From my article in The Sunday Times today: "It’s hard to find an accurate translation of the specific meaning of “ma npaxxuhomx” when it is used in the local political context. It literally means one should not act in a way that gives pleasure to the enemy. That does not merely mean ‘let us not [...]

Emanuel Delia · News of the death of the passport scheme has been greatly exaggerated The government is desperate to look like it's cleaning its stables before the Moneyval sword falls in October. A cosmetic clean-up of the passport scheme was inevitable but the government is risking allowing Moneyval to see through the subterfuge and [...]

Il-Koħħu’s former lawyer testified today at the inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s killing. He said he knew he was in danger but the police denied him security saying that if they were to give him protection everyone would know il-Koħħu was spilling the beans. But by then everyone knew il-Koħħu was spilling the beans. The [...]

The Commissioner for Public Standards has activated a section of the law that creates his office in cases where he finds a breach of ethics by an MP and thinks the MP should face a serious rap and a possible order to cough up some money. This hasn’t happened before because the Commissioner for Public [...]

A radio show of lackeys this morning praised Julia Farrugia Portelli for her BBC interview yesterday. They thought that her invitation to Boris Johnson to go jogging with her amounted to “a mic drop”. Truly a government of the mediocre for the mediocre. https://youtu.be/dXmYW26la2o   Julia Farrugia Portelli was an embarrassment on TV yesterday. She [...]

Glenn Bedingfield did not get Robert Abela’s memo yesterday. The party leader was telling the press outside the parliament building that being a friend, a fuck-buddy, a WhatsApp chatter or a business associate of Yorgen Fenech was ok if you stopped doing it the day he was charged with murder. Inside Parliament, Glenn Bedingfield was [...]

Robert Abela promised high standards of governance but he’s only getting his ministers to jump over hurdles set about their ankles. They seem to be set that low in case they need to skip with their trousers down. He responded today to journalists’ challenges to ministers after Paul Caruana Galizia’s tweet a few days ago [...]

Listen to the article here or scroll down for the transcript: Emanuel Delia · The Privilege To Fight Privilege Like any good thing parliamentary privilege can be abused. But if it’s taken away, our democracy will die a little bit more. Parliamentary privilege comes up ever so often when someone alleges an MP has abused [...]

Thirteen migrants presently stuck in Libya, represented by Paul Borg Olivier and Eve Borg Costanzi, yesterday filed in court a judicial protest against the government anticipating a possible action under the European Convention of Human Rights. The 13 include 4 women, one of whom is the mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old child. Along with another 38 [...]

The Chamber of Advocates was full of ire and wrath yesterday because this website has asked questions about Aron Mifsud Bonnici’s role in the Montenegro deal. Here’s why we’re confused. Look at this picture from November 2015 of Konrad Mizzi meeting his counterpart in Podgorica, Montenegro. The photo comes with an official statement by the [...]

Three local councils, 10 NGOs and thousands of individuals are giving reasons to the Planning Authority why the ‘revised’ dB tower Pembroke plans ought to be rejected. Those objections are about height, density, waste, congestion, pollution, noise, light, land use: a huge range of planning reasons why the project should not be allowed. But there [...]

Since January 2020, when Robert Abela moved in, Neville Gafà was supposed to be out of the public service. But a mundane albeit angry post by an irate citizen from Ħal Lija suggests Gafà is still 'solving problems' for people. The complainant has been raising concerns about roadworks where he lives for several days. Now [...]

The Chamber of Advocates reacted to my recent blog posts where I wrote about Aron Mifsud Bonnici’s triunal roles as Konrad Mizzi’s personal lawyer, as Enemalta’s board secretary and as an advisor on the corrupt Montenegro deal. The representative body of Malta’s lawyers also kick The Shift News because they were the ones to reveal [...]

Read this in-depth report on Belgian news site Mondiaal Neuws by Pieter Stockmans about Malta's conduct in managing rescue operations in its search and rescue area during the Covid-19 lockdown. The report says that Malta is resorting to increasingly extreme methods of preventing the arrival of new migrants. The coronavirus crisis appears to be a [...]

On 2 April 2017, The Malta Independent on Sunday ran this story: “Wind farm project in Montenegro taken over by Enemalta ‘clouded by corruption’”. The story was written by Gabriel Schembri and it looked at what it was that Enemalta had bought. The project was mired in corruption since before Enemalta stepped in. The report [...]

Neville Gafà remains one of the enduring mysteries of the Joseph Muscat era. These days we mostly see him flanking Keith Schembri when the corrupt, thieving bastard is dragged to court to answer questions that risk exposing him for being worse than that. I watched Gafà testify in open court before the covid crisis and [...]

I don't want to spoil your day off. This is a bit like watching a film by Leni Riefenstahl when you're not reviewing it for a university paper. This is Konrad Mizzi speaking to the Labour Party conference when the Panama Papers leaked in 2016. Watch him. Listen to what he says. Watch the reactions. [...]

In case you missed this last night.

No one can say Adrian Delia’s denials are not categorical. He had no communication he knew of with Yorgen Fenech after the revelation in October 2018 that Fenech owned 17 Black, the company lined up to bribe Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. He allowed for the possibility that without him ever seeing it Yorgen Fenech [...]