Updated: 22 May 2021 Lizzie Eldridge wrote a long series of articles called Tales from the Land of Serenity. She had some of them published on this website. The necessarily incomplete works meandered through the most recent list of superficially unconnected minor catastrophes that make for life on these Islands, peppered with comforting expletives to [...]
That will be the fourth anniversary of this blog.
Carmelo Abela, staggeringly, called yesterday for Jason Azzopardi to resign. Jason Azzopardi was not an HSBC employee when the 2010 botched heist happened. He did not have access to the machine that printed access cards used in the robbery. He did not give evidence in the investigation and then told the press he never had. [...]
How endearing of the prime minister yesterday to complain the Nationalist Party did not file comments on the cannabis liberalisation proposal. I don’t speak for the Nationalist Party. But neither does Robert Abela, or he shouldn’t be in any case. The government’s consultation initiatives are a bit of a rare joke. Rare because they almost [...]
Read this detailed retrospective by French national radio on the aftermath of the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the November/December 2019 protests that brought down Joseph Muscat. Click here for the story by Sylvain Tronchet.
The edifice Charles Polidano, iċ-Ċaqnu, built opposite the Lufthansa hangar has been empty for years. It is the most visible of a whole range of buildings he constructed in Ħal Farruġ without permits and in breach of planning rules. Some estimates say that in Ħal Farruġ there are some 64,000 square metres of land underneath [...]
Marlene Farrugia yesterday tabled a private members’ bill to remove “the procurement of a miscarriage” – that’s abortion – from the list of crimes in our laws. These are the last few weeks and months of Marlene Farrugia’s colourful Parliamentary career and she must have wanted to leave with a bang. She is probably looking [...]
NGO Repubblika and the government today agreed to pay their respective costs settling a court case about judicial appointments that reached the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Speaking in court this morning, Repubblika’s lawyer Jason Azzopardi, said that as a result of Repubblika’s lawsuit, four new judges were appointed last April without any [...]
Christian Grima complained on Facebook that campaigners for Truth and Justice did not rush to him in solidarity after Joseph Muscat sued him for telling Michelle Muscat “(Lil Daphne) splodiha żewġek.” (Your husband blew Daphne up). I have seen this post by Lovin Malta’s Chris Peregin that wonders what could have possessed Joseph Muscat to [...]
Two witnesses from Libya finally managed to testify over video in the case for the defence of the former editor of The Malta Independent on Sunday who is facing a libel suit by Neville Gafà for reporting that Gafà extorted money from victims of the Libyan civil war seeking medical care here. The two witnesses [...]
Times of Malta reporters Ivan Martin and Jacob Borg asked Carmelo Abela what he had told the police when they questioned him after the 2010 HSBC Bank heist. He worked there at the time and though he would not explicitly confirm it, the journalists suggested he had access to the machine that generated passes uses [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: On June 6, 2021, Midsea Books is publishing The Third Siege of Malta, a book I wrote to recall the highlights of this battle we have been fighting. But the book has no ending. The siege is still on.
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "The germ of independent thinking has taken root in this country and it will not weed itself out of existence. No doubt there’s a desire to win. But there’s a greater desire to remain honest with oneself. Politics may be the art of the possible. But for [...]
Sent in by someone known to me. It only took six months for Bernard Grech’s mask to slip. He is not better than Adrian Delia, maybe not worse, but certainly not better, for yesterday’s dealings with Jason Azzopardi and Adrian Delia was not an exercise in safeguarding the Nationalist Party and democracy in the long [...]
Find the time to watch this new documentary called "Humanigration - On the other shore of the sea", a film by TotalEU Production on migration and the impact of Covid-19 on new illegal routes. The film is a journalistic journey between the main dimensions that are currently shaping migrants' experiences in their travels to Europe [...]
A false equivalence was created over the last few days that, as ever when that happens in a battle between right and wrong, handed the victory to the wrong. The Nationalist Party issued a statement today that reads like the Munich ‘compromise’ of 1938. The PN is proclaiming peace in our time. Yeah right. In [...]
Filed by someone known to me. It is in the Labour Party’s eminent interest to keep pushing out the narrative that criticising the government is being negative, thus attempting to pull the rug from under the Opposition’s feet, an Opposition whose DUTY it is to criticise the government when it behaves badly. When it does [...]
One TV had a field day with my reaction to Bernard Grech’s announcement that he had no problem with Adrian Delia. They’re going to have a field day with this. During Adrian Delia’s campaign for survival as party leader, his sub-literate henchman Vincent Borg, known as Ċensu l-Iswed, posted a long article on Facebook in [...]
Photo: Pippa Zammit Cutajar PEN International today renewed its call to Maltese authorities to ensure full justice for all those involved in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the corruption she exposed. The worldwide organisation also called on the prime minister to act on the findings of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry [...]
Just to put things in perspective. Robert Abela recognised that the procurement of a €275 million project at St Vincent de Paul did not tick procedural boxes. He grossly understated the egregious flouting of procurement law but even the minimal things he acknowledged he justified by saying we now have a larger SVDP residence and [...]