It’s all well and good for the MFSA to assure us that its regulatory function was fully exercised while Pilatus Bank was in business. (See their statement below). They tell us they engaged an overseas “intelligence” firm before licensing Pilatus and they kept the bank on a diet of inspections and verification while it exercised [...]

The following guest post from someone known to me reacts to this earlier post of mine in which I wrote that Joseph Muscat "treats the population like Pavlov treated his dogs and no wonder. So many oblige."  ‘Joseph Muscat treats the population like Pavlov treated his dogs.’ Having a background in psychology I couldn’t help but smile [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "It is very hard for people to admit they have been fooled. Even if it is ever proven beyond any doubt that the sort of manipulative techniques used by Cambridge Analytica elsewhere were also applied here, few are going to admit, even to themselves, that without these [...]

Edward Scicluna, in theory the man in government responsible for the oversight of all public spending, went out of line earlier today and 'clarified' the government was funding Puttinu directly from the state budget, not out of revenue from passports.   He should know. He's the one who signs the paperwork. Although he should also [...]

Kathimerini is a Greek daily newspaper recognised as the newspaper of record there. An abridged English version is also published with principal circulation in the United States. The newspaper interviewed Maria Efimova about how she gave herself up to Greek authorities and why she wishes to avoid extradition to Malta. This is a link to [...]

I’m stepping right into it. Joseph Muscat’s phone call to Xarabank to announce a 5 million euro donation to the child cancer fund raiser is despicable. It is a low moral point reached by someone for whom morality is barely a memory. It is a sociopathic scheme worthy of the Brooklyn gangs who ‘took care [...]

“She received a message that, ‘you have to protect yourself’ and therefore she went to seek for this protection from the Greek police,” Maria Efimova's lawyer said. He did not say who sent Efimova the message.  Read Reuter's full report of their interview with Alexandros Papasteriopoulo. The hearing of her case is scheduled for 12th April. [...]

One of the shareholders of the SCL group (that set up Cambridge Analytica) was decorated by Malta with a medal of merit in 2015. Jonathan Peter Marland was made an honorary officer of the National Order of Merit by President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca in the government’s honours list on Republic Day 2015. Jonathan Marland [...]

Ali Sadr's arrest damages Malta. It does not matter he's not accused of crimes committed in Malta. That's only because he's not being arraigned in Malta by Maltese authorities for breaching Maltese laws. But he's been arraigned in the United States by US authorities for breaching American laws. It does not matter he's not accused [...]

Last November I wrote about political appointments that reduce our country's ability to protect human rights. Here's how I had reacted to Andy Ellul's appointment to head the Monitoring Board for Detained Persons. "A prison monitoring board is not appointed to implement government policy. On the contrary it is set up by law under our [...]

In his weekly Atlantide on La7 Andrea Purgatori yesterday discussed freedom of expression in a world of data manipulation, persecution of whistle-blowers and the killing of journalists. Here are links to two extracts from yesterday's show. Data Killer, l'uccisione di Daphne Caruana Galizia nel racconto di Andrea Purgatori Data Killer, le società offshore a Malta [...]

This is from last year's La Valette u t-Tlett Muskuttieri Maltese language panto. There's an Ali Sadr character singing an Abba tune. https://www.facebook.com/tonio.bronk.3/videos/215761295839482/ MONEY, MONEY, MONEY Jekk xi muniti msaddin, bhad-deheb u l-fidda nġibhom jien, l-aqwa żmien! Liri jew ewro imkemmxin, inġibhom ġodda mogħddijin, minxurin. Jien ix-xogħol tiegħi ta’ bankier Indur mad-dinja, b’dal-mistier L-Indja, l-Amerika [...]

TRT World is a global English-language news channel with headquarters in Istanbul and 8 other broadcast centres worldwide. While I was in London I gave this interview. https://youtu.be/yGqCxN71lyg

In order for things to work we have to rely on audit firms to verify and certify claims made by companies. It is not a uniquely Maltese problem that audit firms end up facing dilemmas between their duty to act as independent officials in the public interest and service providers obliged to act on behalf [...]

The following guest post was sent in by Ryan Murdock following my post with an excerpt from Christopher Wylie's testimony to the House of Commons culture committee two days ago. In the meantime a link to the full testimony is provided below the post. I’m not sure how much your readers know about online social [...]

Read this blog post by Freddy Gray on The Spectator. He's right. The real story on Cambridge Analytica is not so much the advice they gave to their clients. The big story is how Henley and Partners's Christian Kaelin used Cambridge Analytica to virtually own political leaders they secured the election of. Alexander Nix, [...]

Greek media are reporting the press conference yesterday by civil society organisations appealing to the Greek government to do the extremely unlikely and intervene to prevent the forced extradition of Maria Efimova to Malta. Interestingly Protagon goes on to describe the scene just over a week ago when Maria Efimova handed herself in. At an [...]

Together with Sabrina Provenzani of Il Fatto Quotidiano, I went to the Old Park Lane in Mayfair, London this morning to find out if Pilatus Bank was answering the door. Here's as far as we got.   At reception the sign still includes 'Pilatus' in the short list of offices in the building. [...]

This is what Christopher Wylie had to say to UK Parlamentary Committee this morning about CA's ans SCL's business models Watch here - further comments will be uploaded later.