It wasn’t only Mrs Muscat who went to China. Mrs Deo Debattista did too.
Deo Debattista and his missus: Beijing Taghna Lkoll
The prime minister said that his wife went at the invitation of the Chinese government, and that the Chinese government picked up the tab.
What, for her flights, too?
He said that he and his wife paid for Soleil’s and Etoile’s flights there and back.
Now it turns out that Mrs Deo Debattista was there too. Was she also a guest of the Chinese Communist dictatorship? Who paid for her trip?
It’s bad enough that we have been given no explanation why her backbencher husband was part of the official delegation and seated at the negotiating table with the prime minister, deputy prime minister, Mrs Konrad Mizzi and the Maltese ambassador to China.
They’re all together on the flight from Heathrow to Malta as we speak: the prime minister and Mrs Muscat, Soleil and Etoile, and Dr and Mrs Deo Debattista.
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“Others” is plural. Were there more?
I thought that it was the job of Times of Malta to tell us who the others were.
The others are probably the wives and partners of the “important people” who were shown in the press.
I bet that Shiv Nair was also there.
Shiv Nair works outside the limelight. He’d have sent an intermediary. After Qatar, he must have learned his lesson.
As the saying goes, Malta is a sunny place for shady people.
Was Deo there as the PM’s personal doctor?
In such agreements I would expect to see the Finance Minister at least, not a backbencher GP accompanied by his wife.
Really a new way of doing politics – but a very screwed up one it is.
Jealous?
[Daphne – No. I am not from that sort of social background. Work trips are work trips, spouses of either gender do not tag along, work trips are not seen as free holidays, and when people like me want to go to China, we go there on holiday with our own itinerary and under our own steam, having paid for our own tickets and hotels, without tagging along with others or having others tag along with us. If I know the differences between one social culture and another in Malta, then so should you. It cuts both ways. To people like me, tagging along with a government delegation to China on an official trip controlled by the Chinese Communists and shunted from one official engagement to another in the company of Maltese and Chinese politicians and reporters is a hell to be avoided unless you cannot do so because of your job requirements.]
Daphne is correct. When one of my colleagues brought her fiancée to the USA with her the last time we went to a conference there, the whole delegation was annoyed.
Anyone bringing their partner on a work trip will be concentrating on the partner/having a good time and not the work.
Jealous of whom, of what?
Why would anyone be jealous of a two-bit politician whose only idea of progress is to sell the Maltese identity for cash and to rub shoulders with dictators of Communist China whose regard for basic human rights is not even a blip on their radar?
M’hemx dubbju. Wara 25 sena tal-Labour ghandhom guh kbir.
U tant iridu jahtfu li ghandom ecitament kbir biex jiehdu kull opportunita li tigi.
Hekk tahseb Hallelin li ghandhom guh kbir?
Make hay while the sun shines!
U d-dejn nazzjonali dejjem jikber.
Deo Debattista should have stuck to his profession. His experience and know-how in politics is zilch.
“Two weights and two measures”. What the PN does is wrong and corrupt, but immediately becomes fantastic, phenomenal, massive, excellent, admirable when done by the PL.
Just a few examples will suffice – and they must include Tonio Fenech’s legendary clock for which he was vilified, hanged, drawn and quartered many times over.
Joseph Muscat and his wife accept a sponsorship by a clothing firm and the media silence is deafening.
Again Tonio Fenech accepts an invitation to fly to Spain in a private plane to watch a football match. And all hell breaks loose calling for his resignation because that is corruption.
Joseph Muscat accepts a free trip from Muammar Gaddafi on his private jet, and that’s fine – it’s taken as normal. Mrs Michelle Muscat accepts an invitation to fly to China, all expenses paid by the Chinese government and she takes the opportunity to give her little darlings a trip as well. And that is hailed as proving what a good family man Joseph Muscat is and how the Chinese respect his wife.
The third example must take the biscuit. John Dalli’s (drug-smuggling) brother – yes that one – gets a contract on some government project. And John Dalli suddenly becomes “HuBastjan”, corrupt, not fit to remain a minister or even a Member of Parliament.
The same John Dalli, having now changed sides to Labour, is a hero, is saved from prosecution and – this time without being backed by votes in an election – is made a consultant in the Health Ministry and promoted as a consultant to the Prime Minister and all is forgiven and forgotten.
The measuring and weighing equipment used by the MLP definitely needs scrapping to be replaced by more modern technology, definitely not “Made in China”.
The PL should be ashamed of what they are doing.
The Times Of Malta has the duty to ask the right questions for the sake of its faithful readers.
I read that paper and I’m not getting the answers or the information I want. I don’t even see an attempt to get the answers.
The newspaper may be independent, but are its journalists?