Too big to fail

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2020-03-25T14:14:55+01:00Wed, 25th Mar '20, 14:14|

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 [...]

GUEST POST: The measure of the man

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2020-03-25T12:28:17+01:00Wed, 25th Mar '20, 12:28|

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 [...]

“Aħna ta’ ġewwa”

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2020-03-25T12:22:24+01:00Wed, 25th Mar '20, 12:22|

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 [...]

Going easy on Steward

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2020-03-24T11:43:41+01:00Tue, 24th Mar '20, 11:43|

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 [...]

Film producers want Ombudsman to investigate film commissioner’s “corrupt practice”

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2020-03-24T08:47:50+01:00Tue, 24th Mar '20, 08:47|

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 [...]

How deep is your change?

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2020-03-23T16:50:32+01:00Mon, 23rd Mar '20, 15:55|

Zhou Enlai (not Mao Zedong as an earlier version of this post wrongly said) was asked once what he thought the impact of the French Revolution was. He replied that it was too early to say. That was almost two centuries after the fall of the Bastille. Trying to predict what life will be like [...]

GUEST POST: Safe European Home

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2020-03-23T15:04:35+01:00Mon, 23rd Mar '20, 14:06|

Is it just me or have we all gone right back into that busy hectic social whirl we’re supposed to be relinquishing? Seriously, quarantine really has upped the social ante. It’s as if we’ve never seen the inside of our own homes before, the internet has become some kind of newly-discovered resource and – horror [...]

Robert Abela. Pandemic. Deer. Headlights.

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2020-03-23T12:07:51+01:00Mon, 23rd Mar '20, 12:07|

The prime minister needs to do more. Now. The prime minister has not spoken to his people for many days. A transmission on the Labour Party radio station does not count. Rather the contrary. When the media of a political party is used we are divided into tribes when we desperately need to be together [...]

Closed casket funeral

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2020-03-23T09:41:09+01:00Mon, 23rd Mar '20, 08:39|

This tweet shows a small anthology of exasperated Italian mayors trying to get people to realise that after 5,600 people were killed by coronavirus anyone could be next. One of the mayor complains rather wittily about people ordering their hairdresser to come round to their house because the shops have been on lockdown for two [...]

24 days later

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2020-03-21T16:01:04+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 16:01|

The leap Marthese Portelli made from parliamentary politics to lobbying politicians on behalf of the construction lobby is unseemly. It’s like dating too soon after your spouse’s funeral. Worse. It’s like dating your late spouse’s neighbour with whom your family has been in a long-standing property dispute. Let’s get some obvious objections out of the [...]

Satabank owner’s POS business advertised on Maltese media

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2020-03-21T15:00:55+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 15:00|

Christo Georgiev's company myPOS that sells portable point of sale terminals for contactless payments was advertised yesterday in a paid advertorial carried by local website Lovin Malta. The feature, marked 'sponsored' by the website, promotes the services of Malta company 247Pay the local partner for Christo Georgiev's MyPOS a company based in the UK. Christo [...]

Ali Sadr sentencing set for 17 August

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2020-03-21T14:44:55+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 14:44|

A slowed down caused by the coronavirus pandemic may be the reason why the sentencing of Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad has been set for five months after he was found guilty by a New York jury of 5 counts of money laundering, bank fraud and busting sanctions against his native Iran. The date of the [...]

GUEST POST: Into the future darkly

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2020-03-21T11:59:38+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 11:58|

As I write this, on Sky News two grinning idiots are being asked why they are out, having a drink in a public space, despite the UK government’s request that people don’t do this. Admittedly, their Prime Minister is himself a grinning idiot, albeit one that has finally started listening to the grown-ups. Their answer [...]

An imagined letter from Covid-19 to humans

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2020-03-21T11:33:40+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 11:33|

Someone sent me this but they don't know who wrote it. I thought you might like to read it. Stop. Just stop. It is no longer a request. It is a mandate. We will help you. We will bring the supersonic, high-speed merry-go-round to a halt We will stop the planes the trains the schools [...]

GUEST POST: She died for freedom.

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2020-03-21T11:28:54+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 11:28|

Have you ever heard the song of a nightingale? It’s very seductive. Its harmony hypnotic and many are held in awe of it. Poets have dedicated works to it. But allusions can very easily be illusions. It’s not the first time a crow masqueraded as a nightingale and so in King Lear we are warned [...]

In memory of innocent victims of the mafia

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2020-03-21T09:49:07+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 09:49|

Daphne Caruana Galizia is being remembered today along with hundreds of people killed at the hands of mafia organisations in the bloody history of violent deaths of innocent victims of organised crime. For the last quarter of a century umbrella anti-mafia organisation Libera has marked 21 March as the day of remembrance for innocent victims [...]

UPDATED: Entrepreneur threatens to uncover Silvio Schembri’s “personal interest” in blockchain promotion

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2020-03-21T16:05:12+01:00Sat, 21st Mar '20, 09:36|

Updated at 16:02 An entrepreneur who has set up a co-location facility in St Julians for “digital nomads” people working remotely in cities away from home, has warned Minister Silvio Schembri he would reveal information on the minister’s “personal involvement and interests” in the Blockchain project unless the policy of deporting third country nationals who [...]

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