Updated 13:29 Adds Caruana Galizia's family's reaction. Professor Ian Refalo and Commissioner Anthony Abela Medici have been removed from the inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia after their conflicts of interests were widely deemed to make them unsuitable for the job. The inquiry board will be chaired by Judge Michael Mallia (the original [...]
Please go to the Times of Malta website to read this piece by Repubblika's Alessandra Dee Crespo. If you're reading this you probably don't need convincing to join us tomorrow. But if you're trying to persuade someone else, this will come in handy. Meantime, here's a taste: "The fight for truth and justice is not [...]
The Central Bank’s governor Mario Vella has skipped the first meeting of the European Central Bank’s highest body – its governing council – chaired by the new president of the ECB Christine Lagarde. The meeting was held yesterday but Mario Vella skipped it, catching a plane to Frankfurt at around the time the meeting was [...]
Ian Refalo advised the government that there need be no separation between parliament and government. The head of the civil service, Mario Cutajar referred to that advice a few days ago when he gave his reasons for ignoring the recommendations from George Hyzler, Commissioner for Public Standards. Here is what Mario Cutajar said about what [...]
A document published by Cyprus newspaper Politis shows an invoice by Henley & Partners’ real estate subsidiary demanding a payment of €650,000 into their Bank of Valletta account in Malta from Malaysian fugitive Low Taek Jho, known as Jho Low. Jho Low has been named by the US Department of Justice for being at [...]
If you’ve ever told one of us you’re impressed by our courage, If you’ve ever sent us a cheque to keep us going, If you’ve ever shaken your head hidden behind your newspaper, If you’ve ever whispered to someone you trusted how disgusted you were, If you’ve ever sworn at the news on TV, If [...]
The regulator of the passports sales scheme found that what Jean Philippe Chetcuti bragged about when speaking to M6 TV journalists could not have happened. He does not have a 100% success rate when applying for passports. And, the regulator says, it’s “implausible” that he could do the nudge, nudge, wink, wink thing he said [...]
Updated 08:47 There's a good chance the 'Robert Musumeci' posts on Twitter that I wrote about below are from a fake profile. If they are, Robert Musumeci should say so. The possibility has been suggested to me by people fooled by the possibly fake profile before me. The fact is that they are not too [...]
A year ago today I paid tribute to Daphne Caruana Galizia's foresight. I had found a post of hers from 2013. At the time, Yorgen Fenech let slip that he knew more than he should have and Daphne pretty much figured out from that quote that what we would eventually come to know as the [...]
Journalism unions in Italy are proposing a solution to people filing libel suits just to harass journalists. There are ways in which the problem there is worse than here. Criminal defamation still exists. So when someone files a police complaint because of something you've said or written, you're called to the station or the police [...]
Konrad Mizzi, Chris Cardona and Edward Scicluna will have to wait to find out which judge will hear their appeal from an order by a magistrate for a criminal inquiry to investigate their conduct when three public hospitals were sold. The judge on duty when they filed their appeal last Friday was Consuelo Scerri Herrera. [...]
Here's Karol Aquilina's tweet after Keith Schembri preferred to let the allegations of corruption against him stand than admit to much worse when under oath in court. Why did the #chicken cross the road? ? It was running away from its own libel suit. ?@keithaschembri #corrupt #crook pic.twitter.com/0Z5IhnREo2 — Karol Aquilina (@KarolAquilina) November 11, 2019
The Maltese phrase is “inqela b’żejtu”. He filed a libel suit against Simon Busuttil three years ago because Simon Busuttil accused him of being corrupt. He testified to sustain his claim of innocence on the 16 October 2017. Hours later, Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who caught him feathering his nest in Panama was killed [...]
Joseph Muscat and Adrian Delia skipped the national Remembrance Day ceremonies of this morning. Joseph Muscat quit the island so he can watch his Milan football club tonight. No one knows where Adrian Delia is but he’s dodging any and all activities on Sundays. Remembrance Day is not a vestige of colonialism. It is a [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Faced by all these failures of the democratic framework, we preferred to live under the illusion that the courts would fiercely protect us. The reputation is not altogether undeserved. Some of our judges and magistrates are brilliant legal minds, fearless defenders of justice and pursuivants of truth: [...]
Scroll down for the text of my article this month in the Money Magazine. A link to the magazine is here. George Spiteri is a lucky guy. He was given €150,000 to retire from his position of HR Manager of the Malta Financial Services Authority which used to include the company registry. The same restructuring [...]
Nothing like a touch of poetry to brighten your weekend. Here are some verses sent in by a contributor known to me: Ian Ian Borg just loves his trees He chops them down with dreaded ease He widens roads and builds some more He rapes this country like a whore His latest pot hole [...]
Pia Zammit – actor, educator, activist – was photographed backstage during a break at an onstage performance of ‘Allo! ‘Allo! She was wearing a swastika on top of the costume of a French barmaid who pretends to be nice to Wehrmacht officers but secretly helps la résistance sabotage the German occupation and hide British airmen trapped [...]
Read first this court report of this morning’s second session in the trial of the three men accused of killing Daphne Caruana Galizia. I have done some digging up. I am informed by multiple sources that the lawyer for Alfred and George Degiorgio, William Cuschieri, has sent the technical reports and data provided by the [...]
