There are bigger fish to fry, but I can’t let this fish slip. I wasn’t in the courtroom when Magistrate Joe Mifsud is reported to have appointed an exorcist in some mumbo-jumbo case he was presiding. The report in Times of Malta refers to this exorcism business in its heading but says very little about [...]

Owen Bonnici needs to get on the phone double quick with the head street sweeper of Ruse in Bulgaria. We can't have flowers and candles and a picture of a journalist left on a public memorial now, can we? It would be a travesty. The photo was on today's The Malta Independent.

Civil society activists rightly point out that they are distinct from politicians even though they may find themselves agreeing with some of them. The vocation of the two is different. Civil society is not burdened by the needs of strategy, partisan tactics, collegial solidarity and the plague of consistency. They mean what they say when [...]

I'm taking a bit of a risk here as obviously this show is the property of the BBC and I'm uploading an extract here without their express permission. If this post vanishes at some point you know why. This extract is the Malta segment which was the very first segment of the very first episode [...]

I’ve thought about what I’m about to say a lot over the last year and I’ve stopped myself saying it aloud. But I saw the prime minister on TV yesterday in Parliament and I heard from people who were there what the scene in the chamber after the cameras were switched off was like. And [...]

Sarah Puntan Galea, another footsoldier in Joseph Muscat's regiment of truth bashers, wanted to remind the BBC's Simon Reeve how journalism should be done. She thinks the world is like Malta where Labour gets to tell everyone what to think, no matter how absurd. The fact that the BBC interviewed me does not give anyone [...]

After that fascist attack on basic freedoms perpetrated in full view of the country by a prime minister who threatened an Opposition MP with effective exile from the country, Simon Busuttil is tonight standing in Parliament to reply. Until now Simon Busuttil said he would wait for the Egrant inquiry to be published before reacting [...]

He tried to fudge it later but he had said it. Joseph Muscat told Simon Busuttil he should not ever be allowed in Malta. It was not a slip of an angry moment. It is an idea the prime minister wants to push right into the mainstream. I meet people who have the culture, the [...]

PEN International is hosting a vigil for Daphne Caruana Galizia on Tuesday 16 October at 7 pm in the courtyard of St James' Church in Picadilly, London. St James' Church is right opposite Malta's High Commission to the UK. The event is described by the organisers as "a vigil to pay tribute to the courage of [...]

The focus right now is on Chris Cardona and the reasons he lied about not knowing Alfred Degiorgio, alleged assassin number 1 awaiting trial for killing Daphne Caruana Galizia. When faced by witnesses he met him close to the bombing at Ferdinand’s bar in Siġġiewi he denied having met him and insisted he only knew [...]

Pierre Portelli was not having a great day today. It’s not something I brought about. Nickie Vella De Fremeaux hit out at Pierre Portelli without naming him at first over an issue which emerges from a conflict of interest he is in, combining his work at the PN with his private interests. In a message [...]

What should be obvious is the callous horror that Malta’s Parliament has made no announcement it will be marking the death of a journalist in the democracy it is supposed to be a representative of. As in Italy last week, the Bundestag is calling a meeting for 18th October for German MPs titled “Press freedom [...]

Statement by #occupyjustice outside the Valletta Police Station today. Six months ago, on 19th April, #occupyjustice activists visited the Valletta Police Station to pass to the police information they appeared not to have seen, though it was published on the world’s media: that Minister Chris Cardona knew alleged assassin Alfred Degiorgio and met him before Degiorgio [...]

Updated: Adds statement by Pierre Portelli On the morning after Chris Cardona was accused by a leading Italian daily of lying about how well he knew an assassin accused of killing a journalist, the party apparatchiks at the PN are busy managing a storm over who has the rights over a TV fiction. This is [...]

Updated. Carries Pierre Portelli's reply. Nickie Vella de Fremeaux has used her Facebook account to publicly criticise, without naming him, PN media chief Pierre Portelli over a dispute the latter has with TV writer Sandro Vella. The issue is over copyright claims over TV soap Fattigi that Sandro Vella has claimed in court is his [...]

The BBC's John Sweeney will be delivering a Freedom Lecture in honour of Daphne Caruana Galizia on Monday 15th October. The event has been oversubscribed and booking is now closed. The event is also being moved to a larger venue to accommodate a larger audience. It will now be held at the Catholic Institute in [...]

La Repubblica reports today that two witnesses have told Magistrate Neville Camilleri that on 29 June 2017, four months before the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Minister Chris Cardona and lead assassin Alfred Degiorgio accused of killing Daphne Caruana Galizia, met at a bachelor’s party in a villa in Fawwara. This contradicts public statements made [...]

PEN International, Article 19, Reporters without Borders, the International Press Institute and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom have updated their report to the United Nations on free speech in Malta ahead of a UN review due in November. "Since 2013, the climate for freedom of expression has deteriorated significantly in Malta, in [...]

For the benefit of readers of this blog who do not live here or speak the language, I am translating here a report on the Labour Party’s “news” website published earlier today.  A month-long campaign against Malta takes off “It conditions the way you work. The way you think about your own country.” October will [...]