DW: Malta in the eye of the financial tempest

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2019-03-25T16:47:34+01:00Mon, 25th Mar '19, 16:47|

One more report that reminds Edward Scicluna that the Panama scandal and the shame brought on to our country by a government that protects politicians exposed by it, is not yet "history". It is still news. Remarkably this DW report actually remembers the now famed Edward Scicluna quote. It's one of those lines that is [...]

Bring out the usual suspect

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2019-03-26T00:12:10+01:00Mon, 25th Mar '19, 16:33|

Adrian Delia and his team, that as far as can be ascertained is now chaired by Pierre Portelli assisted by Pierre Portelli and includes Pierre Portelli, Pierre Portelli and Pierre Portelli with Pierre Portelli as secretary — a bit like that zany scene from Being John Malkovich — are managing the current umpteenth crisis as [...]

Soho blues

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2019-03-24T08:42:53+01:00Sun, 24th Mar '19, 08:42|

Adrian Delia’s explanations about his involvement in laundering proceeds from a Soho prostitution ring have evolved with time. Beneath the blanket categorical denial that he actually committed any wrongdoing, explaining away the details that have emerged has evolved as we became more aware of them. At first his answer to Daphne Caruana Galizia, who broke [...]

They will do their own thing

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2019-03-22T12:21:05+01:00Fri, 22nd Mar '19, 12:21|

There is nothing in Owen Bonnici’s statement of yesterday that suggests the government is doing anything but consolidating its grip on power. It will rely on a compliant opposition to do so because many of the changes proposed, or rather the vague hints that were dropped at yesterday’s press conference, will require a two-thirds majority [...]

Skype for Cows is a thing

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2019-03-21T14:49:39+01:00Thu, 21st Mar '19, 14:46|

Image from disruptive telephony.com It’s a good thing our court administration is not handling the next lunar landing. Let’s just accept things at face value for a minute. Witnesses who wanted to testify that Neville Gafa’ solicited and accepted bribes for medical visas trudged through war-torn Libya at personal risk to a court-room [...]

Flatfoot

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2019-03-21T07:45:32+01:00Thu, 21st Mar '19, 07:45|

Those videos yesterday of the prime minister answering journalists’ questions on the state of play of the investigations into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia are profoundly disturbing. This one is from Lovin' Malta's YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/INSY1ymfyPk This is really not the occasion for the prime minister to give us all a patronising, knowing [...]

The Dallis

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2019-03-20T13:34:24+01:00Wed, 20th Mar '19, 13:34|

Helena Dalli’s husband is not accepting the Appeal’s Court decision that Caroline Muscat did not libel him in her Times of Malta investigations on works on his property. A decision by the Court of Appeal ought to have been the final word on the matter but Helena Dalli’s husband won’t take no for an answer. [...]

The Italian Insider: Malta’s government’s “miserable measures”

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2019-03-19T12:41:45+01:00Tue, 19th Mar '19, 12:41|

John Philips, veteran Rome correspondent for British newspapers who now writes for Italian English-language newspaper The Italian Insider was in Malta this weekend to cover the vigil marking 17 months since the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Here's a link to his piece. Look at this choice quote: "In a miserable measure recalling the practices [...]

Il Tirreno

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2019-03-19T08:49:19+01:00Tue, 19th Mar '19, 08:49|

Il Tirreno is the newspaper of record of Tuscany. On Sunday it carried this summary of a presentation I gave in Livorno last week. They introduce me as a Times journalist presumably because my Sunday Times articles come up on Google. It's far from the worst thing I've ever been wrongly described as.

David did no dodging

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2019-03-19T08:39:38+01:00Tue, 19th Mar '19, 08:05|

The attempted frame-up of David Casa shows all the hallmarks of what Joseph Muscat’s supporters wanted the Egrant case to be like.  It was cooked up in the middle of the night at the desk of a propagandist who describes himself, wholly undeservedly, as a journalist, quoting a source who is a fantasist mired in [...]

Why say no?

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2019-03-19T07:25:16+01:00Tue, 19th Mar '19, 07:25|

Ranier Fsadni made a very important point last Sunday writing on The Shift News. He said he was not sold on the idea that the protest at the Great Siege memorial in Valletta was removed every day because of some naive ambition on the part of the government to get people to forget the matter [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Bearing witness

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2019-03-17T10:02:10+01:00Sun, 17th Mar '19, 10:02|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Christ-like, the sacrifice of Falcone and Borsellino proved cathartic. They were as unwilling to be killed for their mission as Jesus in the Gethsemane. But they were as determined to bear witness and did not walk away from their own end. When Falcone died, mafia boss Tommaso [...]

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