From my article in The Sunday Times today: "If you’re tempted to consider (the independent press) a business past its time like riverside tanners or shipbuilders, consider that the courts do not need to look for advertising to continue to serve justice and preserve your rights. "Protecting democracy should not be a servant to market [...]

In an earlier piece I wrote on why I think Robert Abela shows he does not have what it takes to manage the present crisis. He’s showing signs of being just as inadequate for what comes later. Consider the statement he made after meeting the construction lobby yesterday. "Construction industry has to elevate the country [...]

Yesterday, I ventured out to buy a take-away treat to support a favourite restaurant we used to frequent until some three weeks ago. On the way there the car had a puncture and a towing service was called (no spare wheels nowadays). While waiting for the tow truck an elderly man who had observed the [...]

Robert Abela’s nerves are seriously frayed. For all his Robocop gestures of whirring self-confidence, his inner Edvard Munch is shrieking over the collective anxiety of the human condition. Not out of empathy. Nor out of fear for his people and his country. His vanity has already taken over and he is horrified of having to [...]

So there you have it, a doctor, flanked by experts, is undermined by his political master, a lawyer, flanked by - well, if Peanuts Scicluna and the Boy Schembri are anything to go by - buffoons. Just in case cabin fever has got you, I’m talking about Minister Dr Chris Fearne and Prime Minister Dr [...]

The present situation is a state of emergency. Several basic freedoms need to be suspended in order to keep us safe. Licensed and legitimate businesses have been ordered to close down. Congregating in groups outside has been banned. Calling gatherings has been criminalised. Movement has been heavily restricted, even banned for some. The police have [...]

Statement by Repubblika Why has the Prime Minister remained silent and done nothing about the scandal concerning the handing over of public land in Pembroke to the DB Group? Repubblika will not allow Robert Abela to avoid shouldering his responsibility with regard to this filthy corruption. We are going to continue insisting that this land [...]

The economic chain reaction will do more than reduce the quality of life you have come to expect. Sectors of the economy that we all depend on are being dealt an enormous blow by the shutdown intended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. They suffered first. The rest of us will feel the consequential [...]

The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) is giving legal support to the Times of Malta and this website. Both have been sued for defamation by Christo Georgiev, Bulgarian co-owner of the Maltese bank “Satabank.” Georgiev filed the lawsuits in Bulgaria before the Regional Court in Varna. The Satabank co-owner is demanding that the [...]

The NAO made a number of observations written in civil service code that need translating. The authors dedicate entire chunks of the report to the explanation on how line departments were left out of the discussion and the decision making on disposing such a huge chunk of public land for commercial development. At the time [...]

A National Audit Office report said it is “a matter of grave concern” that it could not determine who decided to kick out the Institute of Tourism Studies from its St George’s Bay campus in order to give the public land away for development. The auditor expresses dismay that the decision to throw the ITS [...]

Julia Farrugia dismissed calls for her resignation saying she never meant to give Chetcuti Cauchi any advantage when months ago she gave an “interview” on the passports sales scheme. We saw that “interview” in obviously advertising material published by Chetcuti Cauchi and left there even as the firm’s senior partner Jean Philippe Chetcuti was caught [...]

If you've seen Vanilla Sky you will remember the scene of David Aames driving through a deserted New York and running through an empty Time Square. He was running through a nightmare which in that film was called a lucid dream. Watch this short by Eric Bartolo about our own lucid dream: the streets of [...]

The biggest lesson from the 2008 financial crisis was to act big as early as possible. The hesitation of regulators, governments and central banks had an enormous economic cost that led to hardship that more timely action could have at least in part prevented. That’s the biggest lesson from the world stage borne out of [...]

I’m not an economist, so I won’t comment about PM Robert Abela’s “thirds wave” of rescue measures. All I know is, the amount of questions as to how they’re going to work and what small enterprises, apparently not much represented in the MCESD, are supposed to do, that were raised in a forum I’m in [...]

The commissioner for standards in public life read the only message that was intended by the Chetcuti Cauchi law firm and Julia Farrugia Portelli and the government she's part of: "aħna ta' ġewwa". 'We're buddies'. The videos of the then junior minister responsible for the passports sales scheme in the office of the prime minister [...]

The government wants to have a temporary hospital with at least 84 beds built in the next 8 weeks. That raises a number of questions the government should really have answered before we found out about this. Firstly, when are the government’s calculations telling them to expect the spread of this disease to peak in [...]

Local film producers have asked the Ombudsman to investigate Film Commissioner Johann Grech four weeks after press reports showed he removed the bulk of them from the official list of local producers the Commission makes available to international film makers looking for crews when working in Malta. In spite of evidence published by news site [...]

The government has moved to fix a gap in powers of the superintendent of public health which if not fixed could cause chaos in the courts including allowing persons charged with crimes to walk free because of a technicality. The issue was first raised by this website in a 15 March post, the day after [...]

COVID-19 is today probably the most used word anywhere in the entire world. Whichever TV station one switches to within the hour, one is bound to hear COVID-19. This pandemic is being compared to the Spanish flu historically, but even to a war which some countries like Italy, are said to be losing. All ages [...]