Netflix released this week a documentary version of the Black Mirror episode from our past. 'The Great Hack' is a documentary that tells the story of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and how this was unpacked with the help of whistleblowers by The Guardian and Parliamentary Committees in the UK and the US. https://youtu.be/iX8GxLP1FHo You [...]
The PN administration has justified the major reshuffle in the composition of the General Council voting Saturday when compared with the composition of the General Council that shortlisted Adrian Delia for election for leadership on the back of objective changes in the people eligible to be members. The clearest example of this is the case [...]
Adrian Delia went on the TV station he controls yesterday to indulge in some of the discourse of his first campaign to become party leader, albeit in a considerably more equanimous tone. Put simply his message is that after Saturday’s vote he’s turning a fresh page in the party’s history. He is fully charged to [...]
Even if Edward Scicluna claims to disagree with any of it, it does not help anyone that the government keeps the report of the Council of Europe's committee of experts on the evaluation of anti-money laundering measures and the financing of terrorism (Moneyval) under wraps. The Moneyval process is in principle confidential. But Rule 29 [...]
Sent in by Libertas: No matter how hopeful and optimistic, no matter up to what extent a party outsider affords party politicians the benefit of doubt, no matter an outsider’s determination to encourage reconciliation and dialogue amongst humans of a different mind, the historical event being held on the 27th July at the Stamperija is [...]
The Government Gazette announced yesterday that the newly minted chief of government communications has been given a part-time job. Matthew Carbone, who one would expect is working 20 hour days, has been appointed to the Film Review Board which is set up by law to watch movies that another board has classified with an age [...]
Jean Claude Juncker enjoyed his day in the sun yesterday. He is nearing his retirement and looks like he has as much appetite for battle as a lottery winner. Clearly Joseph Muscat’s charms still work wonders on him and the easy ride our prime minister had with Juncker’s Commission was perfectly represented in that embrace. [...]
Not quite like rain on your wedding day, but Louise Tedesco headlines her Times of Malta opinion piece today by branding critics of PN leader Adrian Delia as the 'Barra Brigade'. That phrase recalls the PN's campaign when the Panama Papers broke and it turned out that Malta would have the only politicians in the [...]
After Times of Malta reported yesterday that "vandals destroyed memorial to" Lassana Cisse, on the spot in Birżebuġġa where he was killed in a drive by shooting last April, some people went to fix that last night.
The upcoming meeting of the PN’s General Council will not be good for the country. It will cement the differences in the Nationalist Party, confirm its inability to provide any Opposition, retain Adrian Delia, dishearten the last few leaders with some common sense, alienate more of its erstwhile supporters and bring the oldest political party [...]
Edward Scicluna, Chris Cardona and Konrad Mizzi chose today to file an appeal from a Magistrate’s order to start an inquiry into the hospitals privatisation scandal. Perhaps they’re superstitious and they were waiting for the planets to align. Or perhaps they were waiting for Giovanni Grixti to be the duty judge to have his turn [...]
Malta failed the Moneyval reviewing process which assessed Malta’s willingness and ability to fight money laundering. Edward Scicluna and Joseph Muscat have spent the last year preparing you for this result bringing in all sorts of irrelevant considerations in order to diffuse the significance of this. A year ago Edward Scicluna was arguing this was [...]
Congratulations to all winners at the Istitut tal-Ġurnalisti Maltin awards, particularly the lifetime achievement awardee Lawrence Grech. Also, a nice touch to salute Ivan Fenech of the Times of Malta who died earlier this year of a sudden illness. Perhaps, since it's an institute of journalists, it would have been great if someone did some [...]
The destruction of a memorial to an innocent human being murdered for sport is, in a civilised context, an act of barbarism. Vandalising the makeshift memorial to Lassana Cisse made of flowers and messages of grief and sympathy is a racist attack. It is an extension of the mindless and evil racism that killed him [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "A year ago Labour campaigned on the moronic mantra that we were living ‘the best of times’. The opiates of easy money and easy charm were still conditioning the reaction of people and a positively Panglossian slogan that should not have worked, did. Last week Muscat said [...]
It doesn't happen very often that we realise Keith Schembri has not had his way. It was clear from the start that Moviment Graffitti's victory in the courts over the db project permit in Pembroke was not only won on the environmental front. Perhaps, on that side of things, at best they won a reprieve. [...]
Edward Scicluna sued Simon Busuttil for defamation saying tweets Simon Busuttil published lie about him. Or something. Here are Simon Busuttil’s tweets. A MAJOR VICTORY in the fight against corruption! THREE ministers under criminal investigation for the obscene transfer of THREE public hospitals behind our backs. And @JosephMuscat_JM is too compromised to remove them, not [...]
The sack of Malta continues apace. The approval of the highway through Attard has brought tears to many eyes, at least the eyes of people who were not already sore from all the dust. We are stuck in a nightmare, a lucid dream. But we'll wake up from this coma after this zombie apocalypse has [...]
This is my piece in the July 2019 edition of Money Magazine. A digital copy of the magazine can be found here. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is a much maligned idiom. It does not democratise aesthetics. It does not give everyone the right to decide that what they like is beautiful. [...]
