Wanted: a human for a prime minister

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2023-04-17T19:43:09+02:00Mon, 17th Apr '23, 19:43|

Picture: Times of Malta This is Jean Paul Sofia's mother speaking to the prime minister. Just look at him. I received this comment from a reader. He's so right: The way the PM spoke to Jean Paul Sofia's mother encapsulates all that is wrong with our politicians, our government, embodied in our PM: [...]

Culture wars

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2023-04-17T14:40:59+02:00Mon, 17th Apr '23, 08:19|

Robert Abela mocked bloggers and book authors as unproductive timewasters, useless amateurs, and compared their futility with the importance of his work, creating jobs for the country. Not everyone can be prime minister. There’s only one at a time. If he is creating jobs – that’s a big if – then he’s doing what he’s [...]

Now you know

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2023-04-15T10:47:36+02:00Sat, 15th Apr '23, 10:46|

MidSea Books published this morning Robert Aquilina's new book “Pilatus: A Laundromat Bank in Europe”. The book is an intimidating 734 pages, but it won’t be necessary for you to read it all because as of its 265th page the book places you in possession of evidence that should form the basis of the prosecution [...]

The second killing of Jean Paul Sofia

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2023-04-14T09:14:37+02:00Fri, 14th Apr '23, 09:14|

The young man died, buried under the rubble of collapsed shoddy works on public land. He is not the first nor the last to be killed by the negligence and greed of others. But his mother’s dogged determination not to let the killing of her son to be forgotten by everyone else without consequence has [...]

Bosses of NBC, PBS: You gave a tax-payer-funded platform to Nazism and racial hatred. Resign!

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2023-04-13T08:25:34+02:00Thu, 13th Apr '23, 08:25|

There’s simply no excuse for the Maltese state to fund, endorse, enable, and publicise an anti-semitic, Holocaust-excusing, Hitler-worshipping book. The author of “Mein Führer Adolf Hitler, L-Istorja u l-Bijografija” acknowledges and thanks the National Book Council. This does not prove in and of itself that the National Book Council funded this book. But did it? [...]

Muscat ally given top job by Italian government: Malta PM had introduced Scaroni to Yorgen Fenech

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2023-04-13T08:04:50+02:00Thu, 13th Apr '23, 08:04|

Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia has secured a job for a close associate of the Milan magnate and scandal-ridden former prime minister in a marathon horse trading session between Italy’s coalition partners. Paolo Scaroni will chair the governing board of Enel, the Italian energy conglomarate in which the Italian state owns 23.6% of the shares. Scaroni [...]

Nazism, even Maltese Nazism, must still be denounced

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2023-04-12T19:05:49+02:00Wed, 12th Apr '23, 19:05|

Earlier today I walked past a branch of the Agenda bookshops and there on the Melitensia shelves I saw glare back at me a photo of Adolf Hitler. A new book with Adolf Hitler on its cover is not remarkable, though it will be a very good book that exceeds Ian Kershaw’s two-volume biography from [...]

Why do they do it?

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2023-04-12T12:00:35+02:00Wed, 12th Apr '23, 12:00|

Under a post yesterday, I got this question from a reader. I thought I’d attempt a reply. Q: I understand you lived in Africa for a while, perhaps you could shed light upon this recent surge north? A: That’s like asking someone who has eaten carbonara a few times how to breed pigs for the [...]

Former rescue boat used by migrants escaping Libya

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2023-04-12T09:00:50+02:00Wed, 12th Apr '23, 09:00|

A boat purchased by Maltese people after retiring from rescue operations in the Mediterranean has been towed by the Italian coast guard towards Catania carrying migrants that attempted the crossing from Libya. The boat, which is about 60 years old, was for some years operated by Sea Watch and Lifeline until 2020 when it was [...]

By our silence we know

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2023-04-11T08:30:15+02:00Tue, 11th Apr '23, 08:30|

The Maltese authorities have not bothered to deny it. NGOs have accused Malta of ordering merchant ships not to rescue migrants in distress, tossed by rough seas for several days, begging to be saved, and abandoned to their fate. It is a new level of callousness when not only do we fail to go out [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Behold the man

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2023-04-09T07:01:43+02:00Sun, 9th Apr '23, 07:01|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "And, then, they cried together before they spoke defiantly again. They saw nothing illegal in the children, women, and men they fed and healed and hugged. If laws were just, hunger, pain, fear and human need would never be unlawful. It cannot be wrong merely to be [...]

GUEST POST: The one that got away?

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2023-04-09T06:59:15+02:00Sun, 9th Apr '23, 06:59|

...or so he thinks. There is one former minister , who was a member of the Muscat Cabinet, which was found to be jointly and severally guilty of the state of affairs in Malta that led to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and who was a good friend and close collaborator of Joseph Muscat [...]

Jason Azzopardi doesn’t need defending. His clients do.

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2023-04-08T08:52:54+02:00Sat, 8th Apr '23, 08:52|

It’s not that we can call anyone who doesn’t like us a mafioso. It’s not a general term that can fit any hostile circumstance. If it is used like that, we’d dilute the meaning. We’d end up crying wolf once too often. That big poster outside Christian Borg’s second-hand car sales showroom with a photo-montage [...]

Sense of occasion

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2023-04-06T07:44:41+02:00Thu, 6th Apr '23, 07:44|

So now, rubbish bags carry the national emblem. This truly is a country with a strange sense of decorum. Understand that at law the use of the national emblem requires the written consent of the prime minister. “It shall not be lawful for any person to use for any purpose whatsoever, without the written authority [...]

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