This is not a spectacle. This is a disaster.

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2018-08-31T08:49:07+02:00Fri, 31st Aug '18, 08:21|

The burning of the Magħtab landfill is a man-made disaster. The Civil Protection Department is warning people in the wake of its plume to stay indoors and close their windows to avoid sucking toxic fumes in. And pray for wind to blow this over the sea. The Labour Party in those heady days leading to [...]

GUEST POST: A bishop’s instruction manual

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2018-08-30T14:09:49+02:00Thu, 30th Aug '18, 14:09|

An insider I know sent in this guest post to help us understand the rules that might guide a bishop on what to do when they come across a case of clerical sex abuse. I’m told to point out that wherever the term ‘bishop’ is used it also applies to ‘major superiors’ who have similar [...]

Alfred Sant is right

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2018-08-30T13:37:50+02:00Thu, 30th Aug '18, 13:37|

I haven’t seen the original interview on Smash TV; just this summary of it on The Malta Independent. But I can’t fault anything in what Alfred Sant is being quoted as saying. He focused his attention on the Parliamentary Opposition because that is what he was talking about. He may or may not agree with [...]

On handling part-time priests

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2018-08-29T20:28:26+02:00Wed, 29th Aug '18, 20:28|

The Church needed to manage the reaction to my blog post of two days ago reporting that a priest convicted of molesting 17 children and banned for life by a civil court from ever dealing with children was now working as a priest in Bormla. I reported what they had told me when I published [...]

Curia ‘clarifies’ position on Felix Cini

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2018-08-29T19:42:05+02:00Wed, 29th Aug '18, 19:42|

The following is a statement by the Communications Office of the Archdiocese of Malta issued earlier this afternoon. I will comment on this in a separate post: The Communications Office refers to articles published in the media over the last 48 hours about Fr Felix Cini, a priest of Maltese nationality incardinated in the Diocese [...]

ECPMF asks Joseph Muscat if there is to be an independent inquiry into the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia

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2018-08-29T17:20:10+02:00Wed, 29th Aug '18, 17:03|

  Photo: Jame Bartlett The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom has asked the prime minister Joseph Muscat whether an open public inquiry will be held into the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia and particularly on whether the assassination could have been prevented. ECPMF's legal advisor Flutura Kusari has told a gathering [...]

Better than being hit by a truck

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2018-08-29T17:06:11+02:00Wed, 29th Aug '18, 16:50|

Labour governments did not invent this. This one sure didn’t anyway. PN governments also wrote little cheques to many people in the form of some rebate or other. Doesn’t really matter who is doing it: the practice is populist, wasteful and utterly pointless. The Finance Minister announced today the government is living up to a [...]

US Prosecutors to pause reviewing Ali Sadr’s emails while exchanges with his wives and lawyers are removed

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2018-08-29T09:27:53+02:00Wed, 29th Aug '18, 09:27|

US Prosecutors have been ordered to briefly pause from sifting through tens of thousands of emails from accounts belonging to Ali Sadr Hasheminejad. The pause, expected to last three weeks, is required so that emails to and from Ali Sadr’s wives and lawyers are properly filtered out. The order by Judge Andrew Carter of the [...]

Maltese ‘citizen’ named in financial scandal involving former Malaysian prime minister

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2018-08-28T14:10:30+02:00Tue, 28th Aug '18, 14:10|

Shaher Awartani, originally from Jordan, but the holder of a Malta passport purchased through Henley & Partners has been named in the 1MDB scandal, the biggest financial scandal in Malaysian history that is seeing that former prime minister of that country charged with corruption. Malaysian police have last Friday filed criminal charges against fugitive financier [...]

GUEST POST: As loud as a war

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2018-08-28T13:43:37+02:00Tue, 28th Aug '18, 13:43|

I live in Mqabba. I'm not native of the town, but I love it here. We get a lot of fireworks, and once or twice a year I go see the grand shows they put on. I like fireworks. I like food too, but the doctor says I have too much and must cut down. [...]

Could be funny, except …

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2018-08-28T10:03:42+02:00Tue, 28th Aug '18, 10:03|

There's a lot of chuckling around the water cooler today about a study being reported on in the press of research that shows that poor air quality 'makes you stupid'. The new study suggests that poor air quality can shave off a year's worth of schooling from your intelligence which if you haven't had many [...]

A review of the Egrant inquiry conclusions (Part 7)

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2018-08-29T09:29:46+02:00Tue, 28th Aug '18, 08:10|

The seventh part of Godfrey Leone Ganado’s review of the conclusions of the Egrant inquiry: On page 1404 of the report, in the introduction to what I would classify as the basis for the terms of reference which have not been published, reference is made to the Article written by Daphne Caruana Galizia on her [...]

Priest convicted of molesting 17 children permitted by Maltese church to say mass “on special occasions”

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2018-08-27T16:28:21+02:00Mon, 27th Aug '18, 16:28|

Felix Cini, convicted in 2004 in Italy for molesting 17 children and caught downloading child-porn on his computers by the police, has been permitted by the Maltese Curia to say mass at Bormla parish “on special occasions”. These photos are from the mass and procession of this year’s Pentecost where Felix Cini and other priests [...]

People or numbers

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2018-08-27T14:33:28+02:00Mon, 27th Aug '18, 14:33|

Times of Malta’s Denise Grech made the incoming chief of the Housing Authority sweat. Good job. Someone should be telling Mr Leonid McKay he’s in for what should be one of the toughest jobs in the public administration right now: if he was selected to do it properly. His performance at the interview suggests he [...]

Wagging WAGs

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2018-08-27T14:02:41+02:00Mon, 27th Aug '18, 14:02|

The Times of Malta leader today calls out Michelle Muscat and Nickie Vella de Fremaux for their comparable behaviour. It calls them WAGs, comparing them to air-headed spouses of professional footballers merely famous by association. And it calls them out for using their fame to blame everyone but themselves for shortfalls they could have helped. [...]

On the Parvis Notre-Dame of Xagħra

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2018-08-27T14:03:18+02:00Mon, 27th Aug '18, 11:21|

Pandora sent in this comment under my commentary of yesterday on the Gozo priestly sex abuse story. “It was not my intention to comment on this case, but I am in Xagħra today and I have come to the conclusion that really one has to know both sides of the story before painting one completely [...]

John McCain’s thumb

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2018-08-27T11:16:10+02:00Mon, 27th Aug '18, 11:16|

John McCain was an enthusiastic supporter of the improvement of Malta’s relations with the United States. He was here in Malta in 2008, days after he lost the presidential election to Barrack Obama. He famously immersed himself in his duties as Senator. He would later say of those weeks immediately after losing the election that [...]

GUEST POST: Is this democracy?

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2018-08-26T11:29:36+02:00Sun, 26th Aug '18, 11:29|

Sent in by an anonymous author. Living in a democracy is very important, it is a basic human right, maybe one we often take for granted. Our country is meant to be a democracy too, but is it? To someone who understands what a democracy truly is, the mere notion of assassinating a journalist is [...]

It’s about power and its abuse

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2018-08-26T08:33:05+02:00Sun, 26th Aug '18, 08:33|

In some respects, the story I published two days ago about a senior cleric admitting to the abuse of a minor several years ago cut a bit of a contrast with the over-riding theme of this blog.This website is a one man show and I do not presume to compete with news organisations who can [...]

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