A company owned by the prime minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri was awarded two huge plots of land in the Bulebel Industrial Estate days before his boss, prime minister Joseph Muscat called a general election in 2017. The plots of land were granted for a 65 year lease starting 1st March 2017. One of [...]
The reaction to any blog post or article that is critical of the PN from a source of information that is habitually critical of Joseph Muscat’s government is as predictable as it is sad. It’s not that an opinion that is expressed that is in some way controversial or challenging should not expect to be [...]
See this episode of Metropolis, the first feature of which explores the contradictions of a European Capital of Culture that tries its best to ignore that a journalist has been killed. This is the French language version.
Maria Efimova spoke to me about how a man she does not know ran alongside her on her morning run near where she lives and told her ‘you know you are going to die’. Maria Efimova was taking her morning run along the beach close to her home in Crete when she had this brief [...]
Adrian Delia has caught up with his outstanding taxes and paid his tax debts off after disposing of assets he used to hold and does not hold anymore. He has given a detailed account of this to David Lindsay of The Malta Independent on Sunday who was shown documentation some of which is publicly available [...]
The fate of the Gozo General Hospital has been hanging in the balance since the government decided to abdicate its public responsibility to ensure the provision of overnight health services on Gozo and ‘sold it’ to someone else. The national health service — the obligation of the state to provide excellent health services to everyone [...]
Chris Cardona’s travel calendar makes fascinating reading. He is really that rare breed of minister whose memoirs you actually look forward to and hope they are the most sincere thing he’s ever written, which in his case is a very low benchmark. Relying on the information he gave Parliament about his travel over the last [...]
Is it not fascinating that Minister Chris Cardona often travels on his own on official duty? Given that he spends tens of thousands on these trips it is not likely that he travels alone to save money to the public purse doing away with the accompanying stage hand. First of all there's the many trips [...]
Ali Sadr is having his first taste of freedom after two months in lock-up in New York where he is indicted for multiple charges of bank fraud and sanctions busting. The story was broken in Malta in a Matthew Vella report on Malta Today who had it confirmed by a member of Ali Sadr's legal [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Journalism cannot alone bring about political change. The facts are not enough to silence lies. Truth is not a devastating weapon that wipes out iniquity and plants the seeds of justice in its place. Whistle-blowers do not scare bosses. Consequence is not outside the control of the [...]
I’m with the President on this one. It doesn’t matter what she thinks about the executive actions she is asked to sign. She has to sign them. There is no way she can refuse. This is why I completely disagree with people who think of the President as some form of saviour of last resort [...]
Perhaps value for money audits by the National Audit Office can start even before a project is commissioned rather than 7 years after it’s completed. Yesterday I commented on the auditor’s report on Mater Dei, the principle finding of which was that insufficient documentation is available to determine whether things were done properly. We have [...]
Looks like Triton Fountain needs some maintenance already. It was relaunched with (well deserved) fanfare just a few weeks ago. Something's wrong with it, it seems. Perhaps the naked man in the tray left something behind?
Who even has these ideas? Minister Michael Falzon, the fireworks afficionado whose political career somehow survived the Gaffarena scandal, told MP Karol Aquilina today 2,000 elderly residents of geriatric state institutions are now the proud owners of rosary beads blessed by the Pontifex Maximus himself. He was replying on behalf of his assistant, Tony Agius [...]
The National Audit Office investigated the construction of the Mater Dei Hospital. I use the word ‘investigated’ because they did. Investigation may have been their intent but at least in so far as the report repeatedly finds huge gaps in the information the office managed to gather, what the report appears to have determined is [...]
The United States Attorney prosecuting Ali Sadr for multiple counts of bank fraud and sanctions busting has told the US Federal Court that any equity Ali Sadr still holds in Pilatus Bank is forfeitable because the bank was set up on the back of proceeds of crime. This is the clearest statement yet from a [...]
I doubt very much this will stop the ‘where’s the laptop’ trolling but at least it should frustrate the real motive behind it. Trolls repeat a mantra because mantras are easy to remember. They can be used to shout down any argument and prevent any tempting distraction from the obsessive objective of silencing rationality and [...]
At the inaugural European Leadership Awards ceremony in Brussels tonight, Euronews and the European Business Society presented a special Contribution to Society award to the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The award commemorates her work in the area of investigative journalism. The award was received by Matthew and Andrew Caruana Galizia from European Parliament President Antonio Tajani. [...]
Karol Aquilina filed a formal objection at the planning authority against the giant Silvio Debono project in place of the old ITS building overlooking St George’s Bay. Just filed formal objection with @pa_malta to the proposed @dbseabank project on ITS site in St Julian's, a project designed to line the pockets of greedy developers at [...]
