If anyone’s interested in reading more, here’s the link: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/02/america-and-ukraine

“Viktor Yanukovich is a democratically elected president who has used his powers to eliminate liberal-rights safeguards and jail political opponents on dubious charges. He has reinforced his political position by building cronyistic relationships with powerful business figures. In this system the state creates economic rents and awards them to favoured business interests, who in turn buttress the state’s political power, all while maintaining the trappings of democracy. In other words, Ukraine looks a lot like Russia or Egypt; more significantly, it looks like other states that are in the early stages of similar threats to liberal democracy, such as Turkey and Hungary. The enemy of liberal democracy today is more often kleptocracy, or “illiberal democracy” (as tiger-mom Amy Chua put it in her book “World on Fire”), than ideological totalitarianism. The threat is less obvious than in the days of single-party states and military dictators. But it ends up in the same place: economic stagnation, a corrupt elite of businessmen and politicians, censored media, and riot police shooting demonstrators.”

The only thing missing so far is the riot police shooting on demonstrators, and that probably owes a lot to the fact that there’s haven’t yet been any demonstrations in Malta.

Yes, no doubt about the need to keep this hush hush ….. as both will have no legs to stand on if this comes to light

You would have to understand Malta. Then you would understand. In a nutshell, he has a solid, unassailable electoral majority, and most of his voters, and a many of those who voted for his opponents, haven’t read a single word or watched a single news item on this whole sordid business. Malta is a democratically illiterate country.

Maybe he has been thinking about how to get to the top job.

Ian Borg is as presumptuous as they come. If Joseph Muscat made it to prime minister at 39, Borg seems to think that he can make it by 29.

Joseph Muscat must be watching his back.

Jeez, Kevvy, how do you sleep at night with all those bogey men around?

Does the “rising star” of Labour have any vision, other than rendering national political discourse like that of a village-piazza in some rural hamlet?

A “rising star”? A black hole, more like it.

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-02-18/news/hotel-industry-projects-stalled-as-2014-is-going-down-the-drain-for-eu-funds-3988586496/

“This year is a lost year for EU funding for the hotel industry, with Westin Dragonara’s director of finance, Malcolm Jones, saying that the Maltese economy is suffering and projects are on hold because the government has “underestimated” the time needed for funding programmes to get the green light from the EU.

“There are no funds. There is nothing coming out in 2014 and everywhere is at a stall. They have to go fast. They have not yet structured the projects for which Malta has to apply for funding with the EU. Once you [the government] apply it takes at least six to eight months to get a reply from the EU,” Mr Jones said.”

Passports shouldn’t be sold because it’s wrong, plain and simple, not because of Malta’s reputation and future.

This is supposed to have been an investment scheme. Nobody bought that lie. Even Muscat now speaks of selling citizenship, rather than bringing in investment.

Incidentally, his boast of a billion Euros over five years rings hollow when FDI dropped by half that amount in just a year.

I can’t understand how your PM is not even the slightest bit afraid of all of this bad press. It will most likely be his downfall.