This country is not normal

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2021-06-24T07:09:18+02:00Thu, 24th Jun '21, 07:09|

If this had been a normal country there would be a political crisis right now. Grey-listing by the FATF is not something that happened to us. This is not some misfortune like an oil price crisis or an oil tanker leak or an earthquake. This is a catastrophic failure of policy by our political leaders. [...]

Greyed Malta: (5) The recriminations will be ugly

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2021-06-23T16:45:14+02:00Wed, 23rd Jun '21, 16:45|

Don’t underestimate the darkness of the days ahead. And don’t underestimate the anger, the frustration, and the willingness of our government to hang others for lynching in order to avoid consequences on themselves. This will be ugliest for people whom the government will find it easy to project as candidates for responsibility for the hardship [...]

Greyed Malta: (4) The downturn will not be measured in numbers

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2021-06-23T16:43:21+02:00Wed, 23rd Jun '21, 16:43|

Think of our financial services after grey-listing as a once glorious entertainment neighbourhood that has gone to seed. Think of the Atlantic City Boardwalk after the prohibition heyday and before Playboy bought a huge plot. Think of the streets down from the Boulevard de Clichy echoing the Belle Époque in the din of Japanese tourists [...]

Greyed Malta: (3) The national priorities should be three

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2021-06-23T16:41:33+02:00Wed, 23rd Jun '21, 16:41|

Education, education, and education. Try to think beyond the next 10 years, which is exactly what this country struggles to do most of the time. We need to rebuild our offer to the world if we are going to become an investment destination and that will mean preparing a new generation of workers that is [...]

Greyed Malta: (2) Demanding the impossible

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2021-06-23T16:38:58+02:00Wed, 23rd Jun '21, 16:38|

I asked in an earlier post what we should be doing now, as a country, to start earning again the trust of the rest of the world that we are reasonable partners on the world stage and a place where you don’t need to be a criminal to do business. It wasn’t the right question. [...]

WATCH: Discussion at launch of The Third Siege of Malta

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2021-06-22T11:50:26+02:00Tue, 22nd Jun '21, 11:48|

This is a film of the launch of The Third Siege of Malta recorded on 9 June 2021 in Mistra. The discussion is chaired by Dr George Vital Zammit with Louiselle Vassallo, Professor Ġorġ Mallia and Christian Peregin (starts at 39:30). The film also includes readings from The Third Siege of Malta delivered by Winston [...]

When obeying the law becomes newsworthy

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2021-06-22T08:08:48+02:00Tue, 22nd Jun '21, 08:08|

Watch this video produced and distributed on Mario Cutajar’s official Facebook page. It’s a fluff piece for something called “the public service week”. The “occasion”, as they describe it, is a visit by Mario Cutajar to the public library in Valletta which shouldn’t be extraordinary in principle, though he looks in the video like he [...]

PODCAST: The blame game

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2021-06-21T14:59:10+02:00Mon, 21st Jun '21, 14:59|

Manuel Delia · The Blame Game Whilst hoping Clyde Caruana pulls it off in the last minute and saves the country from grey-listing by the FATF, his cabinet colleagues are still getting ready for the worst. Mind you, that doesn’t necessarily mean what it should mean. If they haven’t undertaken the reforms that were necessary [...]

GUEST POST: Questions

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2021-06-21T10:00:45+02:00Mon, 21st Jun '21, 10:00|

I had six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names were ‘where’ and ‘what’ and ‘when’ and ‘why’ and ‘how’ and ‘who’. - Rudyard Kipling It’s been nearly 6 months, since December 2020 when the Parliamentary Secretary for Equality Rosianne Cutajar and Charles Farrugia, one of her political aides, were exposed [...]

THE SUNDAY TIMES: A pincer move on free expression

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2021-06-20T07:26:09+02:00Sun, 20th Jun '21, 07:26|

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "The magistrate presiding over the compilation of evidence against Fenech heard a complaint from his lawyers after Times of Malta published conversations Fenech had had with Anton Attard, who sought advice on fixing betting odds to manipulate voting in an international singing competition. The report came in [...]

In a tyranny, no one is guilty of raping democracy

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2021-06-17T10:05:24+02:00Thu, 17th Jun '21, 10:05|

What is happening at the Public Accounts Committee would be an outrage on our democracy if we had a democracy. Gianella Demarco is Paul Apap Bologna’s lawyer. She works for him and speaks on his behalf. He’s not on trial there. He’s just a witness. He should not need legal representation or some form of [...]

Marry an aardvark

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2021-06-18T09:10:40+02:00Thu, 17th Jun '21, 08:28|

Politicians looking to improve their chances of getting elected look for spouses with a surname towards the beginning of the phone book. That will allow them to attach their political chances to the buoy of a name like Abela, Agius or Apap. Candidates are listed alphabetically on the ballot sheet which means that for voters [...]

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