The bank’s auditors

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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

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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

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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!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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”

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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

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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

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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.

Filii dolorosi stabant iuxta matrem mortuam

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2018-03-23T16:34:22+01:00Fri, 23rd Mar '18, 16:34|

Unlike Edwin Vassallo I am not a religious person. And unlike Edwin Vassallo I do not wish to dive into the abortion debate at a point when Labour plants the issue to distract the nation from its leadership’s crimes. But I cannot resist logic when I see it and I see plenty in Edwin Vassallo’s [...]

Is Edward Scicluna getting instructions from Ali Sadr?

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2018-03-23T14:56:52+01:00Fri, 23rd Mar '18, 14:56|

Edward Scicluna stood in Parliament defending the decision of the MFSA not to use its powers at law to suspend Pilatus Bank’s banking license. He patronisingly attempted to explain the nuance, too obscure for us mere mortals to comprehend, of the distinction between Ali Sadr as Chairman and Director of the Bank and the bank [...]

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