Aaron Farrugia’s first steps as infrastructure minister are attracting close scrutiny as he adapts to the big chair occuppied for the last five years by his predecessor in the infrastructure ministry, Ian Borg. Aaron Farrugia’s very first engagement since his surprise promotion to the “super ministry” last week was a visit to the offices of [...]
Evarist Bartolo has started campaigning for the presidency to replace George Vella when that other Labour Party veteran retires for good. He hasn’t said so, not least because he only really needs to convince the prime minister and the leader of opposition of his suitability for the post. Whatever he plans to do in private [...]
From my article in yesterday's The Sunday Times: "How would we feel if Orban decided to grant Hungarian citizenship to indicted Russian war criminals and they showed up at our airport, sashaying through the Schengen corridor with a Diner’s Club Card and a lease agreement for some waterfront property? "By Malta’s interpretation of the exclusive [...]
A few days ago, I wrote a piece about the people Robert Abela left out of his government and why I thought those were good decisions. Here I am following up the piece with a list of decisions he took on who to include in the government which I think are wrong. Owen Bonnici was [...]
The council of Malta’s basketball federation has fined Hibernians and Depiro clubs and suspended coaches and players from top tier basketball games after the two teams appeared to throw a league game a few days ago. The council ruled that the integrity of the game was lost when the score remained unchanged for the last [...]
I criticised Labour for filling a seat in Parliament with someone who didn’t even bother to contest the elections of last week. They can do it. But they shouldn’t have because the action in and of itself demonstrates contempt for the democratic process. There were plenty of unelected candidates to choose from but Labour kept [...]
I am as pleased to see Glen Bedingfield and Rosianne Cutajar re-elected to Parliament as I might be after eating a plateful of shards of glass. Actually putting both in the same category is unfair. Glen Bedingfield is nasty, angry, and a propagandist for Joseph Muscat, so it gives me displeasure to see him elected [...]
At the Global Freedom of Expression awards handed out by Columbia University, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation received "special recognition". The University also recognised the legal team representing the family and the family's supporters. Lawyers Therese Comodini Cachia, Jason Azzopardi, Eve Borg Costanzi, and Joseph Zammit Maempel were mention in the citation of the award [...]
Sources at Identity Malta suggest that former Parliamentary Secretary Alex Muscat lost his government post after the last general election because of irregularities discovered at Identity Malta, the agency that manages the passport sales. Reports of mismanagement, overtime abuse, and the suspicion of kickbacks charged to clients of the passport selling scheme reached the office [...]
This morning I wrote about Michael Falzon, the bitter and angry former Nationalist minister who’s all over Facebook because he’s looking forward to a play that mocks Daphne Caruana Galizia. He’s just written an article saying the PN is suffering the consequences of allowing Repubblika to exist. The line is being repeated like an existential [...]
This article is about Michael Falzon. That’s not the mild Labour minister from Sliema who likes fireworks, but the former PN minister exposed by journalists for dodging taxes and, probably, stashing bribes he collected when he was a government minister. He is lapping at the ankles of Mario Azzopardi the playwright like a man-whore, transparently [...]
Photo: Jonathan Attard with Chris Cardona (Miguela Xuereb/Newsbook) George and Alfred Degiorgio have filed yet another constitutional complaint, this time insisting that their umpteenth request for a presidential pardon is given a fair hearing. I have slightly more sympathy for their plea than I would for a meteor about to hit earth and [...]
Photo: Queen Elizabeth II at the laying of the first stone of Gozo General Hospital in the 1960s. (Louis Cardona/Pinterest). The UK company that is listed in Malta’s Business Registry as the sole owner of the Maltese company Steward Healthcare International Limited has been struck off and all its property and rights “are [...]
When Aaron Farrugia was first made minister in 2020, he publicly announced he would keep a register of all meetings he would have with stakeholders. He said he would publish the register as a way of ensuring transparency. The statement was made in January 2020 when Robert Abela first came to office. Meetings held by [...]
Photo: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu/Bloomberg via Getty Images Victor Orban’s party won over 50% of the national vote in elections last night. This will be his fourth consecutive term as prime minister. Though the main opposition parties backed one rival candidate against him, they did not hit 35%. Hungary’s electoral system gives Orban’s party more [...]
The Minister for Gozo, Clint Camilleri, stepped out in the middle of the main road into Victoria to greet the Pope on Saturday as Francis left his cinquecento to ride through Gozo’s capital in the Pope Mobile. The greeting was not in the program and was a snatched photo opportunity. Clint Camilleri and wife, unmasked, [...]
Alfred Sant jumped to the defence of Mario Philip Azzopardi and said that the Manoel Theatre’s decision to cancel Azzopardi’s play mocking and slandering Daphne Caruana Galizia was an act of pre-modern censorship. These are the playwrights of the self-proclaimed left that would have been entirely comfortable in the official theatre of communist DDR or [...]
TVM workers deserve credit for giving their all this past weekend to document and broadcast live every minute Pope Francis was outside his bedroom. If you wanted to see the Pope, you couldn’t miss him on the national broadcaster. If you wanted to hear him, they broadcast live every one of his interventions. His speeches [...]
Download here the script of ix-Xiħa that is due in the next few days to be premiered on the stage of Malta’s national theatre. ix-xiha script I do this not to promote the play or because I wish many people to read it. I respect you and if you care for your physical and mental [...]
Robert Abela fired two government ministers and moved another one to a dead end. All three were subjected to heavy scrutiny by the press, the opposition, civil society, and particularly by “expired” MPs that “the people don’t want” like Karol Aquilina and Jason Azzopardi among others. Ian Borg, still too politically powerful to be thrown [...]