvio Valletta’s involvement was a breach of their [...]

Joseph Muscat met MFA in last weeks in office. MFA told government will “help” Italy football club project.

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2020-01-17T17:38:09+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 17:05|

In his last weeks as prime minister, Joseph Muscat met the Malta Football Association to discuss their major projects and ways the government can help them fulfil those plans. One major project the MFA is currently focused on is owning an Italian third-division football club which Joseph Muscat intends to manage. In a briefing to [...]

Repubblika on Lawrence Cutajar’s dismissal

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2020-01-17T13:25:43+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 13:25|

Statement by Repubblika The Police Commissioner’s Resignation The Police Commissioner’s resignation offers the opportunity to launch a process of reform and development that is sorely needed within the Police Corps. Civil society has been asking for this for the past two years three months. During all this time, Robert Abela was a member of Parliament [...]

Is Mario Cutajar going to recommend himself as a best practice model for good governance?

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2020-01-17T12:44:47+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 12:44|

Mario Cutajar, Joseph Muscat’s pick as chief civil servant, has been appointed by Robert Abela on the cabinet committee on governance. That’s when Mario Cutajar is as terrible an example of good governance as anyone could possibly be. He is principal permanent secretary which makes him the boss of bosses in the civil service. He [...]

Repubblika on the “governance committee” appointed by the government

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2020-01-17T11:05:37+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 11:05|

Repubblika statement: REPUBBLIKA’S REACTION TO THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNANCE APPOINTED BY GOVERNMENT Repubblika believes that it would have been far better had the Government appointed a “Committee on Good Governance” rather than simply a “Committee on Governance”. In the past few years, Malta had governance. This governance was weak towards criminals, abusive towards free press [...]

Did Malta really need 27 months to get this done?

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2020-01-17T10:45:55+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 10:45|

Lawrence Cutajar can take up his fixation with his football club full-time now. It seems that it's become a mainstream retirement activity for retirees of Joseph Muscat's regime, particularly those who thought Joseph Muscat had metal testicles. Keeping Lawrence Cutajar at police headquarters for as long as we did was an effort to prevent justice [...]

Did we pay for that?

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2020-01-17T08:21:41+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 08:21|

Has Joseph Muscat negotiated his next job while he was still in office? The Times of Malta confirmed the story that Joseph Muscat’s next career move is in a football club in the Italian league which will be owned by the Malta Football Association. We’ll be told this is a private arrangement. The MFA is [...]

History of a protest suppressed

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2020-01-17T07:58:08+01:00Fri, 17th Jan '20, 07:58|

The protest site in front of the court building became, for over two years, the battleground for the struggle between basic decency and the claim for democratic life on the one hand and on the other, the fearful fury of the guilty who could not tolerate the continued protest mostly because they were unable to [...]

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