Joseph Muscat continues to consolidate his grip on power. That power is fed by popular support which, like the crowds cackling around the guillotine, intimidates opposition and resistance. But what strengthens Labour apparently beyond any hint of vulnerability is the fact that there is no formal opposition in front of it to speak of. It [...]

From guest writer George Farrugia Calleja: While walking past the Malta Labour Party club in Republic Street last Thursday evening, commemorating Daphne Caruana Galizia a month after her assassination, a bottom-feeding troll in the balcony grunted loudly enough that “hemm ser jibqa’” (‘he’s [Joseph Muscat] there to stay’). Muscat himself echoed this on Sunday morning, [...]

David Casa spoke yesterday at a civil society event where Romanian veteran civil society activist Monica Macovei spoke about changes brought about in her country by resistance to abuse of power by elected governments. Macovei's speech, her story and the answers to the questions she was asked are full of lessons and I do not [...]

Emmanuel Navarro, bless him, posted in reference to Roberta Metsola's remarks that she should not need to defend herself from the accusation of being a traitor. She argued it is no treason to criticise your government: it is a patriotic duty, particularly when faced with the sort of consequences the exercise of fundamental rights and [...]

This is the company profile on the official website of the Sadeen Group of Jordan, developers of the white elephant that is the 'American University of Malta'. Here's a screenshot: The language is atrocious. A google translation from the original Arabic would have almost certainly been better. It would be unacceptable for your average Middle [...]

I wrote about Michela Spiteri's appointment as arbiter in the Consumer Claims Tribunal. That's not her first iced bun of course. She is also an adjudicator in the Small Claims Tribunal. She had got that job a few days shy of the last general election. Daphne had written about that. Now the breakdown of the [...]

The Italian blogosphere is awash with commentaries about Malta's state of affairs after Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed. The general tone is a sense of vindication. Many Italian commentators are interpreting the bombings as a confirmation of long held suspicion that under the polished sheen of a Maltese paradise lies something more sinister that has [...]

Some newspaper columns are so convoluted, so twisted in their contradictions, that they soar way beyond the reach of any adequate response. Michela Spiteri's piece last Sunday was one such article. Read it if you will and try to explain to me why she "agreed 100%" with lawyers protesting against the push back of migrants [...]

I received some very encouraging messages addressed to the friend complaining to me yesterday we were too few in Valletta. I've picked out two of them that seek to benefit from history or from experience. This first is from a letter Victor Hugo wrote in exile. The reference to 7.5 millions is to the suffrage [...]

Updated, adds denial from Joe Bannister (18/11/2017) Yesterday I reported that Joe Bannister, as regulator of the financial services sector in Malta, granted an investment services licence to a company whose designated contact person is co-director with him in a company in the Cayman Islands. Joe Bannister has this morning got in touch with me [...]

I could not cheer up a friend of mine yesterday when we walked down Republic Street and he was saddened because so few had come. In the company of hundreds one should feel emboldened. A demonstration like that in any city would command respect and attention. But here in Malta we are used to huddled [...]

Italian journalists yesterday gathered in Ostia to protest for press freedom. They chose the location because an Italian journalist had a few days before been head-butted and chased with a metal pipe by a crook he was questioning. They chose the date because it was 40 years to the day since the first Italian journalist [...]

From someone known to me: Quite apart from the massive implications for us as a nation of the contempt shown for Joseph Muscat’s governance standards by the EU Parliament last Wednesday, there are some other considerations that deserve some focus. Joseph Muscat’s cheer-leaders in the EUP, led by the anti-EU flag-waver in-chief Dr Alfred Sant, [...]

Here's an eye-witness account of the iron curtain press conference Alfred Sant, Miriam Dalli and Marlene Mizzi delivered Tuesday. Frank is right. The most significant thing about the whole charade was the fact that it was scheduled to start right as the ceremony naming the same room for Daphne Caruana Galizia ended. It was an [...]

From today's leading editorial in The Times: "Those protesters are not dazzled by the bright lights of the Prime Minister’s glowing economic statistics, his passport sales, his mega projects or his pseudo-liberal antics. "The death of Ms Caruana Galizia has changed the game. Occupy Justice is a power to reckon with."

Italian authorities are complaining on the record that the Maltese authorities are failing to cooperate in their hunt to stop Italian mafia organisations laundering their money here. Il fatto quotidiano reported yesterday on arrests of Italian criminals believed to have used Malta as a platform for illegal gambling and fraud. The Italian authorities have frozen [...]

This is a statement issued today by #occupyjustice:   A month to the day of the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, #occupyjustice delivered a bayleaf plant to the Office of the Prime Minister in Valletta and left it on the steps of Castille along with a poignant message. “Prime Minister, may this bayleaf plant [...]

  Charles Scicluna is not naive. He knows just what he's up against. In a statement today the curia said "of course, in a society as politically polarised as ours, there is always the risk – not to say the certainty – that anything we say, no matter how balanced, will be perceived as partisan or [...]

When I got the invitation to visit Strasbourg for the naming of the press room of the European Parliament for Daphne Caruana Galizia I jumped at the chance at finally meeting her sons and her husband and personally tell them how I felt about their loss, about their mother and wife and about them. Of [...]