True colours

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2022-08-03T12:43:35+02:00Wed, 3rd Aug '22, 12:43|

I’m in no mood to be defending Bernard Grech. He doesn’t seem willing or able to do it himself in any case. The more time passes the less effective he seems to be. By now he should really be showing some signs of a possible turnaround and I’m either blind or there aren’t any. I’m [...]

Alfred’s timing

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2022-08-02T10:46:51+02:00Tue, 2nd Aug '22, 10:46|

Alfred Degiorgio pleaded through his lawyer on his and his brother George’s behalf yesterday that he cannot get a fair trial because they’ve already been tried by the media since their arrest. Degiorgio complained Joseph Muscat, then prime minister, spoke at a press conference at the time of his arrest and said he, along with [...]

As diverse as peas

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2022-08-02T10:27:52+02:00Tue, 2nd Aug '22, 10:27|

This is an image published by the Central Bank with a press release announcing Edward Scicluna signed a European charter "to foster an inclusive, non-discriminatory organizational culture that embraces diversity of thought and celebrates each employee's distinct and unique selves." The irony must escape them.  That set looks anything but diverse. Those stiff suits behind [...]

Unitimised bills

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2022-08-01T11:03:56+02:00Mon, 1st Aug '22, 11:03|

Read this report of a particular battle The Malta Independent chose to fight on principle more than anything else. If they were ever to force the government to give a proper response to their detailed questions about how much the movie awards night held before the election cost, few will care by then. We all [...]

The chuckle

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2022-08-01T10:08:03+02:00Mon, 1st Aug '22, 10:08|

For those that aren’t listening to Stephen Grey’s podcast in full yet, timesofmalta.com uploaded clips from his interview with George Degiorgio, one of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassins. The content has been out for a while and I had commented about that here. Listening to his voice, his reasonable command of the English language, his delight [...]

Not even the AUM can discriminate

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2022-08-02T09:38:44+02:00Mon, 1st Aug '22, 08:59|

There was this other funny story from the so-called American University of Malta this weekend. They said they’ll be waiving tuition fees “for Maltese nationals”. No details were given, such as whether the scheme will be offered through a limited number of bursaries and a competitive process or whether the AUM has become a public [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: Our greatest failure

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2022-07-31T07:46:40+02:00Sun, 31st Jul '22, 07:46|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "A year after that inquiry, we have achieved nearly nothing of the recommendations of the inquiry. We still have no law to fight the mafia, no law against obstruction of justice, no law against abuse of power. We’re still ruled by the ministers who propped up Muscat. [...]

Daphne Foundation: “the government failed to implement inquiry recommendations save one”

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2022-07-29T09:02:02+02:00Fri, 29th Jul '22, 09:02|

A report published by the foundation set up by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family found that  “five years after Caruana Galizia’s assassination and one year since the publication of the Public Inquiry report there has been hardly any concrete action or meaningful legislative proposal to provide an enabling environment for journalists.” “Without urgent action from the [...]

The Daphne Inquiry: a year after

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2022-07-28T08:38:10+02:00Wed, 27th Jul '22, 11:50|

The following is a summary of the recommendations that followed the conclusions of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry published a year ago. The left column quotes extracts from the English translation of the recommendations prepared and published by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation. The traffic light symbol in the middle categorises the state of implementation [...]

Bullet fee

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2022-07-25T14:54:48+02:00Mon, 25th Jul '22, 14:54|

Repubblika this morning challenged in court AG Victoria Buttigieg’s failure to prosecute Pilatus Bank’s owner and directors. In another courtroom her staff were being lambasted for “rushing” to prosecute the bank itself and a middle manager who worked at the bank, when prosecutors clearly have no idea what they need to do or what they [...]

Cowardice of conviction

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2022-07-21T10:54:05+02:00Thu, 21st Jul '22, 10:54|

PN MP Ivan Bartolo, who voted against the changes to the IVF law, made the observation in Parliament that the government gazette was claiming the president signed the bill adopted by parliament into law, when, Ivan Bartolo knew, George Vella hadn’t done so. The notice was pulled from the website, Times of Malta explained today, [...]

Judge Joe Azzopardi. Again.

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2022-07-21T11:07:07+02:00Thu, 21st Jul '22, 10:22|

The former chief justice, Joe Azzopardi, is growing into the role of the go to guy for the government when they need an inquiry to smooth things over, Humphrey Appleby style. He has just been given the job of looking into the acquittal of Charles Mercieca and Gianluca Caruana Curran who were let off after [...]

Blind spots

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2022-07-21T08:11:53+02:00Thu, 21st Jul '22, 08:11|

You would think that I am uploading this image to make fun of the national broadcaster for a typo. I would not do that. We all make mistakes. God knows I make plenty and typos are more of a regular occurrence on this blog than I'd like them to be. I'm using this image because [...]

Barons

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2022-07-21T07:56:17+02:00Thu, 21st Jul '22, 07:56|

No one suggests that retired prime ministers should do like the abdicating kings of old. They don’t need to join a monastery and live out their dying years in ascetic contemplation. But that clip yesterday of Joseph Muscat walking down a street in Oxford with developer Michael Stivala, president of the Malta Developers Association shows [...]

PODCAST: Justice denied

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2022-07-20T09:58:06+02:00Wed, 20th Jul '22, 09:57|

Manuel Delia · Justice Denied Robert Aquilina was in court yesterday pursuing a case started by Repubblika in 2020. The battle is drawn out, as court battles often are, and a bit like Douglas Adam’s computer that took 7.5 million years to compute an answer to a question that had by then been forgotten, by [...]

Joseph the Insufferable

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2022-07-19T13:40:45+02:00Tue, 19th Jul '22, 13:40|

I almost miss Joseph the Unvanquished in Castille. After resigning in disgrace, he went through a phase of Joseph the Barely Remembered. This Joseph the Whining Cunt of Burmarrad is positively insufferable. He grasps on whatever he imagines to be any opportunity to repair his entirely ruined reputation and screams from the rooftop of his [...]

OSCE observers with fresh proposals for electoral reforms, after most 2017 recommendations ignored by Malta government

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2022-07-19T08:44:00+02:00Tue, 19th Jul '22, 08:44|

Election observers from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe noted in a recent report that most of the recommendations from a mission observing the 2017 elections have been ignored by the Maltese authorities. They have repeated those recommendations and added new ones including in [...]

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