‘The Liquidator’ is now ‘The Warden’

By
2018-03-29T14:34:54+02:00Thu, 29th Mar '18, 14:34|

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 [...]

Andrea Purgatori contrasts the consequences of journalists being killed in Slovakia and Malta

By
2018-03-29T13:23:27+02:00Thu, 29th Mar '18, 13:23|

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 [...]

Panto banker

By
2018-03-29T10:38:55+02:00Thu, 29th Mar '18, 09:41|

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 [...]

The bank’s auditors

By
2018-03-29T10:40:59+02:00Thu, 29th Mar '18, 08:17|

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 [...]

Kaelin’s game

By
2018-03-28T05:24:14+02:00Wed, 28th Mar '18, 05:24|

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 report on appeal to #SaveEfimova

By
2018-03-29T08:49:00+02:00Wed, 28th Mar '18, 05:07|

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 [...]

MEPs to European Central Bank: Shut Pilatus down!

By
2018-03-27T06:26:23+02:00Tue, 27th Mar '18, 06:26|

Members of the European Parliament, who have been following up on corruption and rule of law in Malta, have written to Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank and asked him to shut down Pilatus Bank and withdraw its license. The move follows the government's failure to close down Pilatus Bank in spite of the [...]

GUEST POST: The argument for unity

By
2018-03-27T06:01:55+02:00Tue, 27th Mar '18, 06:01|

By Charles Schembri. Needless to say the views of guests are not always entirely consistent with the editorial line of this site. But debate, if backed by cogent argument, is always welcome. Particularly in a liberal democracy a country’s statute of laws, the executive and its agencies, especially those institutions that enable and ensure the [...]

GUEST POST: Coming up on 6 months

By
2018-03-27T05:39:13+02:00Tue, 27th Mar '18, 05:39|

By Pat Azzopardi Preziosi: I saw this photo and I started crying again. I cried for the stolen childhood of three boys who have had to live their lives knowing that their mother was hated, maligned and lied about. I cried because these three boys couldn’t really bond with their beloved pets because their pets [...]

Harvesting data Malta style

By
2018-03-26T08:43:01+02:00Mon, 26th Mar '18, 08:43|

Kurt Farrugia called my story about a 2015 app put out on Facebook "pure fiction". Naturally the actual app existed. The data requested from its users was requested. All that Kurt Farrugia included in his 'pure fiction' rubbish bin. What we're supposed to believe is the government did not use the data for its micro-targeting [...]

Ali Sadr is not some Oskar Schindler

By
2018-03-26T07:44:20+02:00Mon, 26th Mar '18, 07:44|

While it is somehow easy to demonise a faceless blonde Russian and to dismiss the quips of an ex-police officer as politically motivated, it is indeed an incredible challenge to spin the manifestly shifty, serial wife-battering, inexplicably wealthy, multiple passport-wielding Ali Sadr as some sort of hero. And yet the Labour trolls have their instructions. [...]

STAR COMMENT: Don’t forget the Henley Connection

By
2018-03-26T07:24:09+02:00Mon, 26th Mar '18, 07:24|

By callixtus after my post on the Luzerner Zeitung: The Luzerner Zeitung missed a far more important Swiss connection, Christian Kalin. Ali Sadr and his wife were guests at Kalin's twentieth wedding anniversary party. I wouldn't be surprised if Christian Kalin attended Ali Sard's wedding in Italy together with Keith Schembri and Joseph Muscat (how [...]

“This won’t stop here”

By
2018-03-25T07:56:53+02:00Sun, 25th Mar '18, 07:56|

It takes formidable courage to be Jonathan Ferris and Maria Efimova in these times. And you need to be of exceptionally rare character in a world where people rarely do anything for nothing to give up so much purely because you’re right and being told to shut up will not stop you believing that. When [...]

Swiss media reports on connections with Ali Sadr

By
2018-03-25T07:01:56+02:00Sun, 25th Mar '18, 07:01|

Luzerner Zeitung reports on the connections in Switzerland of Ali Sadr now in a US jail indicted for multiple counts of fraud and sanctions laws breaches. "Traces of Malta thriller in Zug and St Gallen" is the headline of the story that reports on the existence of Clarity Trade & Finance SA, based in the canton [...]

Dubai: The morning after the night before

By
2018-03-23T16:49:02+01:00Fri, 23rd Mar '18, 16:47|

Watch this first: April 21st, 2017. Next read this: Edward Zammit Lewis: Ali Sadr was only carrying clothes. Then read this: When Edward Zammit Lewis paid a million euro to the air company that carries bags … with clothes. Now watch this. Someone in Dubai was watching. https://youtu.be/mBoHcNGjSks Expensive way of carrying the laundry.

Go to Top