#Malta Citizenship Programme Regulations

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Aircraft Registration Malta

The Malta Aircraft Registration Act 2010

The Malta Air Operators Certificate (Malta AOC) and Aircraft Registration Malta Act 2010 consolidates the previously existing laws on aircraft registration. Through the establishment of an ambitious aircraft register and the setting up of the Malta Transportation (Regulatory) Authority, Malta is now also well positioned into one of the EU’s most topical business opportunities.

The Malta Aircraft Registration Act provides for the innovative concept of the registration of aircraft under construction. Such can be registered so long as such aircraft is uniquely identifiable. The Malta Aircraft Registration Act endeavors to limit nationality and form requirements in order to make the register accessible to as many owners and operators as possible, while ensuring that the register is not open to anyone and everyone.

To this effect the Malta Aircraft Registration Act prescribes those persons who are qualified to register an Aircraft whether used for the provision of air services or otherwise. These include:

• Citizens of Malta who have approved residence in Malta and citizens of Member States of the European Union, EEA State or Switzerland. Such individuals must have a place of residence or business in Malta, the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland;

• An undertaking formed and existing in accordance with the laws in Malta, a Member State of the European Union, the EEA or Switzerland. In terms of the Malta Aircraft Registration Act, the undertaking must have its registered office, central administration and principal place of business within Malta, the EU, the EEA or Switzerland, whereof not less than 50% of the undertaking is owned and effectively controlled by the Government of Malta or by the Government of any other State of the EU, or by the persons abovementioned in paragraph (a), this requirement ought to be present indirectly or directly through one or more intermediate undertakings.

In accordance with the Malta Aircraft Registration Act, a natural person who does not qualify under paragraphs (a) and (b) above, but is a citizen of or an undertaking established in an approved jurisdiction shall be qualified to register aircraft in construction or one which is not used to provide an air service. This delineates the legislator’s intent to widen the scope of the Malta Aircraft Registration Act and consequently expand the range of those who could register under this law. This extends the possibilities for those owners of aircraft who will be using their aircraft for private use and not for hire or reward as prescribed by the pertinent legislation.

Malta VAT Treatment on Aircraft Leasing

The Maltese VAT Department has also recently launched a new aircraft leasing procedure, making Malta an attractive jurisdiction for aircraft registration for both private and commercial aircraft while ensuring full adherence to EU laws and regulations. The net result from this VAT simplification procedure is that the Malta VAT rate of 18% is only payable on that portion of the lease payment which is deemed to be for the use of the aircraft within EU airspace. The minimum percentage of time that an aircraft could be deemed to be in EU airspace, depending on maximum take off mass, maximum fuel capacity, fuel burn, optimum altitude and cruising speed) is of 30%, thereby resulting in a minimum effective VAT rate of 5.4%. For further information please click here.

The Use of Trusts and Fractional Ownership

The Malta Aircraft Registration Act ensures that when there is a trust relation and the Director General is to “look through” to the identity of the underlying beneficiaries, procedures will be implemented to safeguard the confidentiality of the trust arrangement in line with the principles governing trust law. In this manner, an obligation is imposed on the Director General to ensure that the disclosure for the purpose of Malta aircraft registration does not negatively affect the operation of the trust and its inherent confidential nature.

The new Malta Aircraft Registration Act acknowledges the benefits that will result from the employment of trusts in this field, and specific mention is made of fractional ownership and trusts which could be employed when the ownership/use interests of a plurality of persons (legal or natural) is to be regulated in relation to an asset, the aircraft, by interposing a trust relation. Thus, provision for regulation and co-ordination of the beneficiaries’ rights and interests will be made in the trust deed, which can provide for innumerable arrangements, in line with the contingencies of the case at hand.

The Maltese Aircraft Registration Act ensures that the existence of the trustee, being the registered owner of the aircraft, in favour of the determined beneficiaries (in a fixed trust scenario) or for the benefit of determinable beneficiaries (in a discretionary trust scenario) allows the arrangement to operate in a more streamlined manner whilst permitting the rights of the beneficiaries to be enforced against the trustee in case of default, thus protecting the beneficiaries who would be the stakeholders in this arrangement.

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Future Choices 2019

This week, I was fortunate enough to be to able to attend the ��Future Choices: Keeping Europe Intact” conference at the Leeds Uni’ School of Law. 

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend both days so I decided the best option was to be there for day one, which included a segment subtitled as “Intersex citizenship & rights”.

(”Intersex Citizenship Mapping the territory ’Daniela Crocetti, University of Huddersfield with co-authors, Surya Monroand Tray Yeadon-Lee, and ‘Protecting the rights of children with intersex conditions from non-consensual gender-conforming medical interventions: from theory to practice’ Jameson Garland, Uppsala University‘Making the State Responsible: Intersex Embodiment, Medical Jurisdiction and State Responsibility’ Fae Garland and Mitchell Travis.”)

I had previously met Mitchell at another less formal event and was keen to hear how he presents his work in a professional context. I was not disappointed. The presentations were a solid lesson for me and I was so pleased to have attended.

To quote FC19, Mitchell and Fae’s presentation went a bit like this: 

“UK officials have expressed unwillingness to work within a UN / Human Rights framework on intersex issues. It is sometimes framed as an issue for the NHS not for government / legislation.  

UK Government Equalities Office has become increasingly aware of intersex issues. Sometimes consultations are problematically subsumed under LGBT labels or framings which do not resonate with many intersex people, but there is at least an increased focus on intersex people. 

It is problematic if intersex rights are framed as "objective medical facts rather than political issues". This weights the process in favour of the medical establishment. Raises questions of jurisdiction. Artificial lines drawn between the state and the NHS, even though the state runs the NHS.

 Aim of paper is to prevent these lines being drawn and encourage the government to take responsibility for protecting intersex people.  

The remit of medical governance is rarely challenged at the state or legal level. Beyond matters of funding the NHS is generally allowed to be self-governing. Regulation comes from inside the medical profession.  

Government consultation: "Living with Variant Sex Characteristics: A Call for Evidence" (2019) shows a willingness to question medical intervention, but places emphasis on individual responsibility and consent rather than institutional responsibility.  

In 2015 Malta *prohibited* sex assignment treatment and surgical intervention on children where that treatment can be deferred until the child is old enough to give consent.  Malta-style prohibitions are the best response to the problem of non-consensual surgery on intersex children. /end of presentation.”

Some important points were made throughout the presentations, and I was able to also make a few when the time came for questions. The first thing I had to say was concerning how the panel had outlined a line of confusion existing between the state and medical authority’s responsibility to protect and care for intersex people; the panelists had said that intersex variations are left to the care of ‘top endocrinologists and surgeons’ who make the decisions and offer the choices to patients. I detailed the further dangers of this by explaining how some of these ‘top’ doctors themselves are confused, frustrated and unsure about how to deal with some intersex variations and are sometimes using ‘guess-work’ to make important decisions about our bodies. I have since offered Dr Mitchell Travis access to the latest records I’ve recovered that show how my intersex variation was not only concealed from me, but how the experts who suggested my later treatment acted in a “We are confused because we don’t know this person’s true intersex variation so let’s treat them like this other intersex variation instead and proceed with a gonadectomy” type way. I explained that this presents a problem for what is classed as ‘informed consent’ if you consider that what the doctors are telling their patients can sometimes be very different to what they are telling each other. 

I also spoke about the sex-based protections we do not have as intersex people and how as adults, some of us feel we are being practically poisoned with an over-kill of binary hormones. The main options that exist for intersex adults in the UK are menopause clinics and specialist GP’s who continue to ‘normalise’ us with strong male or female hormones. (We should try and induce female puberty, was what they wrote about me aged 30.) I mentioned that there is only one expert in the UK specialising in intersex hormone therapy, based in London, although after the meeting I was informed that there is also one other expert located in Scotland.

Next, I thought it was relevant to mention something the panel had noted from the UK Government’s LGBT survey of 2017: Around 2000 respondents had marked “Intersex” as their identity, yet 2 years later when it came to an actual intersex request for medical and social information, the Government had received only 310 submissions from intersex people, professionals, academics and carers themselves. I stressed that this is something we must take into account as recently highlighted within the community - not just the failure to properly advertise the latter census as the panel had mentioned, but the increased appropriation of intersex as a gender identity clearly demonstrated by the LGBT survey. I pointed out that we need to be mindful of ‘intersex imposers’ who think it is okay to assume intersex identities because of their male/female androgynous beliefs. 

Another point I felt I needed to make was based on how lots of panelists presenting different papers throughout the day had spoken about organisations making recommendations, and quotes had been given from various intersex agencies, organisations and individuals: I talked about the issue of gate-keeping within the intersex community which is further starting to come to light. Without giving any names, I offered an example being from a recent trip to London where I had heard reports of one organisation sending out template letters in response to the intersex call for evidence from the Government, detailing how the survey should be completed. There was a gasp or two in the room and I hope it was not interpreted that I had presented this information to sensationalise the situation in any way.

Dr Mitchell Travis himself had recently said to me “ We struggled to find people to talk to at the time.” concerning a recent paper that I had questioned him about, so this was another reason why I felt I needed to present this information to the law school’s event. I echoed the notion that it is important as we move forward that we listen to more intersex voices concerning important issues.

I was actually nervous about mentioning this or, as you would say, ‘whistle-blowing’, but I believe we all need to be honest about these things moving forward. I do think I’ve made the right decision to speak up however, because after the event I was approached by a representative from a European Org’ who thanked me for speaking out against gate-keeping as this is something they have experienced themselves. We then had a short chat about the challenges the intersex community face and the different struggles and leanings that can sometimes create a ‘toxic’ environment for activists, advocates and professionals.

I then had a few more quick chats with other attendees of the event, but I was on a schedule! I also had the BBC tagging along to film me for part of a segment they are doing for a local TV News programme. They needed to have me doing various activities including talking to professionals, walking down corridors, and then filming my feet walking down corridors, and then filming my double chin (side-profile) walking down corridors. I actually enjoyed it to be fair - but I had to be back in Hull for a comedy gig so I couldn’t stick around and chat for as long as I would have wanted to with some of the other guests and panelists there.

All in all, this was a highly educational day for me and will greatly assist with my work moving forward. I would have liked to have attended the Saturday forum too but sadly that wasn’t possible.

My gig went well, I arrived home around 11pm. I was then back up for ‘Press Review’ on the radio the following morning, so you can imagine it’s felt like a hectic, yet inspiring, few days for me. 

I’m now enjoying a quiet weekend with lots of coffee, houmous, chocolate and television before the activities start again next week with a trip to Manchester.

ONWARD!!!

/endreport.

[baoanhwin]

Laundering Reputations: China and its Uighurs

Screen shot from BBC news coverage

It’s time to talk about the Uighurs again. Despite a harrowing Panorama programme and this header, last December no-one was much bothered, beyond some token expressions of concern. What a difference 7 months, a Made in China pandemic, a security law obliterating HK’s freedoms and news of Huawei’s active involvement in the security apparatus used for Uighur persecution make. 25 years after the Srebrenica massacre by Serbs of 8,000 Muslim Bosnian men and boys – the inevitable murderous conclusion of a campaign of ethnic cleansing and hate – the West has noticed China’s brutality to another little known Muslim community. There are Holocaust and Bosnia echoes with recent revelations of organ-harvesting, prisoners’ hair sold, rape of women and blindfolded prisoners being loaded into trains. Now there is to be a Parliamentary debate on sanctions against China over this (following the indefatigable Maajid Nawaz’s campaign). 

What effective steps can be taken are less clear. There will certainly be no NATO bombing or UN supplies to trapped communities. Speaking up may be all we can do. Do not, though, underestimate the power of protest when wrongdoers would prefer silence. It was, after all, the entire raison d’être of Amnesty’s prisoners of conscience campaigns.

How about taking steps here to stop or limit the laundering of reputations that often goes hand-in-hand with the money-laundering the authorities claim to be worried about? All states and persons with a questionable reputation do it: the Russians, Ukrainians, Saudis, Qataris, Chinese. The higher echelons of British society, so very well used to polishing rough diamonds in return for their money (think of all those penurious aristocrats with ideas above their bank balances bestowing their titles on American heiresses) provide lots of ways for the laundering to happen. 

Property purchases – of prime property, mostly in London and in the fashionable countryside. So much of it is simply a bank for those with money to hide or keep safe. This ecosystem is the “trickle down” effect in action: at least to all those providers of services to the rich foreigners and the middle classes, watching the prices of their houses rise even as they find themselves pushed out from central London. Anyone can buy if they have the money. Even Switzerland – famous or infamous (according to taste) for its discretion about money – imposes some requirements on those wishing to buy property.

Buying residency. Britain is not quite as notorious as Cyprus or Malta. But its Tier 1 Investment Programme allows those with £2 million for a mere 3 months before application to get residency (and later citizenship) in double quick time; the more you have the quicker it is to get citizenship. The “investment” needed is not particularly onerous. In theory, the wealth needs to have been properly earned though quite how the necessary due diligence can have been done properly given the speed of the applications is a mystery. Due diligence is often a fancy way of describing a tick box process devoid of any serious investigation. Why wouldn’t it be, given the money being dangled? Why no fuss about this type of FoM, selling British citizenship and its advantages to the highest bidder?

Investment. A good thing, of course, but let’s be realistic about what dependence on Chinese or Russian or Qatari investment means in reality. When those jobs and tax revenues are dependant not just on that investment but on not criticising the governments of the countries from whence it comes, it becomes so much easier to persuade yourself that those investing companies really have nothing to do with their governments, even in the face of all the evidence. Or that economic considerations will prevail or that the investing companies will be changed and adequately controlled by British laws and culture. Comfort is taken in the belief that commerce can be divorced from politics or security, a very recent British view, one not shared by states such as China or Russia. Or, frankly, the US or EU or, indeed, Britain itself when it was top dog. Commerce and politics cannot be divorced as Britain’s former colonies know only too well. Money talks – as China has tartly reminded Britain in recent days.

The charitable foundation: the first refuge of a scoundrel these days. If it can be linked to art, say, with all its many opportunities for hobnobbing with the great and the good, so much the better. Get an obscure art critic on the Board, perhaps one linked to a senior politician through family connections, get the right doors opened to London society, be photographed at parties with Prime Ministers and their coterie and away you go. Most will assume that you must be ok because, well, someone else has checked you out, haven’t they? You don’t need to look far to find people with the most questionable histories and backgrounds in positions of influence or advantage to themselves. A little more curiosity about their past, why they are here and what they are doing would not go amiss.

Flattery – Board positions (see Huawei’s Board members) or dialogue councils for senior (meaning retired but still self-important) politicians, academics and others: the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, linked to former members of Russian Intelligence, for instance. Or the 48 Group Club with its array of British luminaries keen to bring China and Britain closer together.

Political donations: an area ripe for abuse, requiring reform and unlikely to get it, not in any meaningful way. Do politicians really think that large donations are given without thought of any quo for the quids being showered on them? 

Education: until recently the Saudis and other Middle Eastern governments were some of the biggest philanthropists to British universities, usually for departments focusing on Islam and Middle Eastern history. There is much to learn about both: free inquiry is badly needed. Perhaps one of the first inquiries might have been whether being funded by governments with a very particular view on both topics and with little regard for free inquiry of any type is entirely sensible. Even Gaddafi got in on the act with the LSE, which had to rely on the guidance provided by the moral compasses of Shami Chakrabarti and Howard Davies. It did not end well – for Gaddafi, the LSE or Davies (resigning for his errors of judgment). Ms Chakrabarti went on to more whitewashing as Corbyn’s Shadow Attorney-General in the Lords. Davies now advises various Chinese banking and securities regulators and chairs RBS. The LSE’s experience did not put off other universities from chasing Chinese money and students, so much so that it is reported that 9 of them face bankruptcy if China stops its students coming to Britain. More worryingly, there have been reports of China putting pressure on British universities to eliminate criticisms of it, cancel speakers or permit spying on anti-China protestors. So much for British academic freedom when it comes up against China’s iron determination to get its own way.

All of these things: investment, dialogue, study, charity etc can be forces for good. Exposure to British freedoms, intellectual inquiry, rule of law, democratic norms, vigorous debate, cultural life, the wisdom of British thinkers and achievers can – in theory and maybe sometimes in practice, for some at least – open cracks in otherwise closed societies and minds, show an alternative way, a better future, help win the battle of ideas. 

They can. But have they? Or has Britain been woefully naïve? Has it been too willing to sell itself to those who care nothing for our strengths, save other than how they can seize or use those strengths for themselves? Has it really been using its soft power? Or has it just been treated as a useful idiot, desperate and needy, hawking what’s left of its honour and the family silver to ruthless, ambitious competitors, nasty, unfriendly authoritarians willing to spend lavishly on PR and those with an eye for a bolt hole if life turns nasty at home?

Realpolitik dictates that Britain needs to deal with nasty countries. But there is a difference between supping with a long spoon and sitting in someone’s lap. The government’s recent Magnitsky law sanctions and HK actions are a welcome dose of realism. A start. Now Britain needs to use its UN vote against Xi Xinping’s wish for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, if the concept of “human rights” is to have any worthwhile meaning, that is.

Morality cries out for some sort of action for HK, the Uighurs and other victims. Protest, exposure and a home for some may be the limit of what Britain can and will do. It is something. As Elie Wiesel (Holocaust survivor, Nobel prize winner and the man who publicly begged President Clinton to act over Bosnia at the opening of Washington’s Holocaust museum) said: “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

Cyclefree

from politicalbetting.com https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/07/23/laundering-reputations-china-and-its-uighurs/ https://dangky.ric.win/

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Malta Listing:-A Malta Professional Investor Fund is a type of collective investment scheme which providesa lighter regulatory regime and more flexibility than traditional UCITS and AIFs. Visit us: https://www.edocr.com/v/bp5wdy3k/emdadvocates/malta-professional-investor-fund-malta-listing-avi

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Malta Work Permit | Malta Citizenship

The Nomad Residence Permit has recently been introduced for Non-EU nationals who wish to move to Malta temporarily whilst working remotely. For more info visit : https://www.emd.com.mt/nomad-residence-permit/

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The Nomad Residence Permit has recently been introduced for Non-EU nationals who wish to move to Malta temporarily whilst working remotely. For more info visit : https://www.emd.com.mt/nomad-residence-permit/

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IIP Statistics and Maltese Passport

Malta Passport: As already specified in the Malta Citizenship Programme regulations, the number of successful applicants who will be granted the Maltese Passport is capped at 1,800, after which the programme will be stopped. For more info visit on https://www.emd.com.mt/iip-statistics-and-maltese-passport/