I'm not translating Norman Vella's verses to English. Translating poetry does not really work. This was first published on Newsbook. Taħt assedju Iltaqgħu xemgħa u fjura, Ġewwa misraħ f’nofs il-Belt, Tħallew minn tfajla mbikkma, Għajn ta’ tama f’dan il-għelt.   Hemm, imħares minn tliet ġganti, Weqfin, siekta, viġilanti, Tpoġġa nkwatru b’wiċċ ta’ mara, B’daqqa t’għajn [...]

Left MEP and journalist Stelios Kouloglou is calling on the Greek government to grant Maria Efimova protection from Malta's request for her extradition. He has been helping Maria Efimova with an appeal to the Greek Ministry for Home Affairs for a Greek residency permit having already been declined by the Cretan authorities. She has been [...]

Members of the ad-hoc Rule of Law Delegation to Malta stated: It has come to our attention that Russian whistleblower Maria Efimova, in fear for her life and the security of her family, walked into the Greek police, in Athens, last night, asking for protection. Maria Efimova is a material witness in investigations on corruption [...]

If anyone thinks there’s any quick way out of the country’s current predicament they have another thing coming. This is not a battle that can be won with a single great find, a single major development that will bring about everyone’s realisation that change is necessary. Positions are entrenched. The local mafia is not merely [...]

Former Pilatus Bank employee Maria Efimova who testified in front of the Magisterial Inquiry into the ownership of Egrant Inc has come out of hiding in Crete and handed herself in to the Athens police in response to an international arrest warrant issued against her by Malta. The arrest warrant against her was issued after [...]

Daphne Caruana Galizia will be honored posthumously with the 2017 Tully Award for Free Speech, presented by the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University. The Tully Center for Free Speech is located at the Samuel Irving Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York was started in 2006 with a bequest from Joan A. Tully, a 1969 graduate of [...]

Sent in by Patricia Mifsud: I’ve just finished reading the blog-post Cambridge Analytica psyops methods were used in Malta and have been moved to write this open letter to our Members of Parliament from both sides of the House. I appeal to all present Labour and Nationalist Members to think very, very carefully about the [...]

By resident guest George Farrugia Calleja: Saviour Balzan, pretty much the sole mover and shaker behind Malta Today, favours the stern and concerned look to adorn the area of his portal from where his opinion is disseminated. Raphael Vassallo, a writer of long standing with Malta Today, uses a picture that tends to confirm to [...]

The whistle-blower explaining to the British press how Cambridge Analytica helped the Trump campaign win the 2016 election describes a methodology he calls “the psychological warfare tool” used in Malta at least since March 2015. Briefly the method is harvesting massive data from Facebook to allow campaigners to profile what makes people tick from their very [...]

Joseph Muscat's foot soldiers had a visual message for the people who think there's anything wrong with this country. If you can't see yourself cheering the government, get drunk, get drugged, dance your concerns away. Everybody's doing it anyway. If you're not at this party, you may as well be dead. So #GetALife. Here are [...]

If you’ve been reading The Guardian and The Observer about the whistle-blower from Cambridge Analytica you must be disturbed by the complete callousness of the billionaires who have been able to apply technology to swing majorities in the most sophisticated democracies in the world to accept and clamour for fabrications and untruths. This is the [...]

The technology genius who worked for Cambridge Analytica has come out in detailed interviews for The Guardian/Observer. Read this detailed story here. Cambridge Analytica is a subsidiary of SCL Elections, a firm close to Henley and Partners. SCL Elections is known to have manipulated elections in St Kitts and Nevis, the outcome of which has [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "The Prime Minister, who devised the sale of Maltese citizenship, enjoys cult hero status in this country. He has apparently found the final solution to pressures on public finances: a goose with an infinite supply of golden eggs that can pay for all the vices and inefficiencies [...]

Deutsche Welle picked up on some posts on this blog about Malta's sale of passports and called me for an interview to feature on their follow-up on the 'Golden Visas' report of the OECD. Here's a link to their story.

The PN and the PD raised questions on the government using money from selling passports to buy up Maltese banks. If there was something that worked reasonably well in this country it was domestic banks. There are problems to be sure. But outliving 2008 was a tough test by any standard. The increase in government [...]

When I saw pictures of the Muscat children at the Commonwealth meeting in London I thought what most people did. The argument has been made so many times before. They missed school again because they went on a work trip with daddy. Other parents get fined for just the same thing. There are laws that [...]

Jason Micallef, the hobbit from the land so great they get gardeners to run their culture festivals, went ballistic again because a banner was hung on a bridge covering one of his two hundred 'European Capital of Culture' banners. Here's his Facebook post from yesterday. "Another act of provocation". Once again Jason Micallef, provoking what? [...]

The following guest piece by Andrew Borg Cardona is in reaction to Minister Jose' Herrera's article this morning in the Times of Malta. Herrera gives 'reasons' for the government's no-longer silent refusal to protect Malta's journalists and prevent the chilling effect of the threat of libel tourism. Environment Minister Jose' Herrera, a lawyer by profession [...]

https://youtu.be/toJ6FSN58bs

The Appeals Court decision confirming an earlier defamation sentence against Saviour Balzan is interesting. Saviour Balzan made a defamatory allegation against Richard Cachia Caruana, the court decided, when he alleged he dragooned a regiment of commentators and used them to harm the enemies of Lawrence Gonzi. Saviour Balzan had specifically written about Daphne Caruana Galizia [...]