Read this follow-up feature about Russian millionaires buying Maltese passports. The story by Anna Nemtsova includes comments by Ilya Shumanov, the deputy head of Transparency International’s bureau in Moscow that showed The Daily Beast a list of 582 Russians who have bought E.U. passports in Malta just since the beginning of 2018. The group has [...]
If the Prime Minister was making any attempt at logic yesterday, his record of contradictions, inconsistencies, gyrations and logical contortions came in his way. It is supremely ironic that he was complaining he could no longer handle other people’s hypocrisies when his are so manifest. He complained about the bible-bashing, procession-going Catholics who are celebrating [...]
Last October I wrote a piece ‘Journalism most foul, he said’ on this blog. I wrote it in response to an article published in the Sunday Times of Malta the day before, authored by the newspaper’s former editor, Steve Mallia. As I had written in my article, I never wanted to use my blog to [...]
In case you missed it. https://youtu.be/Owg1iBs0Tb4
Rightly or wrongly, the PN has placed itself in direct confrontation with the independent media. Its last remaining pen-holding sympathisers either work for it or work for the Labour Party with whom it shares many interests. When Saviour Balzan is your attorney, your days are numbered. When the Times of Malta rolls out an editorial [...]
Press Release by Repubblika: Repubblika filed a judicial protest in Court demanding the government freezes appointments to, and promotions in, the judiciary until measures to ensure judicial independence are properly introduced. Judicial independence is not just a right for judges. It is a human right of all of us, protected by the European Convention, that [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Mr Souleymane has been killed in the street. We are supposed to reserve judgement on the motivation of the killing until the police determine who did it and why. Of course we know the police are almost certainly not doing any such thing. Whether because they do [...]
19:01 Adds Frank Psaila's comments. A meeting with Yorgen Fenech of the Tumas Group cost Herman Schiavone his seat in the PN Parliamentary Group. It did not cost Kristy Debono anything more than the effort to write a not entirely heartfelt apology. Here's a screen-shot taken for Net TV's Iswed fuq l-Abjad presented by PN [...]
This was sent in by a reader: Dear Manuel, This is a letter from an avid reader of your blog who would like to remain anonymous . First of all, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for all your efforts in advocating good governance. That Labour will retain four seats is a [...]
Reżistenza statement this morning: The Maltese institutions are on their knees, exhausted from a cocktail of incompetence & collusion. Nobody has remained accountable for their actions. After all, once we are in l-aqwa żmien, what shortfalls can anyone find? In 2016, our country lived a pivotal moment. It could have been the beginning of a [...]
Corruption in public procurement is “eroding business confidence to the detriment of law-abiding companies and their employees,” business organisations have said. In separate statements, the Chamber of Commerce and the Employers Association expressed “shock and disapproval” at the government’s decision to shift goalposts in major contract selection processes. The MEA complained of “discrimination against the [...]
Commissioner for Standards in Public Life George Hyzler has found the actions of the Foreign Minister’s private secretary Alessandro Mangion “particularly reprehensible” when he called an international human rights campaigner a “biased shit-hole.” The incident occurred in December last year when Alessandro Mangion rebuffed PEN International campaigner Sarah Clarke at a UN migration meeting. Ms [...]
Dutch daily Nederlands Dagblad spoke to Matthew and Andrew Caruana Galizia in Strasbourg on the sidelines of the Council of Europe meeting where they sat in front of Owen Bonnici who avoided looking at them like Lot feared to look back at Sodom. Here’s Matthew Caruana Galizia: “‘The murder was my fault, they said. I [...]
The Herman Schiavone Kristy Debono incident of this week has all the hallmarks of a trap. Someone appears to have relied on clear vulnerabilities to cause embarrassment and harm, though the list of vulnerabilities and the list of people who benefited from this mess are so long, it is impossible to be sure of the full [...]
Photo: Joanna Demarco Dutch daily newspaper Trouw carried a detailed feature on Daphne Caruana Galizia including interviews with her son Matthew and sister Corinne Vella. From the article: "Caruana Galizia is, to a certain extent, still present everywhere in Malta, although the government prefers to close the chapter immediately. That government would rather speak [...]
German daily Die Welt reported on Owen Bonnici's abysmal performance in Strasbourg this week. "Owen Bonnici tried all he could this Tuesday morning to convince those present that in his home country everything is in order and that the investigation into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was being seriously conducted. 'We have left [...]
In case you missed it, a few days ago DW carried a feature about the aftermath of the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Jan Kuciak in their respective countries. From that piece: "Unlike in Slovakia, little has changed on Malta and the same persons Galizia investigated remain in positions of power. Three arrests have [...]
Sent in by someone I know. 2019 The biggest issue on a Sunday in a quaint island in the middle of the Mediterranean is not the fact that there are serious environmental health concerns with people hospitalised in increasing numbers to breathe through a mask. Nor is there a discussion related to the fact that [...]
Peter Grech this morning was an even worse spectacle than his boss, Owen Bonnici. We have come to expect politicians to be utterly bereft of decency. But Peter Grech embodies the moral collapse of our public service which, ironically, he represented so accurately and ineloquently today. In the four years of the past crisis, in [...]
If you watched the Council of Europe session this morning you will have seen Owen Bonnici play his act again of the benevolent absorbent of any criticism cheerfully and indecently agape like a Venus flytrap. ‘We are a reformist government,’ he tells people in the audience who have written or at least read the reports [...]