A California Senator, an ancient Greek dramatist, a Chinese military strategist, and several others have been credited with coining the phrase ‘the first casualty of war is truth’. Which is ironic. What’s more ironic is that here in Malta by the time war breaks out truth is long dead. No mourning for sincerity here. Consider [...]
Volodymyr Zelensky is resisting an invasion of his country by the Russian army. He is standing tall while his city and several other of his country’s cities are being bombarded from the air and sustaining the cost of artillery fire. He holds back his tears as he witnesses the bodies of civilians and soldiers strewn [...]
Testifying in court today, C-Planet owner Philip Farrugia said that at the time when a database of the voting intentions of all citizens of Malta was handed over to them, some time in 2012, the source of that data, Ivan Buttigieg, was “an employee” of the General Workers’ Union’s insurance subsidiary Untours. In fact, Ivan [...]
Testifying in court today, Philip Farrugia, Managing Director of IT company C-Planet, said it had been Ivan Buttigieg who had given his company a pen drive that included the electoral register and data of how every individual was expected to vote in the general election. Farrugia said that at the time when the data was [...]
Sometimes I feel this country has its ankle stuck to a time machine that keeps warping it back to the days of King John of England. Professor Carmen Sammut, the University’s number 2, told the Commissioner for Education in the Ombudsman’s Office nobody has the power and authority to examine what the University decides in [...]
Someone sent me a screenshot of a Facebook post by one John Charles Ellul trying to be smart about the opening of Parliament. He asks how it is possible the country appears to have run out of eggs and tomatoes to be tossed at PN MPs on their way out of Parliament. The drafting is [...]
I feel silly having to say this and I’m warned that by drawing attention to things Simon Mercieca, that self-loathing slug who splutters through the slime he excretes and proceeds to ingest, I give him the attention he craves and help spread the lies he spews. It would seem sensible to ignore him, except that [...]
Anya (not her real name) is 16 years old and lives just outside Moscow. I first met her about a year ago as her online English language teacher. She’s bright, articulate, devours the Russian classics and has also read Orwell’s 1984 which, for her, is ‘about the total control of people by the government’, Big [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Tumas Group still owns and operates Yorgen Fenech’s casinos. Tumas Group still owns and operates Electrogas, a public contract acquired through (alleged) corruption and (allegedly) protected by murder. "Tumas Group is run by Yorgen Fenech’s ‘Uncle Ray’, who instructed him on how to escape the country and [...]
You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I pick on something Robert Musumeci said. Here’s his tweet. I’m not a lawyer and as lawyers go he’s quite the star. He has a PhD and will in no time earn the moniker professor. He’s already teaching law students while I haven’t had a day of law school. [...]
Do please take the time to read this Malta Today report of a court ruling that found that a prison inmate and his fiancée had their rights breached when Alex Dalli, as then prison director, prevented them from marrying. The state was also found responsible for breaching the inmate’s rights when he was punished because [...]
Tonight and tomorrow the KVS on the Quai aux Pierres de Taille in Brussels will be showing performances of Herman Grech's play on the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The performances are being held during the week of the World Press Freedom Day. The picture above shows the last technical rehearsal before tonight's opening. The [...]
My second book The Third Siege of Malta, edited by Alessandra Dee Crespo, has made the ‘long list’ for the National Book Prize 2021 in the Literary Non-Fiction category. The long list is the full list of publications deemed eligible for participation in the competition. The Third Siege of Malta, published by MidSea Book, faces [...]
The administrative review tribunal denied a request filed by former minister and EU Commissioner John Dalli and his daughter Louisa who wanted the right of first refusal on a field adjacent to the Siġġiewi property where they live. The field was sold by the Lands Authority by tender, but the offer made by the Dallis [...]
Questions put by this website to Ronald Vassallo, spokesman for the Labour Party, on whether the Labour Party accepted funds from the Tumas Group since its former CEO, Yorgen Fenech, was charged with murdering Daphne Caruana Galizia, were sidestepped. Ronald Vassallo only replied to one of three questions put to him concerning whether at any [...]
At Sunday’s urgent PN Administrative Committee, the PN’s Deputy Leader Robert Arrigo informed the committee the PN had recently accepted donations from Ray Fenech, uncle of Yorgen Fenech and his successor as CEO of the Tumas family business, sources say. This website asked the PN whether it had received funds “from the Tumas Group and [...]
Today is World Press Freedom Day. In a small city in the Friuli region of the north of Italy there's a secular Via Crucis of journalists remembered as martyrs for truth. An association of young writers and actors called Le Ombre (The Shadows) last Saturday marked World Press Freedom Day by leading a group of citizens [...]
A court today ruled a journalist had substantially proven the allegations he had published against Neville Gafàin 2016. In the intervening time David Lindsey has left journalism and went on to do other things. The case against him was beset by delays. The magistrate hearing it got promoted causing delays in the case. The journalist’s [...]
A regional court in Varna has ordered Jason Azzopardi to pay Christo Georgiev, owner of the defunct Satabank, around €3,000 in damages and court fees after Georgiev’s SLAPP suit against Jason Azzopardi for remarks the then MP made in Parliament. Jason Azzopardi had not filed a defence in this case. Speaking to this website Jason [...]
A libel court has found in favour of a journalist in a libel case brought by former Joseph Muscat senior aide Neville Gafà. The court ruled that the journalist, then Malta Independent on Sunday editor David Lindsay, had proven in substance that it was true that Neville Gafà pocketed illegal payments from Libyan people wounded [...]