My Best Friend, Journalist Marie Colvin an American working for Britain's The Sunday Times, was killed in Homs-Syria today.

Her intrepidness invited comparisons with the pioneering war reporter and fellow American Martha Gellhorn.

Born in Long Island, she was educated at Yale University and started her career as a police reporter for a news agency in New York before moving to Paris and then London.

She joined the Sunday Times in 1986 as a Middle East correspondent, covering the strife in Beirut, the intifada in Israel, the Iran-Iraq war, and Yemen, where she smuggled herself in from Djibouti by boat. By the time the first Gulf War came around in 1991 she was already battle-hardened.

She was decorated for her reporting from Chechnya, where she was pinned down by fire from Russian aircraft and troops. Finding her last relatively sensible line of retreat cut off by paratroopers, she escaped over an icy mountain path into Georgia, but after four perilous days' journey found herself stranded.

Marie had a knack for getting into places before her contemporaries and leaving long after they had given up, her goal, to report the whole story and in depth. She was a brave and courageous woman and will be sorely missed. My first meeting with Marie was in Vienna, Austria in 1995, when she did a piece on me for The Sunday times, we kept in contact over the years, anyone who met Marie was immediately taken by her strength of character and her ease of wit. The only battle scars that Marie showed were the physical ones and with her usual elan she made them into a positive rather than a negative. Marie's dedication to reporting made her the respected name is journalism that she is. I fear that with her loss the world of journalism has lost a lot more of it's integrity.

Marie's death came as a double blow to me, firstly the loss of such a wonderful person and journalist and secondly for her death to occur in Syria a country so beautiful but troubled, a country that I have fond memories of because it was there that I reunited with my family in 2004.

Marie you are immortal in our memories, R.I.P.  My condolences to your family and everyone who's life you touched, like me they too will never forget you. 

Marie Colvin and Latif Yahia 1995.

Malta the diamond in the Mediterranean.

Malta.

I have travelled a lot in my 40+ years on this planet, some, especially my Mother, would say too much but whether it was for business, pleasure or out of a desire to "FLEE" I think that I have managed to see just about every country there is. Thankfully in recent years the desire to Flee has subsided, and more and more my travel is more business than pleasure, so when I go somewhere on business and find myself having a wonderful time it's a bit of a shock.
A few weeks ago I went to Malta to do interviews and promote the movie The Devil's Double, I had been to Malta every other week during the filming but had been either on set or in the Hotel, filming days were long and when you are in that kind of situation the film crew and talent become like family, you don't really look too much outside. This time Malta for me was like finding a Diamond in the middle of the sea, I was no longer in the bubble of the film crew, I was in the hands of the Maltese themselves and they were wonderful. From the moment I "checked in" on my Air Malta flight I was treated with the utmost respect and care, not in a forced or fake way but in a truly heartfelt way, and that treatment continued for my whole week in Malta. Now, it may be easy to say, well you are famous etc, but believe me that can be just as much of a hindrance as a help, I am sure that Malta has seen it's fair share of Celebrities (Gladiator among other movies was shot there), it hosts many movies and many of the Maltese people work in the film industry, make up, hair, camera etc, not to mention that all the extras, the schoolgirls and Uday's mother Sajida in the movie are all Maltese actors.  What really struck me was the honest care for my well-being, everyone wanted to make sure that I was okay, I had everything I needed etc but not in a pandering way, in a concerned familial way. I was invited to peoples homes, friends that I had made while in Malta and through Facebook came to see me, and all the time I understood that really I wasn't getting any special treatment, this is how the Maltese are, they care, they care about you no matter what you have in your pocket, who you are, where you come from. I was truly touched by their openness and generosity of spirit. They are the kind of people that if they only had a loaf of bread and saw you hungry on the street would give you half and smile.

Press Conference Malta 2011.

I can't really say enough about them, they gave me a renewed sense of ease in this world, I had become cynical and was truly beginning to believe that the good hearts of this world had been taken over by greed, but thanks to the Maltese people I still hold hope.
I suppose I feel a kinship with the Maltese because of their language which is like a hybrid of Arabic, Italian and I'm not sure what else thrown in, but I can understand at least half of what they say, their alphabet on the other hand is something else. Being in the middle of the Mediterranean as they are they had to have been influenced  by the trade that passed, also they were conquered more than once which accounts for the fact they the are also fluent in English, but up until recent years were made to learn Arabic at school. The Maltese Prime minister was the first in Europe if not the world to support the opposition in Libya and condemn Ghadaffi's regime, even before NATO or the UN, even though Malta sits only a few hundred miles off the coast of Libya and in easy range of missiles if Ghadaffi should decided to send them a few.

XARABANK Maltese TV.

 The country is truly beautiful, in the past the Maltese used to live in the center of the country to protect themselves so cities like M'dina were built, it is a walled city with narrow walled streets, there are only doors, those doors lead to courtyards and then houses. Valetta is also very beautiful, actually all of Malta is, if you get a chance really you should visit. A surprise for me was a small little cove on the coast away from the main towns and cities, it was where the film Popeye was shot, it is the little town that they built as a set, it still stands and is a small tourist attraction, very colourful and unexpected.
I would like to thank everyone at Xarabank, Air Malta and the Radisson Blu Hotel for taking such good care of me, I had a wonderful time, made good friends, spent some time with good friends I already had and felt for once in a long time that I belonged.
Thank you Malta.

A very special thanks to the following:
Xarabank Production Team:

Presenter: Peppi Azzopardi
Production Manager: Norman Vella
Producers: Fabian Demicoli, Rebekah Grima, Catherine Aquilina, Claire Preca Taroum, Joe Julian Farrugia, Deborah Azzopardi, Melanie Casha Sammut and PJ Mintoff Vassallo
Video Editors: Olwyn Jo Saliba, Aaron Attard and Mandy Micallef Grimaud
Production Secretary: Katia Desira
+ Director Mark Vassallo and all the camera people and crew of Where's Everybody

TVM News:

Journalist: Keith Demicoli
Head of News: Dr. Natalino Fenech
CEO: Anton Attard
Chairman: Joe Mizzi

Air Malta

Radisson Blu Resort, St. Julian's

KRS Film Distributers
Maltese Police Force

Here is my interview on "Xarabank"

And the threats continued once Ali Taleb and his family were in Sweden. They received threatening telephone calls from Iraqi numbers and on one occasion Ali Taleb was attacked and stabbed in the street.

 

Journalist to be deported despite death threats.

The Swedish Migration Board has decided to deport a well-known Iraqi journalist and documentary maker back to Iraq. This is despite Ali Taleb having received death threats following his film about the notorious Iraqi paramilitary force, the Mahdi Army.

Ali Taleb

The decision to deport Ali Taleb from Sweden has been strongly criticised by Reporters without Borders. Urban Löfqvist is the head of the Swedish section:
“Our assessment is that Ali entirely fulfils the criteria for asylum, partly because he has been threatened in his home country of Iraq and partly because he has had threats made against him in Sweden. The migration board has been bloody-minded in its interpretation of many of the facts in this case.”
Freelance journalist Ali Taleb fled with his family to Sweden three years ago and sought asylum. In Iraq he had received numerous death threats and his wife had been injured in a bomb attack. The reason was Taleb’s film about the Shia Mahdi militia, which in the past have fought against the US presence in Iraq and are also accused of murder and abuse against Iraqi civilians. After the film was aired on television, several of those who appeared in it were arrested. It was then that family members of those arrested started to threaten Taleb and his family.
“I received several threats, first via phone and then in the post. At first, I thought the purpose was just to scare me, but then I realised that they were out to kill me and my family,” says Taleb.

Swedish Migration Board

Despite this, the Swedish Migration Board judged Ali Taleb’s grounds for asylum to be insufficient and his application was turned down.
“When I received the decision of deportation I was shocked,” says Taleb. "I sought protection in Sweden as a journalist. I would have been better treated in many other countries. How can they treat me like this in Sweden?”
Cecilia Gylling Lindqvist at the Migration Board’s legal unit refuses to comment on any individual cases, but says that the situation in Iraq has improved, even for journalists.
“The security situation in Iraq has improved considerably of late and there are numerous newspapers and TV stations that are blossoming.”
Urban Löfqvist of Reporters without Borders does not agree:
“It is extremely difficult for journalists in Iraq. What we have seen, as an organisation, is that the number of attacks against journalists in the country is once again on the rise.”
Ali Taleb is currently in a migration detention centre outside of Stockholm awaiting deportation back to Iraq. Reporters without Borders believes Taleb’s life will be at risk if he is sent back. Ali Taleb himself says he shall continue the fight for him and his family to remain in Sweden.
“Let them bear the responsibility it they deport me. I intend to fight against it,” he told Swedish Radio International.
Here is the link for the full article, you can listen to the article as it was on radio, pay particular attention to the Swedish authority figure saying that Iraq is considerably safer and TV and newspapers are flourishing, yes the ones owned by the Shia clerks and Militias. Ali Taleb will be murdered if he is sent back to Iraq, do anything that you can, post this article on your Facebook, tweet, text, anything! we need to use our power to stop this kind of madness. I urge all of my friends in Sweden to show their support for  Ali Taleb, because today it is Ali, tomorrow it may be you!

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=4734594

 This is my answer to the authorities in Sweden and Western governments.
Ali Taleb is my friend, when he called me, as a humnan rights campaigner I called everyone that I could think of to help. I said to Ali, "Be strong, this is the face of the western governments, they don't really care about people or Human rights, just about money, power and contracts."
The Swedish government or any other Euorpean state welcomes the murderers, militia men and thieves because they bring with them the millions that they have stolen, an example of that is the Iraqis who moved from Malmo to Stockholm, in Iraq they were not the victims but the agressors, Mahdi militia and Badr brigade that is funded by Iran. Ali knows me very well, for the past twenty years I have tried to find a country to call home, but what I have found is that most of the European countries do not like people who are educated or with opinions, they like the criminals and thieves because they know that these people can be bought, bought by the country's social welfare payments and housing. The puppets in Iraq who have signed this "return" document have forgotten when they themselves were "refugees', now because of  the contracts and the money they are all blinded and have forgotten the humanity they once called for for themselves.