From spliffs to right wing extremists

"I don’t think the police usually raid an establishment or a residence on the grounds of someone smoking a joint, or being a known pothead"

 

A couple of weeks ago, I could not understand why everyone here (in Malta) was getting so excited about Cyrus Engerer, a teeny, tiny tadpole in our puddle, when the rest of the world was being rocked by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World (now defunct) phone tapping scandal.

Britain is still reeling over the deplorable issue, with more incriminating evidence being revealed day by day. Besides,  Cameron’s government is under pressure due to its weak economic growth. Of course, the EU is fraught with financial concerns.

Even the US, the major capitalist country, is in crisis with its politicians playing a precarious game with regard to their country’s debt crisis. In simple terms, it does not have enough money in the kitty to pay all of its bills and if the Republicans and the Democrats don’t resolve the stalemate over raising the debt ceiling their country faces default.

While here, we are all agog over a gay couple’s shenanigans, which let loose abundant homophobic sentiment.  And why? Because one of them, Cyrus Engerer, was a Nationalist Party (PN) local councillor and Sliema’s deputy mayor who defected to the Opposition. 

However, one must concede that the amateur dramatics have now thrown up some serious concerns, which have been simmering under the surface for a while now. One of them being, where the lines are drawn between the police and the government, another is nepotism and yet another is manipulative leaks to the media.

In the UK , the cosiness of the ties between politicians and the news media - particularly the relationship between lawmakers and editors and executives at News International - is one of the issues Justice Leveson (Prime Minister David Cameron’s appointee to chair the panel that will investigate the phone tapping scandal) will be considering.

While here, an enquiry chaired by Judge Albert Manche (appointed by the government) - in response to a call by the Police Commissioner John Rizzo, at a press conference about two criminal cases involving Cyrus Engerer and his father Christopher - is to look into allegations of abuse of power, negligence or undue pressure. However, it does not look like the media’s connections are to come under scrutiny.

The Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said he had no confidence in Judge Manche, who also heads the Permanent Commission Against Corruption, which he said “never found a case of corruption in 12 years”. He also said that an enquiry should look into how charges issued against Cyrus Engerer were leaked to the press the same morning they were filed in court.

Cyrus’s lawyer Franco Debono is also questioning the retired judge’s appointment claiming, “I cannot understand how the minister objects to raising the retirement age for judges to 70 and then appoints a judge who has been retired for the past 10 years to lead an inquiry into such an important matter”.

He has also presented a judicial protest against the Police Commissioner and the Registrar of the Courts in connection with The Times report on the charges filed by the police against his client. The Times reported the charges against Cyrus Engerer, before he was officially notified about them.

That had followed a news report on Sunday in Malta Today about his father’s arrest. There is no doubt that both reports were due to leaks. The first probably came from the Engerers, or their friends and the second possibly from PN quarters, or the police in retaliation to the first report. Everyone is denying any involvement to the Times leak. The document surfacing in the Times newsroom must be down to magic.

The Police press conference was called after the Opposition alleged that the arrests were politically motivated. The charges against Cyrus are of keeping and/or circulating pornography and computer misuse and of vilifying Marvic Camilleri, a former employee of the (PN) and a former member of the its youth movement. He is also his former boyfriend.

Now for the ex-boyfriend, the instigator of the case against Cyrus. He had filed a police report in January 2010 after nude images of him were stolen from his computer and circulated via e-mail to his employers and friends, and he suspected this was the vindictive work of his former boyfriend, Mr Engerer.

It transpires that Cyrus was aware of those charges in June this year, before his hara-kiri gesture with regard to his political ambitions within the PN.

Mr Camilleri has reportedly forgiven his former lover, but still wants “justice to be done”. After telling the Times, together with  his lawyers Andy Ellul and Vince Micallef  that he was willing to drop the charges, he has since changed his mind and sacked his lawyers, because of their political affiliation (Labour). Although they had informed him that they were active members of the party.

He confirmed what Commissioner Rizzo said at the press conference, i.e. that he never formally told the police to drop the charges. After a police investigation involving the Cyber Crime Unit, the police filed charges against Mr Engerer on Monday.

It is no wonder that speculation was rife about the political implications to the charges being brought now, the leak and his father’s arrest.  It was just a spliff  Christopher Engerer was arrested for, on July 21, six days after his son’s defection to the Labour Party.

He “was arrested after being found in possession of marijuana following a raid by the police”, the Police Commissioner told a press conference. Adding “there is also a possibility that Christopher Engerer will be charged with trafficking rather than personal use, although this had yet to be established.”

Now that is a bit odd isn’t it?  Surely, the more serious trafficking charge should have been established before the arrest. I don’t think the police usually raid an establishment or a residence on the grounds of  someone smoking a joint, or being a known pothead.

He was approached by the police outside his home where he was smoking a joint. Five grams of cannabis were found in his possession. The foray at his house revealed rolling paper and a cannabis crusher, but no other drugs were found in his home, or at his bar.

After interrogating him throughout the day, the police had still not decided whether he would be charged with trafficking or possessing the drug. Commissioner Rizzo went to great lengths to try to explain the details to the press.

He insisted that the timing of the arrest had nothing to do with Cyrus Engerer’s defection to Labour and categorically denied any political motivations in the investigations. It was the result of a tip-off , on July 6, by a known informant, he said.

I would have thought the police have far more serious investigations to be getting on with. For example, the kind of people who are settling and visiting here. One of whom, Paul Ray, is to be questioned by the Norwegian police in connection with the awful butchery of innocents that took place in their country.

A report in The Times on Friday claimed that a YouTube video posted on Ray’s blog shows him at the Marsa Immigrants Open Centre accompanied by former Northern Ireland Ulster terrorist Johnny Adair and a violent German convicted neo-Nazi, Nick Greger.

“Mr Ray insisted he had no problem being associated with Mr Adair and Mr Greger, despite their violent past for which they both served prison terms,” said the report.

The British press is claiming that in his 1,500-page manifesto, Breivik (the man responsible for the massacre) stated that his mentor was Richard (the Lionhearted) Mr Ray’s pseudonym.

Mr Ray is denying any connection with Breivik.

Meanwhile, Euronews reported that any activity involving extreme right-wingers is currently causing much attention across Europe and that the Police in Stuttgart have seized rifles and ammunition from the homes of far-right extremists.

The report said that Interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has warned that Germany’s homegrown far-right scene has a dangerous fringe, potentially capable of mounting deadly attacks.

His warning came as a police union suggested that an alarm be set up for the internet allowing web users to report extremist content such as that propagated by Norway’s terror suspect.

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Dirty Digger gets his comeuppance

Do we care that much that a local councillor has defected to the Opposition in Malta? Is it just me that finds all the fuss OTT? I suppose I will now get some political groupie calling my opinion perverse and claiming I hate politicians or gays. The truth is that I don’t have time for anything that is stretched out of all proportion.

Let’s face it, Cyrus Engerer is a very minor politician, he isn’t even a mayor, for heaven’s sake. He must have known his days with the PN were over when he publicly said the PM should resign. How naive is that? Unless of course he wanted out in the first place.

Sure, his politics do not seem to be fusty and that is good news. But does he think that swapping parties will make that much difference? Does he imagine that if, at some later stage, he might want to publicly call on the PL leader to resign, his position would be any different to what it is now?

I suppose he could then join Alternativa, which perhaps would suit him better anyway. Now if we had a Cabinet Minister, or at least a Parliamentary Secretary, or even some PN veteran moving over to Labour, one could understand people getting excited.

But for the topic to get top billing in the (Malta) Times online “Most popular “ and “In Discussion”, with over 400 comments, just baffles me. Especially, when big news is happening internationally like the crumbling of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, which should send ripples of foreboding to any in the media who dabble in gutter journalism.

Murdoch’s media has had substantial political influence in the past, but it seems that today’s western leaders are not that keen on him or his power. However, as Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, rightly pointed out, “Politicians and the press are fated to be locked perpetually in a loveless embrace... Newspapers are bought by men not to make money but for power and influence.”

We all know how politicians cosy up to the press when they want favourable coverage. Nevertheless, we must also be wary of newspapers’ agendas. The media can be as dishonest as any corrupt politician in its bid for power can.

I have never been a fan of gutter journalism and the News of the World was never popular with right-minded people. I can honestly say that in my nearly three decades in London I never bought the rag. The tabloid was shut down last week.

The phone-hacking scandal rocked the establishment in the UK first and is now reverberating in the US. After the resignation of News International (the media group's UK newspaper arm) CEO, Rebekah Brooks on Friday, Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal and a close Murdoch ally also quit his post yesterday.

Mr Hinton who led News International from 1995-2007 when the UK's News of the World was hacking phones told reporters

"The pain caused to innocent people is unimaginable.” It is a shame they (the executives at NI) did not think about that at the time.

Of course, they are claiming that although they are taking full responsibility they were unaware of what was going on.

"That I was ignorant of what apparently happened is irrelevant,” Mr Hinton said. On Thursday, the FBI announced it was investigating whether the News of the World had also snooped on the phones of 9/11 victims.

In the UK, Ms Brooks resignation (1 comment was registered by 11.49 yesterday, in the Malta Times report. Obviously, nowhere near as important as Mr Engerer’s defection from the Malta Nationalist Party to Labour. Talk about insularity!) was welcomed by  Prime Minister David Cameron, who said Ms Brooks, who was his friend and a neighbour, had made "the right decision". Mr Cameron has appointed a judge to conduct a sweeping inquiry into criminal activity at the paper and in the British media.

Murdoch’s dirty newsgathering has finally got its comeuppance. I am all for the media exposing wrong doing by people in power, but The News of the World always went too far. I believe that corruption should always be challenged. I also deem it right that the public is entitled to know what is really going on, but there is a fine line to be drawn when innocent people end up as the victims of a ruthless press in search of sensational news.

Evidence is being produced of illegally hacked phones of people ranging from a murdered teenager in 2002; victims of London's 2005 terrorist bombings and families of dead British soldiers to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"I have seen hundreds of news reports of both actual and alleged misconduct during the time I was executive chairman of News International and responsible for the company,” said Mr Hinton. He apologised to those hurt by the actions of the News of the World.

In 2002, the paper's operatives hacked the phone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler, giving her family false hope that their daughter was still alive. Rebekah Brooks was News of the World editor at that time and the Dowler family called on Brooks to resign.

On Friday, Mr Murdoch apologised to the family of the murdered British schoolgirl and yesterday full-page advertisements in Britain's main national newspapers carried an apology for "serious wrongdoings" by the News of the World, signed by him.

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What a shambles

We do have short memories. I really cannot understand the people who want the old public transport system back. “I preferred the old drivers rude as they might have been at times, or badly dressed with earrings or tattoos. They got us where we wanted to go and back home in the shortest possible time. We never waited too long at Valletta. There was always a bus available. We could wait on the bus out of the sun. Now CHAOS,” said a commentator online.

While I can understand people getting really angry at the current situation, and the points mentioned above are relevant, we don’t really want to regress do we? It seems that the latter is what some of the previous bus drivers would like to see and are fuelling the chaos by not turning up, or making inane comments to the media.  However, many of the problems are not down to the drivers’ no show.

As a driver of a car and a pedestrian, I am certainly grateful that I will no longer be stuck behind a bus in my car, or walking up Tower Road from the Ferries, having to inhale black, poisonous fumes belched from the buses.

Besides, on the few occasions I have travelled by bus in the past, I must say that I was not impressed. Torn and dirty seats, filthy windows and full jerry cans in the front seats, possibly with petrol!

As for the drivers, they smoked, drove erratically, used their mobile phones while driving, were dressed, or rather undressed, shabbily and often had long chats with some sidekick (sometimes an inspector) while driving.

Of course they were not all awful, there were some decent and respectable drivers. Those are probably the ones that are driving the Arriva buses now. Nevertheless, we did have some awful thugs who used to bully the elderly and even beat up tourists, so please for those with sudden memory lapses, as rightly angry as you are right now, we do no want the old attitudes back.

Put the buses in a museum by all means, but not on the roads. As for the drivers, I would not want anyone to lose their job, but if one provides a public service one has to abide by the rules, or face the consequences. If Arriva has gone back on its word, let the GWU sort it out. That is what it is there for.

Something certainly had to be done about our public transport system. The PM was right to say that no previous administration had got this far with public transport reform. Unfortunately, though, we seem to have been landed with an almighty cockup, at least so far.

I had commented in this column that experts had cited poor management and planning in the Valletta project and it is becoming increasingly apparent that though this administration is good at pushing things through, it falls down badly on consultation, planning and delivery.

Apparently, Arriva did not carry out a pilot study before implementing the changes to the bus routes and it looks like no research was carried out. Did the government not stipulate these requirements?

The people having a really hard time are the commuters who need the buses and have no choice but to use public transport. Sure, the drivers not showing up must have disrupted the service. However, buses arriving late was not the only complaint by commuters.

It looks like getting to Mater Dei and the university has become unnecessarily cumbersome and many other routes seem to be affecting commuters negatively. People are having to wait too long with no shelter and the new routes are also causing major inconvenience. All this is unacceptable. That is why some are saying "Ahjar meta konna aghar " (It was better when we were worse off) and one can see their point.

The Air Conditioning not working must be very uncomfortable in this heat and the electronic signage is a minor inconvenience, but mainly buses arriving on time and getting people to their destinations without too many detours seem to be the biggest problems that need sorting.

Next is the lack of adequate shelter, especially at the main terminals. There really is no excuse for that lack of planning. That I believe was not down to Arriva. Why did the government have to wait for people to complain (a woman actually fainted and had to be taken to hospital) for temporary shelters to be put up at the Valletta terminus and some outlying interchanges notably Qormi/Marsa and Pembroke?

If it had not been so keen to chop down all the trees at the new Valletta terminus, there might not have been such a big problem. Anyway, the authorities have had plenty of time to prepare for the arrival of Arriva. Permanent, adequate shelters should have been in place by last Sunday. It is going to take six weeks for a canopy to be built at the bus interchange in Bugibba/Qawra.

Now for the new buses. It is not because “drivers were taking some time to learn how to operate the sophisticated buses” as Arriva CEO, David Martin told the press. Considering the shambles with the AC and electronic signage, how sophisticated can a ‘new’ bus be? The problem is that they are too wide and the bendy ones too long for our roads. The drivers do not have much room to manoeuvre so have to gingerly steer towards the middle of the road.

On Thursday, another bus got stuck in Kirxa Hill in St Julians, going towards Balluta Bay, which is out of bounds for heavy vehicles. There were also reports of other buses having problems negotiating narrow roads all over the island.

Now the Valletta Business Community has joined the fray and is complaining that the changes introduced by Arriva mean people do not have to visit Valletta as often as before to get to their end destination.

“This, along with ongoing works and the ever-decreasing parking spaces, was leading customers to shy away from the capital and choosing other areas more accessible by car,” said its president, Reginald Fava.

Well the fact that people need not visit Valletta unless they have to is no bad thing. But for the ones that do want to shop in Valletta the lack of parking spaces, or adequate car parking facilities, is a major problem and that definitely must have made an impact on businesses in the city. However, if Arriva does become efficient that might bring shoppers back rather than push them away

One crucial aspect to the current seemingly headless chickens public transport operation is tourism. Any tourists in Malta recently will not be giving any favourable reviews on how to get around on the island, that is for sure.

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It's a dog's life

Now does the title imply a miserably unhappy existence, or the life of Riley? It does rather depend on what kind of a dog, or Dogg, we are talking about.

 

As though we did not have enough to disagree about, we are arguing about whether dogs have the same rights to beaches as we do. We shall soon be arguing on whether they will be allowed to join us in heaven or hell, depending on one’s lifestyle.

More about dogs on beaches later.

Meanwhile, the headlines were soon taken over by a star, not the dog Star that was so cruelly tortured and made the news and whose death was blown out of all proportion (I was surprised that we did not see a Facebook page calling for its canonisation).

This star was human, ‘Snoop Dogg’, here for the MTV extravaganza. He upset journalists by arriving shirtless at the airport, not showing up for a press call (all they had to entertain them was an empty throne), arriving two hours late for another and being vulgar and offensive. Well, anyone who knew his lyrics or researched his background would have known that he was no Cliff Richard.

The American rapper, record producer, actor and entertainer who got his name from his mother, who jokingly remarked that he looked like the Peanuts character Snoopy, reportedly told a Times journalist “Well nigga, you wait for another four hours, that’s what it is when you’re dealing with a superstar, you gotta wait, now, you just f****** your question up, get your ass outta here,” when questioned on why he had kept them all waiting.

I thought a black man calling a non-black “nigga” was quite funny and something to chew on. What I cannot understand is why journalists were so shocked. I know that many here live in a bubble, but journalists are supposed to be a bit more au fait on the ways of the world and in this instance, showbiz.

Of course it’s not nice. But these people are not nice. They would be insulted if you called them nice.

If the journalist was upset, he should have made his own gesture and left i.e. got his “ass outta” there pronto and not wait to be “escorted out of the rapper’s top-floor suite by a security guard as the press event continued inside.”

Anyway, if the rest of the questions were as lame as the MTV journalist’s quoted in The Times, he did not miss much. What surprised me was the seeming unawareness that young (well youngish) male stars, especially those connected to the music world are renowned ‘baddies’.

In my time, Mick Jagger used to hit the headlines for his drug related court appearances. Now it’s for the pretty and much younger girl hanging on his arm. Of course we have had many, many more instances of far more outrageous behaviour by celebrities, I am talking internationally, so why the shock horror? These people are notorious for taking the piss.

Journalists should have know Dogg was a bad boy and be prepared accordingly if they wanted to cover the story. And what a fuss about a shirtless male (with a good body) at the airport, when we have had men (with awful ones) in revealed bellies and skimpy vests hanging around there for years. In addition, since Dogg’s language also upset the journalists, one must refer to the obscenities one was quite used to hearing in that location by the ‘indecently dressed’.

It is a fact that many like bad boys and girls, especially the young, the majority have a rebellious streak, which is kept in check by society, so they have to channel it vicariously through the people who can afford to break the rules. However, we do seem to have quite a conservative contingent among our no longer so young on FB.

I was amused to see comments like “We do not need him”. Like, does he care? Others used vulgar language that they were being critical of! Love him or hate him, Snoop Dogg has risen to super stardom since his culture-shaking 1992 debut.

In late August, he is to be saluted as a BMI Icon at the BMI Urban Awards in Hollywood. BMI Icons are selected because of their “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers,” Reported Eurweb. So, he is definitely a top Dogg. Maybe the extra ‘g’ makes him special.

Now for our obsession of elevating other dogs, the animals, to human status. Last week the opening paragraph in a news item “Dog owners should think twice before they take their pet to swim as they risk being slapped with a fine of up to €4,500 should their four-legged friend be caught in a swimmers’ zone”, enraged many dog owners.

It lead to a FB page - Petition for Dog Friendly Beaches in Malta. I am not sure whether the misspelling of petition “Petiton” was deliberate.

It asked: What do you think of the fines & bans being implemented in article on the Times today: "Dog owners beware of beach patrol”?

Agree - no dogs on beaches please

Disagree

Educating people to clean up after their dogs would be more beneficial

Too far fetched.

I could not find the results of this petition when I searched for “Dogs on Beaches” on FB, but this is what I did find: “Dogs are not be permitted on Galway City beaches, or their waters, between the hours of 9 am and 8 pm during the months of May, June, July, August and September. Before 9 am and after 8 pm during May to September, dogs are permitted on the beach provided they are on a leash and are not causing danger or nuisance.

And another: “Here in Florida there are only a few select beaches that you can take your dog to. This group is for dog lovers everywhere who love to take their pooch(s) to the beach for a great time!”

So maybe this is what we need a beach were dogs are allowed to mix freely. Then people could choose which beach to go to. We could also do with a beach for smokers while we are at it.

Meanwhile, Moira Delia of Dogs Trust here said that the laws are restricting all dog owners instead of punishing bad ownership. “Enforce the law in the case of those who are irresponsible,” she said. It would be better to invest in beach wardens to make sure dogs were not being a nuisance to other bathers, she added.

Well, we know about enforcement in this country, don’t we? I nearly was beaten up once, for telling a man off for not picking up his dog’s dropping. I am sick of having to avoid dog ‘pooh’, which litter Sliema’s streets and beaches.

Ms Delia’s comments were echoed by Gozo SPCA spokesperson Betty Berry, who said the proposals went against the organisation’s work to make pets companion animals. “Animals should be living with people and, in turn, people needed to be exposed to animals”, she said.

Although I sympathise with people who want dogs as companions, not everybody does and why “should animals be living with people” and why do we “need to be exposed to animals?” Surely, it should be up to every individual whether he or she chooses to live with animals, or be exposed to them or not.

I already have to put up with whining, yapping and barking from too many dogs in the neighbourhood. I get enough exposure thank you.

“Abroad, people could take their dogs to restaurants with them and to the park where they could run around freely,” Ms Berry added. Well, I for one would not welcome a dog in a restaurant and I would boycott a restaurant that allowed them, just as I used to boycott restaurants with smokers before the ban.

Of course, dogs should be allowed to run freely in parks, but we have to admit and accept that we do not have the luxury of such open spaces here. Now I am not a dog hater, I like dogs, but not in my space.

If I wanted to share my space with a dog, I would own one. I do not like swimming with dogs, or any other animal for that matter, or showered by a dog shaking off excess water after a swim. For this people like me are labelled “intolerant”.

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