Protesters stand near billboards placed by the pressure group Occupy Justice calling for justice after the assassination of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed by a car bomb four months ago outside the office of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
Protesters stand near billboards placed by the pressure group Occupy Justice calling for justice after the assassination of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed by a car bomb four months ago outside the office of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
Protesters stand near billboards placed by the pressure group Occupy Justice calling for justice after the assassination of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed by a car bomb four months ago outside the office of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
Protesters stand near billboards placed by the pressure group Occupy Justice calling for justice after the assassination of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, killed by a car bomb four

Malta’s ‘Three Billboards’ justice protest torn down


Paul Peachey
  • English
  • Arabic

Posters demanding justice for a murdered Maltese journalist in a campaign inspired by the hit-movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri have been removed in a 'vile act of suppression', activists said Monday.

The three posters were put up on Friday to mark four months since the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia – an outspoken anti-corruption campaigner – amid public pressure to find out who was behind the attacks.

Hours later the three posters were removed by authorities citing planning breaches  and electricity theft. The campaigners responded by taking their posters and laying them before the office of the Prime Minister.

“If you think you are going to silence us by pulling down our billboards ... you are mistaken,” the group Occupy Justice Malta said in a statement, describing the action as a “vile act of suppression”.

“The government's message is clear: providing any service to civil society will bring retribution of the full force of the government's power.”

The women's group is just the latest global campaign to draw inspiration from the fictional Three Billboards plot in which a mother rents three billboards to draw attention to the unsolved murder of her daughter.

The Maltese three-poster campaign - “A journalist killed. No justice”, “A country robbed. No justice” and “No resignations. No justice” - taps into widespread public disquiet in Malta over the killing.

Ms Caruana Galizia was killed in October when a bomb was detonated underneath her car. She had written a series of reports about organised crime and had detail alleged corruption linked to the current government of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

Despite Ms Caruana Galizia’s allegations, Mr Muscat secured re-election as leader of the European Union’s smallest nation before her killing last year.

Three Maltese men have been charged over the killing but work is continuing to try to find who commissioned the attack, according to Maltese media.

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In a statement, Malta’s planning authority said that the posters were one of a number targeted on Friday after notices for removal were served months ago. Campaigners said they only acted after their billboards were put up with political posters supporting the country’s leadership still in place.

The dead woman’s son, Matthew, said they were taken down while people were attending a vigil at her memorial in the capital Valletta.

Bill Browder, the financier turned human rights campaigner who worked for a decade in Russia, said that the campaign reminded him of tactics used by Vladimir Putin.

“This reminds me of how Putin destroyed the memorials for Boris Nemtsov,” he wrote on Twitter following the assassination of the liberal politician in 2015.

The protests came as the film that inspired the protest secured five awards at the British Bafta film awards, one of the guides to proable  winners at the Oscars next month.

Who was Alfred Nobel?

The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.

  • In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
  • Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
  • Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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The Pope's itinerary

Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
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