The National Constituent Assembly in the heady days of the French Revolution sat down to write the second ever constitution that would give sovereignty to the people. Upon concluding their great work, they resolved to forbid themselves from running for the legislative assembly of the new France. Their intentions were noble. They wanted everyone to [...]
Three men have been behind bars for just shy of three months now. They are believed to have placed a bomb in the car of Daphne Caruana Galizia and detonated it to kill her fulfilling a contract commissioned by someone else. We do not know who that someone else is. At least one of those [...]
The government uses laws with discrimination in order to act against those that inconvenience it. The episode with the billboards showed that. It also enacts laws in order to show off the international assessors and the cronies that find reasons to thank their sodomisers just how transparent it is. It does so because it knows [...]
Sandro Chetcuti is paid for the government to advise it even as he lobbies it on behalf of developers. Why? Asked by Matthew Vella of Malta Today, he says he sees no conflict. To sustain his point he says he often consults the opposition too. No doubt he does. Matthew Vella’s report is really well [...]
What picture does The Wall Street Journal think of to accompany a story about the most corrupt countries that most restrict media freedom? This.
Resident guest George Farrugia Calleja: The revelations about Adrian Delia and his law firm, in a normal world, don't amount to much more than a bucket of luke-warm spit. It is only in the tabloid environment occupied by certain areas of the media (you reading this Independent?) or in the intentionally malign areas occupied by [...]
Many people who voted PN all their lives, like I have, say they could not continue to do so under the current circumstances. They want nothing better than seeing the corrupt gang that has its grip on our country booted out. But they are keen on a refreshing replacement and the options appear rather limited [...]
Some 48 hours after BugM posted his thread on Adrian Delia's alleged motivation for silence on Gasol, his office has issued a statement to clarify the facts. The response is plausible and largely reflects my comments of this morning. The comments board on my website was not in unanimous agreement with my assessment which obviously [...]
You've got to hand it to them. They do the look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it like pros. The professional purveyors of fabricated information, state-sanctioned invective, ambiguity between journalism and political power, present themselves without cracking a smile as trusted upholders of liberal democracies. A liberal democracy functions when you [...]
Sent in by a reader: I was an avid follower of Daphne and was just devastated at her horrific assassination. Then I found you and read your various dedications to her with tears in my eyes. I never made any comments on her blog though so many times I wanted to, but as an ex pat [...]
This week I wrote about a European NGO report about the complicity of European countries in an unfair global tax system that robs the poor to reward the rich. Tax tourism tries to create an ethical ranking between avoidance of tax and evasion from it. Whatever sheen of legitimacy is put on it our pursuit [...]
The Malta Independent today published a story that had been making the rounds with the twitterati for some 36 hours. I worked on the same story too and I had a common experience with Helena Grech of The Malta Independent, whom I quote: “A number of questions emerge from the allegations which have been leveled. [...]
By resident guest George Farrugia Calleja According to MaltaToday, and given that there hasn't been a denial, I suppose it's safe to believe them, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera has been elected by her peers to sit on the Commission for the Administration of Justice. This august institution, not known for the eagerness with which it [...]
The warning from Manfred Galdes that the ineffective enforcement of laws in the financial sector is damaging us with the rest of the world was echoed at around the same time by the CEO of HSBC Bank Malta. Andrew Beane spoke first to shareholders and later explained in some more detail to Keith Micallef what [...]
Please. Please. Please watch the interview Jacob Borg had with Inspector Ian Abdilla. It reminded me of a late night TV show I used to watch: Mai Dire Gol. It was supposed to be about football though thankfully its actual football content was almost zero. They used to show extracts from TV interviews with players [...]
The OECD published a consultation paper warning against passport-sales schemes. They are “a back-door to money-launderers and tax evaders”. I realise that we have become collectively callous on the back of money we make from money-launderers and tax evaders but let’s at least be honest with ourselves if not with the rest of the world. [...]
PN MP Jason Azzopardi had proposed a private member’s bill to ban the enforcement of overseas defamation suits in Maltese courts. This ‘anti-SLAPP’ legislation is adopted by jurisdictions protecting their journalists from the chilling effect of libel tourism used by rich corporations to silence their critics with lawsuits filed in jurisdictions too expensive to even [...]
The report is coordinated by Eurodad and has contributions from: Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation (VIDC) (Austria); 11.11.11 (Belgium); Centre national de cooperation au développement (CNCD-11.11.11) (Belgium); Glopolis (Czech Republic); Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke – ActionAid Denmark (Denmark); KEPA (Finland); Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit (Germany); DemNet Foundation for Development of Democratic Rights (Hungary); Debt and Development Coalition [...]
Manfred Galdes had not publicly said much since he left the FIAU. He resigned when investigations into Konrad Mizzi were underway and never really explained why he crossed over to the private sector. Especially on why he chose to do so at that time. Today he spoke at a conference with Ian Abdilla from the [...]
