Ġakbin

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2018-08-06T09:52:50+02:00Mon, 6th Aug '18, 09:52|

This Facebook post by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is remarkable. Firstly, of course, it relies on the idea that every time people go to bed, they wake up the next morning like goldfish, with no memory. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando accused David Casa of treachery and of knowingly speaking untruths to harm those around him. Perhaps, for [...]

Adrian Delia (3): Deafening silence

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2018-08-06T07:57:10+02:00Mon, 6th Aug '18, 07:57|

The Malta Today results corroborated the earlier Lovin Malta survey that used a different methodology and got very near results on the voting intentions front showing a gap between the PL and PN of something between 94,000 and 100,000 votes: meaning that for any person intending to vote PN, two would be voting Labour. That [...]

Adrian Delia (2): Painting by numbers

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2018-08-06T07:48:11+02:00Mon, 6th Aug '18, 07:48|

In a short radio interview yesterday morning Adrian Delia continued with his self-immolation tour. He said the PN “lost its credibility and is not managing to show it renewed itself”. It has and it isn’t but not for the reasons being spun by the leadership of the party. There’s an attempt to give the hallucinating [...]

Adrian Delia (1): Logic gates

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2018-08-06T07:29:42+02:00Mon, 6th Aug '18, 07:29|

There is a significant logical gap in something Adrian Delia told The Sunday Times yesterday. “There is nothing in the 1,500 pages of the Egrant inquiry report, which has not been published so far in its entirety, which may alter its crystal-clear conclusions.” It’s never difficult to understand whose side Adrian Delia is on. To [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Send it back

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2018-08-05T08:44:01+02:00Sun, 5th Aug '18, 08:44|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "Fraud and forgery were a mainstay of Mossack Fonseca. It was their USP. Was this evaluated in the inquiry? ... Even if, for argument’s sake, the outcome of insufficient evidence to prosecute may be the right one, the Attorney General should consider exercising his discretion at law [...]

I am not a diva!

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2018-08-04T16:25:57+02:00Sat, 4th Aug '18, 16:23|

… said the wannabe diva. The soul-crushing climax of the Saviour Balzan interview with Michelle Muscat was, of course, the exhumation of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s remains for a crazed Sabbath dance choreographed by the interviewer and the interviewee. Then, with blood still dripping from her fangs, she went on to express surprise not everyone falls [...]

Caruana Galizia family files constitutional case after suppression of their freedom of expression

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2018-08-04T15:41:40+02:00Sat, 4th Aug '18, 15:41|

The government has been pushing the boundaries of its power for sometimes. During the last 8 months it has moved with unseemly haste to remove banners and posters of protest on baseless legal pretexts. A pair of such banners were raised by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s sons and husband asking “Why aren’t Keith Schembri and Konrad [...]

Three-quarter measures

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2018-08-04T08:48:58+02:00Sat, 4th Aug '18, 08:48|

  Not that it would ever occur to me to attend, but the misnomered August Moon Ball is on again tonight. And the odd tradition founded by President George Abela of dodging the August full moon to comply with the Muscats’ holiday plans continues. As the name implies, the idea initially was to have the [...]

Do you think he does it on purpose?

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2018-08-03T16:12:21+02:00Fri, 3rd Aug '18, 16:12|

Joseph Muscat visited the tomb of Francesco Buhagiar a predecessor of his in office who has been dead for 84 years. Nice little ceremony.  The photographer had enough of an angle to picture the prime minister standing in front of the tomb but, oddly the prime minister stood on it to pay his respects. Quite [...]

She told you so

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2018-08-03T10:04:15+02:00Fri, 3rd Aug '18, 10:04|

It is only right that when Standard & Poor’s expresses concern about Malta’s banking sector, people in the financial services industry prick their ears. They should not be surprised. They have been close witnesses of what has been going on for some time. People who have to hunt every month know that the markets have [...]

Israeli interception company owned by Maltese citizen investigated by US SEC

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2018-08-03T09:32:59+02:00Fri, 3rd Aug '18, 09:32|

The Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States is evaluating disciplinary proceedings against a Tel-Aviv company part-owned by Maltese-passport holder Anatoly Hurgin. Hurgin and Alexander Aurovsky are shareholders of Ability Inc. The SEC, which oversees securities transactions has been investigating Ability, which provides interception, geolocation and cyber intelligence products to security agencies. Anatoly Hurgin [...]

Maltese community in Melbourne honour Daphne Caruana Galizia

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2018-08-04T08:26:57+02:00Fri, 3rd Aug '18, 09:20|

The Maltese Community Council of Victoria (MCCV) presented a posthumous award to Daphne Caruana Galizia for services to the broader Maltese community and her valuable contribution to democracy in Malta through her fearless investigative journalism. A statement by the MCCV commented that Daphne’s assassination "exposed the fragility of democracy in Malta". Truth, freedom of expression and [...]

Burning the candle at the Central Bank

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2018-08-02T10:29:44+02:00Thu, 2nd Aug '18, 10:29|

Even if the guys at the Central Bank were dragged to their laptops in the middle of the night to mitigate S&P’s comments about the harm to the reputation of Malta’s banking sector, the damage is considerable. We should never make the mistake of blaming S&P. It would be no different to the government blaming [...]

How about my right of reply?

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2018-08-02T09:25:04+02:00Thu, 2nd Aug '18, 09:25|

On my behalf Andrew Borg Cardona sent the following to the editor of NET TV in response to a report where they said I lied about the Opposition voting in favour of the cannabis law when I said no such thing. So far they haven't reported it. L-Editur NetNews Nikteb ghan-nom ta’ Manwel Delia b’riferenza [...]

PN’s media house called me a liar even as it lied

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2018-08-01T16:38:14+02:00Wed, 1st Aug '18, 16:38|

“Il-blogger Manuel Delia mgiddeb” screams the Net headline giving me half my professional title presumably because I’m still unworthy of the prefix ‘biċċa’. In reporting a letter to this website from the party’s new lawyer Vince Galea, Net TV reports that I lied to my readers saying the PN Parliamentary Group voted in favour of [...]

Jaqueline Alexander denied bail by Panama Court and detained as part of organised crime and money laundering investigation

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2018-08-02T10:33:12+02:00Wed, 1st Aug '18, 15:01|

Jaqueline Alexander was denied bail by a special Panama court while investigations into her involvement in money laundering are underway. The Egrant inquiry has relied on Jaqueline Alexander’s statement filed in Panama itself in order to refute the credibility of the documentary evidence presented to the inquiry that suggests that Michelle Muscat owned the secret [...]

Malta Today and the prime minister’s conspiracy

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2018-08-01T14:43:51+02:00Wed, 1st Aug '18, 14:41|

One of the many confusions that need to be cleared up is that the Egrant inquiry was not requested by the prime minister as would have been his prerogative to do under the special law regulating inquiries. Instead, the prime minister, out of line of course, had the police chief request a magisterial inquiry with [...]

Earth vs Martin Scicluna

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2018-08-01T10:09:41+02:00Wed, 1st Aug '18, 10:09|

There isn’t much substance to Martin Scicluna’s article of today. He quips that any examination of the small fraction of the Egrant inquiry is the work of loony flat-earthers. He is amused by his joke and spends the next 1,000 words laughing at it. Incidentally, flat-earthers are people who take what they see at face [...]

Mossack Fonseca’s rigour with signatures

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2018-08-01T09:09:42+02:00Wed, 1st Aug '18, 09:07|

The Egrant inquiry dismissed documentation showing Michelle Muscat’s alleged ownership of Egrant on the basis of declarations by a former Mossack Fonseca employee about the signatures appearing on it. Mossack Fonseca was notoriously indifferent to the signatures appearing on documents it processed. Consider the case of a Slovenian inspector who lost his job when a [...]

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