Malta-Mafia State?: as Malta buries journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia EU tells Malta leave "no stone unturned" in finding culprits

Investigative Blogger:Daphne Caruana Galizi, cowardly assassinated

Deutsche Welle reported that the  EU Commission has told Malta its investigation into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia should leave "no stone unturned" as the funeral of the journalist took place. Politicians she probed stayed away. tells Malta

Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral on Friday of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta's best-known blogger and journalist and a fierce critic of government and opposition figures. The Mediterranean island observed a national day of mourning as the ceremony took place in Mosta, a town close to the rural home where her car was blown apart.

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said Europe's "eyes" were on authorities in Malta where democracy was at stake after the "atrocious" car-bomb murder on October 16.

EU headquarters flew flags at half-mast in honor of Caruana Galizia and "all those who have given their lives for the freedom of speech." On Malta itself a day of national mourning had been declared.

In her last blogpost, published the day she died, Daphne Caruana Galizia signed off with a sentence that seems particularly chilling now.

“There are crooks everywhere you look. The situation is desperate.”

She believed, in essence, that malign and criminal interests had captured Malta and turned it into an island mafia state; she reported on a political system rife with corruption, businesses seemingly used to launder money or pay bribes, and a criminal justice system that seemed incapable, or unwilling, to take on the controlling minds behind it all.

EU headquarters flew flags at half-mast in honor of Caruana Galizia and "all those who have given their lives for the freedom of speech..
 
Note EU-Digest: May she rest in peace and may those who planned her assassination and those who placed the explosive device under her car be found and brought to justice.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands - burial: Graves in the Netherlands are rented - Elena Holodny

If you want your grave to literally be your final resting place, we might not recommend getting buried in the Netherlands.

"[G]raves in the Netherlands are typically rented for 10 or 20 years, with remains being cleared out once the lease expires," as RBC Capital analysts recently noted in a report.

Interestingly, this has nothing to do with burial rituals. Rather, it's because there isn't enough cemetery space in the country.

Poor soil conditions and high ground water tables that slow down the "skeletonisation process" of the bodies preclude the Dutch from building up enough cemeteries, Paul J. M. Van Steen and Piet H. Pellenbarg of the University of Groningen noted in a 2004 research report on burials in the Netherlands.

And while it's possible to fix (or at least mitigate) these two geographic issues by artificial means, the authors note that it's expensive for cemeteries to do so.

Read more: Graves in the Netherlands are rented - Business Insider