In 1941 Charles Chaplin parodied Adolph Hitler at the peak of his power in The Great Dictator. There's a scene where his Hynkel (Hitler) receives advice from his henchman Garbitsch (Goebells) about how to deal with someone who was coming to see him at a meeting. That someone Napoloni (Mussolini) made Hynkel nervous and Garbitsch [...]
In a guest post published earlier today, Godfrey Leone Ganado, said he found that between June and September 2016 at least 81 downloads were made in Russia of Dato Capital's file on Konrad Mizzi's secret Panama company Hearnville Inc. Data Capital is an international company information service provider. This high interest in Russia persisted through [...]
By Godfrey Leone Ganado So far, I have reviewed the leaked Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) reports on ‘allegations of corruption by Keith Schembri on the sale of passports’, on ‘alleged payments made by Keith Schembri to Adrian Hillman’ and on ‘Pilatus Bank’. Konrad Mizzi may have been perceived to have escaped the FIAU net, [...]
Manwel Mallia and Owen Bonnici piloted the Whistleblower Act in July 2013 when the Labour government was still in its honeymoon and no one outside the walls of the prime minister’s studio knew about the Panama conspiracy. Back then Manwel Mallia and Owen Bonnici had not yet left the frame of mind of an opposition [...]
The following reply was sent in by Dr Alex Scerri Herrera in response to an earlier post of mine. In the interest of fairness responses are not open to comments unless on points of fact. From Dr Alex Scerri Herrera I am writing to you with reference to the article you wrote referring to my appointment [...]
The guest post below is the warning the overwhelmingly enthusiastic need to heed. If Joseph Muscat is agreeing with you about something you'd better wonder why he's doing that. When the women of #occupyjustice visited him in Castille he disagreed with everything they said except one: yes we should have constitutional reform. What are the [...]
I feel it is my burdensome duty to attempt to translate Alfred Sant, first from the original Maltese to English and then from the what he says to what he means and in a round-about way to get to what it is that what he means, means. Timid translation from the original, penned by a [...]
Here's David Casa reacting to Manwel Mallia's remarks earlier about hounding people who revealed information covered up by the government. No one thinks the agenda of a police investigation or people's medical records should be opened for public consumption. So let's not be childish and start confusing issues here. But the principle ought always to [...]
I suppose it helps to periodically remind that 'guest post' means someone else (I know) wrote this: Letter to the Commissioner of Police Over the past days I was struck by the thought of the immense amount of pressure you must be experiencing. Having been brought up in a strong military environment, and having risen [...]
The Pana Committee setup by the European Parliament in the wake of the Panama Paper leak, has published its final report and it makes chilling reading from Malta’s point of view. There is nothing we did not know before but it is now a clear and present indictment by a specialist committee of the European [...]
Watch this video of Owen Bonnici speaking to Le Monde. It's in English. And they say government's critics are making Malta look bad in the eyes of the world. And it's not just that he lets slip he thinks politicians killed Daphne Caruana Galizia. It's also that he argues, expecting that argument to be bought by [...]
Is it just me that cannot understand the way things work in this country? Hear me out. On 3 November, 5 days ago, Il Sole 24 Ore reports in Italy that the Catania tax police believe that a Malta Foreign Ministry official aided and abetted the illegal smuggling of diesel from Libya to Europe by [...]
This is the statement the women received by the prime minister today, told him in his office in Castille. A translation in English follows beneath. Prim Ministru, Ninsabu hawn għax il-qagħda f’pajjiżna hi ddisprata. Wieħed jista jipprova jqis l-assassinju ta’ Daphne Caruana Galizia qisu kien omiċidju bħall-oħrajn, imma dan m’hux minnu. Hu dmir [...]
Malta does have laws criminalising the corruption of officials. And though we have the right laws on paper, the real issue is failure of the institutions to act on them. So signing a European convention does not solve the problem at hand. But there's something odd for a government to have come to power in [...]
Jean Claude Micallef is not famous for his consistency. He flipflopped between Labour and the PN according to where he thought his chances for career progression were better served. The PN first received him as parties habitually welcome sheep lost by the other side. But as his oily sleaze ran up the creeped-out collective spines [...]
Minutes after his mother was killed in a brutal explosion and while her remains still burnt all around him, Matthew Caruana Galizia was assaulted and punched in the face by a man who stopped near the burning remains to take photos. Matthew Caruana Galizia told me how a man driving a silver SUV parked next [...]
As far as I can figure out TVM has not covered the Paradise Papers leaks. It’s not that they did not analyse the Azerbaijani connections to Malta and Pilatus Bank. It’s not that they avoided joining dots bouncing furiously at each other. They didn’t even report the fact that Pulitzer-Prize winning ICIJ team have leaked [...]
This is to link to the feature in Italian.
If you speak French, listen to this.
You can feel the desolation in the title of The Times's leading piece today. It speaks about the vain hope that EU membership might have kept in check a government that neglects the basic obligations of democratic administration and respect for the rule of law. But the EU is found wanting. In the same way [...]