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.
Jose' Eduardo dos Santos, patriarch of the dos Santos family and former dictator of Angola. José Filomeno dos Santos, known as Zenú, is accused of attempting to launder US$ 500 million through UK banks that he embezzled from the state investment fund his father, then dictator of Angola, appointed him to run. José [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
Outside the Malta Financial Services Authority building this afternoon. Is that a delivery or a collection?
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Maria Efimova is a Russian national currently in an Athens prison waiting for a hearing on an extradition request made by Malta where she is wanted to answer for a complaint filed by her former employer, Pilatus Bank plc, that accuses her of misappropriating less than €2,000. Normally such a matter [...]
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 [...]