Prime Minister Robert Abela has broken his public commitment to publish recommendations from experts he appointed to advise him on how to enhance media freedom and protect journalists. A government statement last January had promised the experts’ recommendations would be published within 10 days of the government receiving them, but Robert Abela has withheld recommendations [...]
Sent in by someone known to me. One cannot but compare Malta’s political landscape with that parallel universe abroad in countries we used to hold up as models of democracy. It’s almost as if some nefarious evil force is playing games with our worldwide collective sanity. Brexit, the rise of the French far right and [...]
Manuel Delia · The Killer Speaks Stephen Grey’s scoop yesterday reporting quotes from George Degiorgio is, in my view, significant primarily for reasons George Degiorgio must have been aware of but were not his primary intention. His, and his brother’s conviction, should now be a shoo-in. He openly confessed to being the killer and openly [...]
Playwright Mario Philip Azzopardi has sued me for publishing the script of his play ix-Xiħa which includes a character clearly based on Daphne Caruana Galizia. I had described the play as “spiteful, full of hate, prejudice, and disturbingly incurable visceral violence”. Mr Azzopardi did not sue me for libel but for what he alleges is [...]
The reports of the sittings in court of the prosecution of Pilatus Bank and one of its middle managers make for depressing reading. The magistrate is clearly at her wit’s end. Donatella Frendo Dimech has warned prosecutors “not to bury the case” and that what she heard so far from them is “not relevant”. That’s [...]
Here's another podcast. Listening takes just under 20 minutes, or read it if you prefer. Let me know if this format works for you. Manuel Delia · "Relatively Poor Education Outcomes" Times of Malta’s summary of an EU report on the state of Malta’s education makes for a scary read. There are many cliches about [...]
From my article on The Sunday Times yesterday: "Who knows how many other secrets are protected by the inherent opacity of the AG’s office? Consider, for example, her exclusive power to decide who gets to be prosecuted and who doesn’t for major crimes. In principle, our chief prosecutor must prosecute anyone against whom there is [...]
I'm trying my hand at longer podcasts ... it will take you 25 minutes to listen to this or, depending on your reading speed, more or less to read it. If you like the format (or you don't) please say so. Manuel Delia · Why Joseph Muscat Does It We’re going to have to [...]
Seven of 14 presidents of Malta’s premier league football club have voted in favour of hiring disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat to head their organisation. The vote, which was taken secretely, showed that exactly half of the premier league clubs agreed with the nomination of Joseph Muscat. After the vote was taken today, Joseph [...]
Media in Malta is at high risk of not being politically independent with significant problems in restrictions on plurality and weak social inclusiveness. These are the conclusions of the 2022 media plurality and freedom report penned by University of Malta academic Louiselle Vassallo. Malta’s rankings place it among the highest risk jurisdictions within the EU. [...]
Yet another (alleged) mafioso walked out of the court building today free as a bird, protected from prosecution by yet another 'mistake' by the Attorney General's office. This one won't sue if I call him an (alleged) mafioso. John Spiteri is wanted by Italian prosecutors in connection with a large 'Ndrangheta drug trafficking operation. They [...]
The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) has ranked Malta among the riskiest jurisdictions in the EU and candidate countries for media freedom and restrictions on media pluralism. In an EU-funded study being published later today Malta is ranked “high risk”, the second worst possible category. The CMPF is a research and training [...]
The government will do its utmost to diffuse the significance of the most recent finding of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life. The case concerns a supplement, a 32-page centrefold, inside the Labour Party’s Sunday newspaper marking two years since Robert Abela’s election and soft launching the Labour Party’s election campaign. The bottom-line cost [...]
We have slid down so far that we are reduced to hoping Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg is an incompetent, bungling idiot who has been promoted way beyond her dubious abilities because the only alternative horrifies us too much to say aloud: that she is a bespectacled tentacle of the mafia, a complicit agent of crime. [...]
When Nadine Lia was appointed magistrate, many warned there would be many occasions where her family ties would put her in conflict with her independence or, as a bare minimum, the public's perception of her independence. She's Paul Lia's daughter in law. Her father in law is the Labour Party's lawyer. He is a long-term [...]
The Nadur festa decorators were mighty indignant because people outside their pocket-sized universe mocked the canonisation of Joe Portelli, depicted as St John the Evangelist on one of their festa banners. The Nadurin football club fans reacted in a similar way after off-worlders found their public worship of Portelli distasteful. Joe Portelli gives them money [...]
Jean Claude Micallef is pitching for the job to run the association of premier league football clubs saying in a Facebook post (because that’s how job applications for senior executive positions are filed these days) words to the effect that he meant to rescue Maltese football from having “its reputation clouded”. I can tell you [...]
MFA President Bjorn Vassallo is under pressure to support Joseph Muscat’s candidature to the presidency of the association of elite football clubs, not least because the support of key Joseph Muscat allies was crucial for Vassallo’s election in 2019. Bjorn Vassallo owes his election to the top job in the football federation to key Joseph [...]
A few days ago, the shadow minister for home affairs, Joe Giglio, was asked questions on a radio show about his thoughts on Pilatus Bank, given that its owner and directors used to be his clients, and now he’s shadow minister speaking for a party that used to have the view that Pilatus Bank was [...]
UPDATED: 24 June 2022, 12:46 Yesterday I wrote a piece about the utterly baseless claim that “because of data protection laws,” the police cannot tell us about what happened to one of its most senior officers found by an independent inquiry to have suffocated corruption investigations. I wrote how privacy laws are misused to pervert [...]