A United Nations report has connected Malta with an operation to supply Libya rebel commander Khalifa Hifter with military equipment in 2019.The report, obtained by The Associated Press, details “Project Opus” – an operation run in ...

Plans to expand the law courts by creating four new court halls and 25 offices in a separate building in Strait Street are still at the pre-Planning Authority stage, Frank Mercieca, the Court Services Agency CEO, told The Malta IndependentBack in Nov...

The government has filed a planning application to construct a 506-vehicle car park and a bicycle track in Ta' Qali, on a site which currently houses six historic structures.The site was previously part of Ta’ Qali Airfield, but once this was d...

With almost a year having passed since the first case of Covid-19 landed in Malta and with the vaccination programme in full swing, many – not least those in the business community – have turned their eyes to the recovery from the pandemi...

The British government declared Sunday that every adult in the country should get a first coronavirus vaccine shot by July 31, at least a month earlier than its previous target, as it prepared to set out a “cautious” plan to ease the U.K....

Forget about oil and arms. Coronavirus vaccines are emerging as the newest currency of choice in the Middle East.Israel’s reopening of its economy, combined with a murky prisoner swap with Syria and the arrival of a batch of vaccines in the Gaz...

The post of Nationalist Party Secretary General could remain uncontested when it goes up for grabs in a few weeks’ time, as no one has so far shown any interest in the role, The Malta Independent on Sunday has learnt. PN sources said that an in...

The American University of Malta (AUM) has been slapped with a garnishee order worth €1.1 million over a case filed against them by their former lawyer Louai Aziz Michael Al Twal, The Malta Independent on Sunday can reveal.The application for th...

130 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Sunday as one more person passed away while positive for the virus.The death of a 72-year-old man at Mater Dei Hospital takes the total number of deaths so far up to 304.134 people meanwhile have recovered, ...

The Cabinet and Labour Parliamentary Group will meet on Monday to discuss a reform plan which will be centered on pre-1995 rents, Prime Minister Robert Abela announced on Sunday.Speaking at a political activity at Villa Bighi, Abela said that the ref...

Former Times of Malta journalist Ivan Camilleri has denied being paid by alleged Daphne Caruana Galizia murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech to run a story for a Castille high-up in January 2019.Camilleri was reacting through his lawyer Peter Fenech to a ...

My heart raced as the front door opened and an agitated woman rushed up to me, asking me to remove her drugged-up sister from her house.I saw the suspect sitting at the table in the dining room, slouching and visibly out of it. Dinnerware was spread ...

The headline is a combination of two statements made in the past few days by politicians on different sides of the political spectrum.In one of his bi-weekly blogs on The Malta Independent, which he entitled “Too many MPs”, former Prime M...

Substitute Seydou Doumbia scored a late winner for the league leaders Hamrun Spartans who had to struggle hard to  grab the fifth successive win and again move two points clear over Hibernians.For Balzan it was yet another disappointment, a disa...

Exactly three months ago, Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham was outwitting Manchester City to go top of the Premier League and leave Pep Guardiola doubting the direction he was taking his slumping midtable team.On Sunday, Mourinho was downplaying talk ...

Romelu Lukaku had the last laugh — and goal — as his Inter Milan side beat Zlatan Ibrahimović's AC Milan 3-0 on Sunday in their biggest derby match in a decade.The game took place almost a month after a heated spat between the two st...

With wreath-laying ceremonies, tree plantings and church services, Italians on Sunday marked one year since their country experienced its first known COVID-19 death.Towns in Italy's north were the first to be hard-hit by the pandemic and put under lo...

Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said on Sunday that the Nationalist Party is looking forward to getting out of this pandemic as soon as possible in order to face a general election. “Let us give people a chance to choose a better future,&r...

A brave Maltese woman who was born with a heart condition and is now living her life as a bilateral cochlear implant (CI) user has opened up to raise awareness about the challenges and experiences that came along with it. Around 23 years ago, Luisa F...

A woman was charged today in the Gozo courts, accused before Magistrate Monica Vella that she was an accomplice in a theft in Xaghra, Gozo.The police said the woman, aged 35 of Qala, was also accused of receiving stolen goods and attempting to sell t...

The Covid-19 r-factor has remained unchanged from last week and still stands at 0.9, statistician Vince Marmara said on this week’s video blog for The Malta Independent on Sunday. The reproduction number of the virus is one of the key figures w...

The motorcade of the interior minister of Libya’s U.N.-backed government came under attack on Sunday in the capital, Tripoli, officials said.Armed men opened fire at Fathi Bashagha’s motorcade on a highway in Tripoli, wounding at least on...

A member of Cabinet is facing very serious accusations and is the subject of an investigation by the Standards Commissioner, but the Prime Minister refuses to take any action and the Parliamentary Secretary in question has not thought it fit to suspe...

55 immigrants were found in Birzebbuga early on Sunday morning after seemingly arriving from Libya onboard a dinghy, police said in a statement.The police said that at around 5:30am on Sunday, they were informed that a group of immigrants was enterin...

Inland Revenue Commissioner Marvin Gaerty is no longer on police bail.Gaerty was put on police bail last December following his interrogation over chats with Yorgen Fenech, charged with masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.Gaerty’...

The enchanting island of Gozo provides us with many fascinating legends, passed down from one generation to another, and which are said to have happened there in the course of its thousands of years of fascinating history: from the story of Sansuna, ...

Maybe, just maybe, the thinking went, Novak Djokovic would be just a tad more susceptible to trouble this time around at the Australian Open.After all, he tore an abdominal muscle in the third round and wasn't sure he could continue to compete. Enter...

Carmel Busuttil was born on 29 February 1964, son of Michael Angelo and Marianne née Vella. He is married to Julia and have two children, Gary 31 and Kelly 29. Gary is an architect and Kelly a PE teacher. Both siblings have followed their pare...

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Debris from a United Airlines plane fell onto Denver suburbs during an emergency landing Saturday after one of its engines suffered a catastrophic failure and rained pieces of the engine casing on a neighborhood where it narrowly missed a home.The pl...

You’re fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — now what? Don’t expect to shed your mask and get back to normal activities right away.That’s going to be a disappointment, if not a shock, to many people.In Miami, 81-year-old ...

Three hackers from a North Korean cyber intelligence agency have been charged in the US with masterminding a €13million heist on Bank of Valletta.  The US Justice Department charged the computer programmers with participating in a wide...

New Covid-19 cases reached 199 on Saturday, with two more deaths reported, health authorities said.The number of patients who recovered was 106, which means that the number of active cases has again surpassed 2,500 - precisely, 2,526.In all, the numb...

Nurses were told that they would be given 80 doses a day per clinic to inoculate the population, they are only being given “5 or 6”, Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) president Paul Pace told The Malta Independent. "The vaccinatio...

Floriana: Vilhena Pharmacy, 3, St Anne Street; Ħamrun: Chemimart International Pharmacy, 650, St Joseph High Road; Santa Venera: Fatima Pharmacy, 82, Ferrovija Street; Birkirkara: Mackie's Pharmacy, L. Casolani Street; Msida: Remedies Pharmacy, ...

Authorities in central Europe warned on Friday that they are seeing a surge in coronavirus cases across their region amid the discovery of new variants.The Polish health minister, Adam Niedzielski, said the first case of a variant first found in Sout...

The number of construction site inspectors will soon be doubled to 20, Environment and Planning Minister Aaron Farrugia said on Saturday. Farrugia was addressing a press conference about changes that are being introduced as part of a reform in the co...

Sliema Wanderers and Birkirkara took a point each from an entertaining match which had a tense finale with the Stripes playing the last twelve minutes with a man less.All in all in was a fair result with both teams near to stealing victory in added t...

A driver and a passenger were injured after a car crashed into five parked vehicles, the police said.The accident took place in St Paul’s Street, Cospicua, on Friday at 11.30pm.The driver, a man aged 40 from Paola, lost control of the Toyota Co...

A first win at Anfield since 1999 for Everton. The worst form for Liverpool at home in the league since 1923 after a fourth straight loss.The English title that took 30 years to win again is being surrendered far too easily by Liverpool.Richarlison s...

Two French men have been handed suspended sentences after presenting the authorities with a false COVID-19 test result in a bid to leave Malta, while a third man, from Libya, has been conditionally discharged after helping the police find the person ...

Luis Alberto scored the only goal as Lazio moved fourth in the Italian league with a 1-0 win over Sampdoria on Saturday.The midfielder struck in the 24th minute, assisted by Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, at Rome’s Olympic Stadium.Lazio has 43 points...

No one is useless, and no one should ever be eliminated, the bishops say in their Pastoral Letter for Lent.Every human life is precious and is created in God’s image. It is this protection of human life, from the first moments of conception, th...

The sharing of a set of explicit videos of a Maltese woman through social media channels which came to light last week was one of the more significant stories from a social perspective to emerge as of late.The situation concerns a young Maltese woman...

Italian police investigating fake COVID-19 drugs and vaccines have interviewed a Veneto regional official who reported receiving offers to buy 27 million doses of Pfizer shots outside the European Union procurement system.Even though the EU anti-frau...

Former Inter and Italy defender Mauro Bellugi died today, Italian media report. He was 71.Bellugi had both his legs amputated late last year after testing positive to Covid-19.In interviews he had given later, Bellugi said the doctors had given him o...

The third season of the award-winning German TV series Das Boot, produced by Bavaria Fiction for Sky Studios, is currently shooting in Malta, filmneweurope.com reports.This is the third year the production has chosen the island as its backdrop. ...

The EU needs to decisively change its approach to reverse the growing trend of poverty and an economy based on low-grade jobs that is weakening the quality of life of its citizens, Labour MEP Alfred Sant told the European Parliament. In a statement a...

Twenty-year-old Louis Rees-Zammit is making a name for himself in the rugby world.He has gone from starting his rugby apprenticeship to graduating on the Six Nations stage by scoring a stunning match-winning try for Wales against Scotland at Mur...

The European Union's executive commission on Friday pledged to double its contribution to the World Health Organization’s COVAX program, bringing the 27-nation bloc’s commitment to the initiative to deliver vaccines to poor nations to 1 b...

The trouble for Naomi Osaka at Grand Slam tournaments comes in Week 1. Get beyond that stage at the hard-court majors, though, and start preparing to etch her name on the trophy.Osaka won her fourth title in her past eight appearances at a Slam, emer...

The world got its first close-up look at a Mars landing on Friday, as NASA released a stunning picture of its newest rover being lowered onto the dusty red surface.The photo was released less than 24 hours after the Perseverance rover successfully to...

“Kimye” is kaput.Kim Kardashian West filed for divorce from Kanye West Friday after 6 1/2 years of marriage, court records show. The move brings an impending end to one of the most followed celebrity unions of the 21st century &...

Over 1,300 workers are taking part in industrial action ordered by UHM - Voice of the Workers, the union said today.As from 8am Friday (19 February), allied health professionals, emergency ambulance responders and Steward Health Care employees are on...

The Nationalist Party's Administrative Council has confirmed that the party has no intention of launching any internal procedure against Simon Busuttil over his statements and actions during the Egrant saga, the PN said in a statement.The Egrant inqu...

154 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Friday as no new Covid-related deaths were reported.148 people meanwhile have recovered from the virus, meaning that there has been a slight increase in the number of active cases up to 2,435.3,282 swab test...

The UHM Voice of the Workers announced on Friday that it is suspending industrial action at the Attorney General’s Office following the intervention of Minister Edward Zammit Lewis in an attempt to break the deadlock in talks for a new collecti...

Mgr Ġwann Azzopardi has passed away the St. Paul’s Basilica in Rabat announced on Friday.Dun Ġwann, as he was affectionately known, was the curator of the Mdina Cathedral museum and the Wignacourt Museum in Rabat.He is well known for ...

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has concluded that Prime Minister Robert Abela was not in breach of ethics when he replied to questions from journalists without wearing a mask. This incident occurred on 23 October 2020, when the Prime M...

The Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Association (MEIA), representing more than 1,700 people working in the Arts and Entertainment, has called on the authorities to take action and immediately publish a Covid exit plan, to avoid further devastat...

Some women do choose to work in the sex industry, but it is important to stress that this is a very small minority of people – the vast majority are forced into prostitution, empower, a platform of women’s organisations, said.  In a ...

This week we surpassed 20,000 cases of Covid-19, and it does not look likely that the wave will subside anytime soon. With a population of 500,000, this is four per cent of the total, not a small figure.We will soon be saying that it has been one yea...

A car park for around 400 parking spaces is not being used and no due reason as to why is being given, residents in the area told The Malta Independent.This was confirmed by PN councillor for St Paul’s Bay and PN general election candidate on t...

Dragonara Gaming Ltd has issued a clarification over the recent news that its 10-year Casino concession is coming to an end.The Times of Malta reported that the Dragonara Casino could be replaced by a new operation after the government decided not to...

A sixth person has been arrested in connection with a romance fraud investigated by the police in the past weeks.Five persons had been arrested and charged in the first week of February.The suspects – four Nigerian men and a Maltese woman ...

One of this weekend's main events commemorating the anniversary of the start of Italy’s COVID-19 outbreak was canceled Thursday after a cluster of new infections traced to the British variant forced localized lockdowns in hardest-hit Lombardy a...

A man was seriously injured on Thursday after falling off a ladder, the police said Friday.The police said that the man was taken to hospital at noon, but it was informed about the accident at 5.30pm.The man, a Bulgarian aged 48 who resides in Gzira,...

A 24-year-old Gambian man was arrested “moments” after he robbed a woman in Pieta`, the police said.The case took place at around 10pm on Thursday, in Triq Telgħet Gwardamanġa.The victim, a 27-year-old Colombian woman, said a ma...

The Vatican is taking Pope Francis’ pro-vaccine stance very seriously: Any Vatican employee who refuses to get a coronavirus shot without a valid medical reason risks being fired.A Feb. 8 decree signed by the governor of the Vatican city-state ...

Mitigation measures against the Covid-19 pandemic for the month of March will be based on “caution”, Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Thursday while speaking to journalists.Asked about the government’s plans for mitigation measur...

Maltese businesses appear to be more sceptical about improve their profitability than their foreign counterparts, with only 38% of 105 CEOs saying that they expected an increase in profits in the next year, a report published by the Malta Chamber of ...

163 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Thursday as three new deaths took the total death count related to the virus over the 300 mark.Authorities said that in the last 24 hours, three men aged 82, 78, and 81 passed away at Mater Dei Hospital.&nbs...

Medically vulnerable Gozitans and Gozitan frontliners are being told to go to Malta in order to get vaccinated against Covid-19, PN MP Chris Said claimed on Thursday.Taking to Facebook to express his anger at the situation, Said said that a number of...

UĦM Voice of the Workers said that it is stepping up ongoing industrial action at the Attorney General's Office, "in the wake of government's inaction to ensure that professionals working in this institution enjoy good working conditions."Conseq...

Investigator in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder Keith Arnaud told a court that Yorgen Fenech had sent his uncle a whatsapp text on the eve of his arrest, which read that a Times of Malta employee had tipped him off on the newspaper's activity in th...

Small volcanic rocks rained down during Mt Etna's eruption, a Maltese man who lives in Sicily told The Malta IndependentSilvio Sultana, who lives 35 kilometers away from Etna, described the volcano's eruption."The eruption caused a lot of volcanic as...

Bruno Fernandes scored twice as Manchester United took a big step toward the last 16 of the Europa League with a 4-0 “away” win over Spanish team Real Sociedad in Italy on Thursday.The first leg was played in Turin, one of a number of gam...

A video making the rounds on social media urges people to stand up against overdevelopment, and in particular focuses on a planning application that would see 71 apartments built in Nadur.The application will see the development take place on fields,...

The government is planning to extend the wage supplement to private enterprise beyond March, Prime Minister Robert Abela said today.Answering a question by The Malta Independent, Abela said it would not make sense to stop the assistance now that &ldq...

 The Nationalist Party announced its energy strategy on Thursday morning, based on six pillars and aiming to seek the cheapest source while at the same time providing the best service.Addressing the media, PN leader Bernard Grech noted that on t...

The Labour Party has taken action against the person who used to run the bar at its Kirkop club over a breach of Covid-19 regulations, The Malta Independent has learnt.It is understood that the person in question organised a dinner at the club, despi...

It took 57 days for the third 100 deaths from Covid-19 to be registered, a full three weeks more than second group of 100 which was reached in 36 days.The health authorities today said that Malta recorded three more deaths from Covid-19, bringing the...

New plans submitted for the controversial Delimara Bay hotel project under a new planning application will see the hotel take up even more ODZ land, but lower the height of the hotel when compared to the plans approved in 2018.The application concern...

Our new prosperity can only be achieved if we operate as one ‘Team Malta’ to turn challenges into opportunities, Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Thursday.The Prime Minister was speaking at a business breakfast hosted by the National P...

There is a good chance that the Superdraw jackpot will be won in the EuroMillions draw on Friday, 19 February 2021. Amazingly, you could win the €202 million prize from the comfort of your home in Malta! And when you play EuroMillions, you&...

Health officials around the world are racing to vaccinate enough people to stop the spread of COVID-19, but what qualifies as “enough” is still an open question.The goal is to get to “herd immunity,” which is when enough peopl...

MIDI plc has published a new masterplan for Manoel Island, reducing the area of land planned for new development.Proposed development on the site has been a topic of controversy for a number of years.Last December, it was decided that the Manoel Isla...

Sharing media that was not intended for the public eye is a betrayal of trust, Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing Andrew Azzopardi said in a statement.Azzopardi noted, with great displeasure, the most recent spread of personal and intimate info...

Amid signs that more infectious coronavirus variants are spreading unchecked across Europe, governments and EU leaders scrambled Wednesday to speed up vaccine efforts that have been hampered by limited supplies and to fund ways to hunt down variants ...

A court in Belarus on Thursday sent two female journalists to prison for years on charges of violating public order after they covered a protest against the nation's authoritarian president.The court in the Belarusian capital of Minsk handed two-year...

NGOs said that the quality of life at Cottonera has been undermined further with the approval by the Planning Authority of plans for the Sally Port promenade.Infrastructure Malta’s Birgu Sally Port road application was approved by the Planning ...

There are currently 139 Reserve Police Constables active within the Police Force, the majority of whom are retired police officers, whilst seven are retired AFM members, a Home Affairs Ministry spokesperson told The Malta Independent.The government h...

Revolut, the global financial platform with more than 15 million customers worldwide, has today operationalised its European specialised banking licence in Malta. Customers in Malta who upgrade to Revolut Bank for additional services will now have th...

The Lands Authority will in the coming months move to put the consumer at the centre of its work, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri said on Thursday.“With the introduction of new methods from an operational point of view, this will help for bett...

Fire engines were called to assist as smoke was seen emanating from a restaurant in Sliema this morning.Police said that the call for assistance arrived at 7.45am.The restaurant is Fernando's in Tigne Street.Police said that Civil Protection Departme...

In a shocking act of retaliation Thursday, Facebook blocked Australians from sharing news, a milestone in the increasingly frantic jockeying between governments, media and powerful tech companies that one Australian minister called “an assault ...

Our country is being torn apart by authorities like Infrastructure Malta and only a handful of people are showing the courage to speak up and try to stop the senseless destruction of green and open spaces. Residents of Triq il-Fraxxnu were taken comp...

The Standards Commissioner has found that the Office of the Prime Minister breached ethics when it locked journalists inside a room after a press conference last year, according to reports.Lovin Malta and Times of Malta reported that Standards Czar G...

199 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Wednesday while one more patient died while positive for the virus.The patient who passed away was a 74-year-old man, who died at Mater Dei hospital.It means that 298 people have died while positive for the ...

A court has decreed that a copy of a declaration made to the police by a Times of Malta journalist is to be given to two lawyers accused of attempting to bribe him.Journalist Ivan Martin had been spoken to by the police in connection with a conversat...