Met someone at a party
Joseph Muscat was at his wife's all white fundraiser a few days ago and had to make conversation. Here's one chat he struck up. Madame goes by the name of Tatyana Malinova. Here are some of her Instagram pictures. Хороший был вечер ? About last night ? Party it’s good but football more important ???? [...]
#occupyjustice: Red Cards
The following is the statement by #occupyjustice at their action at Castille today: The World Cup of Corruption The football World Cup may be over, but here in Malta the World Cup of Corruption is still ongoing. We still have three key players who have been shown the red card over and over, yet [...]
Second Pilatus Bank director being indicted in the United States
Mustafa Cetinel, still at present a director of Pilatus Bank, is being indicted in the United States federal courts after an FBI investigation. In April, the Financial Times reported that Mustafa Cetinel had been investigated by the FBI, but no news of an indictment has emerged since. A physical inspection of the records at the [...]
Divvy up
Times of Malta has been carrying a series of stories about public procurement that should, under normal circumstances, be raising serious alarm. The almost universal indifference to wrongdoing is just what allows the government to ignore rules or to turn them round to seem like they are following them while they really frustrate the reason [...]
The Prime Minister’s commute
On his way to work this morning, Joseph Muscat would have driven by these notes left for him by Il-Kenniesa. Just in case they were taken down before his drive, here they are for another view.
U ejja, come on …
Jonathan Ferris lost his job a year and a month ago. You will remember Edward Scicluna, before his famous last known words ‘u ejja come on’, telling the camera he wondered if the FIAU reports into Pilatus Bank ‘were written to be leaked’. Less than a week later Jonathan Ferris and Charles Cronin were told [...]
Vigil for Truth and Justice: Monday 16th July at 17:30
See you at the Great Siege Memorial tomorrow. We're meeting early to make way for the other activities in the city tomorrow. But until justice and truth are served, justice and truth must continue to be demanded. The photo is by Jonathan Borg, Times of Malta.
The Irish Times: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow
Do please go to The Irish Times to read this article by Fintan O'Toole. We need to recognise what is happening around us.
The planner who makes money from property development
Matthew Pace is one of Keith Schembri’s bankers. He is one of the surviving directors of MFSP and has handled Keith Schembri’s deposits from mysterious sources conveniently neglecting to ask questions on provenance and cleaning them through an amenable Bank of Valletta. Read more on that here. Matthew Pace is squatting and holding up [...]
With a tie like that …
I kick myself as I do this. I'm qualified to be no one's image consultant. If I were, I'd do well to be my own. But have you seen Owen Bonnici's tie as he was running the gauntlet in Leeuwarden yesterday? Did he think it would disarm the artists in the audience?
Reputational laundry
Hugo Chetcuti died from complications from the wounds he suffered in a stabbing attack a few days earlier. And on cue the outpouring of grief on social media. Some with the obvious: he didn’t deserve to die this way. Of course not. No one does. No one is qualified to dispense death as judgement on [...]
Noddy tries his hand at international diplomacy. Not likely to try again.
Owen Bonnici is not going to be headhunted by the United Nations to resolve the Middle East conflict any time soon. In entirely unjustified supreme self-confidence he flew into the 100,000 person Dutch town of Leeuwarden somehow expecting the community there to be impressed by him the way his mother and several hundred Facebook fans [...]
TVM’s limited view: who’s checking?
The Malta Independent is right to raise the alert here about TVM ignoring the European Banking Authority’s statement that the FIAU allowed Malta’s financial system to serve crime. The fact that TVM went on to report the FIAU’s puerile reply is just the sort of idiotic bias we expect. But though we expect this sort [...]
Jonathan Ferris must be compensated
The findings of the European Banking Authority that ruled the FIAU broke the laws that give it its responsibility to prevent the use of the financial system to serve crime, independently confirm Jonathan Ferris’s case. Jonathan Ferris worked at the FIAU for a few months before he was fired from his job. It was when [...]
Constitutional Court finds Judge Antonio Mizzi’s refusal to recuse himself from hearing the Panama Papers appeal breaches Simon Busuttil’s rights: which means your rights
The Constitutional Court today found that Antonio Mizzi's refusal to recuse himself from hearing Joseph Muscat's appeal from a court order to have him and the Panama Gang investigated by the police is a breach of Simon Busuttil's fundamental rights. Simon Busuttil comes into this because he filed the complaint to the court that the [...]
Silence falls
The government has not yet reacted to a European Banking Agency report that Malta’s FIAU broke EU law on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering and terrorist financing. There’s obviously an FIAU Press Release, a pathetic excuse at a response expressing ‘disappointment’ in the EBA’s decision [...]
Starving
This is from Nickie Vella de Fremaux's public Facebook page. From two days ago. Starved but not hungry. What of? Attention? Air? Abiogenesis? Madam you're in the big league now. Try to act the part.
Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.
I suppose, for some, a football World Cup with England in the final four and Italy outside the starting 36 is enough evidence of civilisational collapse. But even thinking that is like starting a funereal eulogy with a joke and getting no chuckles. Even in the glory of summer, the free flowing beer, the football, [...]