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Government attacks The Shift with legal Groundhog Day
Forty separate branches of the government are attacking another branch of the government in order to attack a news outlet, and you have the pleasure of paying for it. Yes, it’s Groundhog Day in the...
View ArticleLawless roads and random lead
The Canadian government has enraged the ‘go back to your cunt-ry’ brigade by updating its travel advisory to include lawless road conditions, “accidents involving stray bullets”, sexual assaults, rape...
View ArticleHumour in the face of tyranny
Hadi Matar had only read “a couple of pages” of Salman Rushdie’s work when he dashed on stage at a literary event and stabbed the novelist 10 times in the chest and face. He didn’t have a clue what...
View ArticleUnlicensed drivers on lawless roads
No one who’s experienced Maltese roads was surprised to hear driver’s licences were issued based on political connections rather than competence. I mean, it’s a good enough qualification for road works...
View ArticleSuitcases in the night
Frustrated citizens took to the streets again this week to demand an end to the impunity that has smothered the country since 2013. It was the first outbreak of large scale anti-corruption activism...
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Livin’ (at) large in Dubai
Ahh, to be young and free in Dubai, especially when facing serious money laundering charges. I’ve often wondered what became of the girl who had “the courage” to vote Labour back when Electrogas was...
View ArticleGetting away with murder
Another 16th has come. Next month marks five years of cover-ups, stalled court cases, political shoulder shrugging and police inaction since a massive car bomb ended the life of investigative...
View ArticleThe boys are back in town
Malta’s part-time prime minister is on holiday again. Not on his yacht, but your dime. Get ready, New York — Bobby’s in town. The EU’s smallest country is well known for punching above its weight. Ok,...
View ArticleIl-Hutch goes down in proxy war
Another Party loyalist lost his livelihood this week in a fit of pique directed not at him but at the man he pulled strings to help. The Cold War was marked by conflicts such as these, as the world’s...
View ArticleCreating reality one rubbish bin at a time
The government of Malta has been scolded again for playing fast and loose with the truth. The situation could have been resolved quietly if only Prime Minister Robert Abela hadn’t disregarded the...
View ArticleFive years of stalling and avoiding
Representatives of the world’s leading press freedom groups are in Malta again on a fruitless mission to lobby the government to do something other than stall efforts to achieve justice and...
View ArticleMelvin Theuma’s refusal to testify
Melvin Theuma has refused to testify against the men who allegedly gave him a government non-job after he brokered the contract for the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Such cases tend to...
View ArticleSubsidising energy while Electrogas scores
As the European Union sprints into recession, the finance minister attempted to perform the delicate balancing act of clamping a lid on simmering resentment by feigning responsible cost-cutting while...
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Consulting payments are a red flag
“What Michael Stivala and Joseph Muscat do in their private life is their own prerogative.” When I read that quote, I thought Robert Abela was taking a similar line to former Canadian Prime Minister...
View ArticleRobert Abela’s prolonged shrug
Prime Minister Robert Abela gave his first one-on-one video interview to The Times of Malta nearly three years after he took power. They could have saved everyone an hour by posting a picture of a man...
View ArticlePress freedom organisations slam Abela’s take on OSCE meeting
Prime Minister Robert Abela met with Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media Teresa Ribeiro to discuss the government’s proposed media reform...
View ArticleFive years and still here
The Shift is still online after five years. I don’t know anyone who would have predicted that in the dark days of December 2017. My friends certainly didn’t. They thought I was wasting my time when I...
View ArticleBrutality beyond the law
Bernice Cassar was shot to death by her husband on Tuesday. The 40-year-old mother of two was on her way to work. She had filed domestic violence reports with the police, had secured a restraining...
View ArticleDon’t fall for Abela’s ruse
Robert Abela is like that spoiled kid with overindulgent parents who no one in the neighbourhood wanted to play with because every time a game wasn’t going his way, he’d bully and bluster and change...
View ArticleHow many more have to die?
Six construction workers were buried beneath the rubble of an illegal factory that was being erected on government land without a permit but with the full knowledge of the Planning Authority. Five of...
View ArticleRobert Abela’s Pinocchio problem
If you don’t want to be sued, stop asking questions. That’s what a government lawyer for the Planning Authority said in court this week to representatives of The Shift dragged there by 40 different...
View ArticleChristmas carolling with The Shift
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and down at The Shift, not a keyboard was clicking nor a light in the house. And that, my friends, is why you’re stuck with me. There isn’t anyone else around, so...
View ArticleOpinion: A sunny place for shady people
Malta has learned nothing from the brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The public inquiry tabled its report nearly three years ago. Have any of its recommendations been implemented? The only...
View ArticleOpinion: Shadow bans and shady people
What is it with Malta and shady people? The country attracts the seriously shifty like an all-you-can-eat buffet attracts gluttons. During the Joseph Muscat years, a rogue’s gallery of fraudsters,...
View ArticleMoney laundering: Will Malta’s prosecutors fumble the ball?
A court in Panama has acquitted twenty-eight people charged with money laundering in connection with the 2016 Panama Papers scandal. Those exonerated include Jurgen Mossack and the late Ramon Fonseca,...
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Joseph Muscat’s jailbird friends
You can tell a lot about a person by the friends they surround themselves with. Disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat made headlines last month when a video surfaced of him mingling with...
View ArticleNo due diligence in dodgy hospitals deal
Chris Fearne and Edward Scicluna were back in court today alongside 13 other defendants to face charges of fraud, misappropriation and fraudulent gains in connection with the dodgy hospitals deal that...
View ArticleMuscat: Fast and loose with the truth
Joseph Muscat likes to play fast and loose with the truth. The disgraced former prime minister, who cruises around Malta in a taxpayer-funded Maserati, told The Shift, “I benefit from the normal...
View ArticleOpinion: Keith Schembri was the centre of the web
When I read that Keith Schembri had a fake email address of ‘Frank Pillow’, as The Shift’s investigation revealed, I immediately thought of the fake newspaper passed off as Malta Today some years back....
View ArticleSeven years of status quo
“Isn’t that where they killed that journalist?” It’s the first thing anyone says to me when I mention I lived in Malta. Daphne Caruana Galizia’s name is remembered around the world, but few of the...
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