Social solidarity Minister Michael Falzon said today he is convinced that “internal scrutiny” will be carried out into a highly irregular €274 million Saint Vincent de Paul contract.The contract was given to a consortium formed by Ja...

Members of the European Parliament have adopted a resolution stating that all allegations of corruption and fraud in Malta, especially at a high political level, should be investigated and prosecuted with the appropriate rigour and at the appropriate...

With the way things are turning out and the strategy in place for Malta, summer is looking positive for small and medium sized businesses, CEO of the Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Abigail Mamo told The Malta Independent. Howeve...

UK authorities have asked for more paperwork to justify Malta’s request for extradition proceedings to start against Adrian Hillman, Times of Malta reports.The UK’s National Crime Agency is reviewing the application to have the former All...

Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister Carmelo Abela has said that the process over his alleged breach of ethics regarding adverts which appeared in local media has now been "exhausted."Writing on Facebook, Abela said that after the process...

The compilation of evidence against brothers Adrian and Robert Agius, known as Tal-Maksar, and their associates Jamie Vella and George Degiorgio continue this morning.The Aguis brothers are facing charges of involvement in two murders, including that...

More than half of Europe's population should have received the coronavirus vaccine in the next two months, allowing governments to consider easing lockdown rules for those who've been immunized, the head of German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said...

Malta Enterprise said it is supporting TechforCann EU with   €2.5 million to establish the first European tech accelerator for the medical cannabis industry, in Malta. The funding will support startups  setting up in Malta, who ar...

With Covid-19 still taking up much of the public’s attention, little space and thought were given to the latest migrant tragedy.In the past days, a boat carrying 130 persons capsized in the sea north of Libya, and it is believed that all the oc...

The National Audit Office has expressed doubt on whether a €274 million tender awarded to a consortium to manage four blocks at Saint Vincent de Paul secured value for money.The NAO also found that no political authorisation to enter into a nego...

The College of European Prosecutors has accepted the nomination of Dr Martin Sammut to act as Malta’s European Delegated Prosecutor, the government said.This role falls within the structures of the European Public Prosecutors Office (EPPO) esta...

With less than 24 hours to go before the deadline set by a hacker group that threatened to publish sensitive documents obtained by breaching the PN's IT systems, the Nationalist Party's Secretary General Francis Zammit Dimech said that "we have taken...

The government has in the past couple of years actively avoided Nexia BT, even when the audit company won tenders like any other company, on the basis that the company had become “toxic”, Brian Tonna claimed on Wednesday.Speaking at parli...

The health authorities are investigating a case of thrombosis by a person who has recently taken the Covid-19 vaccine.The health ministry said the person, 58, suffered a blood clot two weeks after taking the first dose of the vaccine. It did not spec...

Speaker Anglu Farrugia abstained his vote regarding the report published by the Standards Commissioner which suggested that Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister Carmelo Abela breached ethics, which means that the report will not be adopte...

15 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by health authorities on Wednesday, while no new deaths related to the virus were reported for the fourth consecutive day.41 people meanwhile have recovered, meaning that the number of active cases has now decre...

Former Economic Crimes Unit superintendent Ray Aquilina has reportedly been arrested in connection with an investigation into leaks of information about the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder.The Times of Malta reported that Aquilina was taken in for poli...

53% of Maltese respondents in the latest Eurobarometer survey said they are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.44% stated that they were not very satisfied or not satisfied at all.In th...

Two young children were grievously injured in a traffic accident in Mgarr on Wednesday morning.The accident took place at around 8am in Triq San Pawl, the police said.Preliminary investigations showed that a Toyota Funcargo driven by a 70-year-old wo...

Paris Saint-Germain lost its composure and the match as Manchester City rallied to win 2-1 away from home in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal on Wednesday.PSG led 1-0 through captain Marquinhos’ early header from a corner, but ...

A Maltese hunter was caught on video shooting a protected turtle dove.Footage of the incident was uploaded to Twitter by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS).It said the footage was taken by one of its teams in the field at Chadwick Lakes.The ...

A 44-year-old hunter has pleaded not guilty to a string of hunting charges, including shooting down a protected Honey Buzzard.The incident allegedly took place on Tuesday at Mizieb.Jimmy Muscat, 44, was released on bail.Police inspector Elliott Magro...

A modernist house in Balzan has been handed its death knell after the Planning Commission approved its demolition and replacement with a five-storey block of apartments.The building on Old Railway Street in the quiet village will make way for a maiso...

All licence fees of agencies falling under the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) will be cancelled for the rest of the year, Minister for Tourism and Consumer Protection Clayton Bartolo announced on Wednesday afternoon.This move, Bartolo continued, will ...

The Nationlist Party will be presenting a number of proposals to the electorate regarding new sectors for the economy which will aim to protect the environment and avoid making any profit from precarious work, Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said.&nb...

A newly-set up action group representing voluntary organisations is going ahead with plans to tell the Council of Europe about the new ‘draconian’ fund raising rules.Robert Aquilina, from the Voluntarjat Action Group, described the new ru...

Total cruise passenger traffic during the first quarter of 2021 amounted to 7,966 passengers, a decrease of 80.2% over the corresponding period in 2020, the National Statistics Office said.During the first quarter of 2021, there were 9 cruise liner c...

People who are fully vaccinated and meet each other do not need to wear masks, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has said.This comes a few hours after the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention also suggested that ...

The Federation for Hunting and Conservation Malta (FKNK) has suspended the membership of a hunter who was arrested by police for allegedly shooting down a protected bird on Tuesday.In a statement, the FKNK said that they had suspended the hunter&rsqu...

A man was seriously injured in a fire which developed in a private residence in Birkirkara early on Wednesday, the police said.The fire developed in a house in Papa Piju XII at around midnight.The 55-year-old man, who lives in Balzan, suffered seriou...

India crossed a grim milestone Wednesday of 200,000 people lost to the coronavirus as a devastating surge of new infections tears through dense cities and rural areas alike and overwhelms health care systems on the brink of collapse.The health minist...

Brussels prosecutor's office warned potential partygoers they should stay away from an unauthorized gathering planned this weekend in one of the city's biggest parks as police briefly detained one of the organizers on Tuesday.After an April Fools&rsq...

We had a heart-wrenching story a few days ago.Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola used her Facebook page to speak about a letter she received from a six-year-old boy, who described how some of his colleagues at school were going hungry because their pare...

The EU needs to have a Union-wide system of Information Communication Technologies security for its financial institutions such as banking, investment and insurance, Alfred Sant told the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliam...

Support schemes for rent and for electricity bills will be extended into the summer for businesses, while a number of new measures intended to stimulate economic activity as the pandemic wanes are also set to be implemented.Addressing the press confe...

45 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Tuesday as the number of active cases decreased to 400.67 new recoveries were registered, while for another day no new deaths were registered either.This means that the number of active cases now stands at 40...

A hunter was arrested by police on Tuesday after he was spotted shooting down a protected European Honey Buzzard (kuċċarda).Police said in a statement that they were informed of the incident at around 11am on Tuesday morning in Mizieb &ndas...

The Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) has republished, for public consultation, the Environment Impact Assessment regarding the outline application for the construction of a Waste to Energy Plant at Maghtab.The consultation period for the ori...

Prime Minister Robert Abela questioned whether the role of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life should be held by a former MP, saying that a debate on this point would be good to have.Abela was asked by The Malta Independent about an ongoing...

Vince Buhagiar was unable to explain to police payments he received from a Gibraltar company belonging to former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, a court heard today.Buhagiar, a former chairman of Progress Press and managing director of Allied News...

The global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in disruptions to travel around the globe, with new restrictions for various countries being implemented on a daily basis. This has been no different for those who wish to travel to Turkey during coronavirus,...

With a dominant start and a milestone goal by Christian Pulisic, Chelsea showed its strength against Real Madrid in the Champions League semifinals.Chelsea took control early in Tuesday’s first leg to hold the Spanish powerhouse to a 1-1 away d...

The roadwork which took place between February and March on Comino are illegal, the Commissioner for Environment and Planning within the Ombudsman’s office ruled on Tuesday.The works in question were conducted by a contractor engaged by the Min...

An Egyptian man has been charged with assisting a number of migrants to enter Malta illegally by speedboat.The 34-year-old man was arraigned in court on Tuesday before Magistrate Ian Farrugia.He was accused of being instrumental in helping a group of...

Culture Minister Jose Herrera has said that his remark wherein he claimed the artists’ IQ is not business oriented, a remark which has prompted widespread anger amongst the arts community, was “distorted” and has in turn been misund...

Further measures will be introduced in the coming days so that businesses are safeguarded, Minister for the Economy and Industry Silvio Schembri told Parliament on Tuesday.This comes after Prime Minister Robert Abela and Minister for Energy and Enter...

BirdLife Malta’s patrol numbers have dwindled this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, representatives of the NGO told The Malta Independent.Spring hunting season in Malta will last until 30 April, during which time the Common Quail is the only ...

Employees and employers are part of the solution for economic recovery, Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said on Tuesday.He was speaking during a meeting with the Malta Employers Association.Grech said it is important that employees and employers unde...

The Qala Local Council announced what they described as another win for the locality after another application to sanction ODZ development was turned down by the Planning Commission. The Local Council had objected to an application to sanction existi...

A legal framework needs to be set up for enterprises that focus on social issues, Minister for Energy and Enterprises Miriam Dalli said.She was speaking in Parliament on a Bill to regulate social enterprise organisations, to establish the Regula...

The prosecution in the compilation of evidence against Zenith directors Matthew Pace and Lorraine Falzon have been told off by the court for summoning witnesses who had already testified in a magisterial inquiry into the money laundering allegations ...

A bus operated by Malta Public Transport caught fire this morning, the company said.All passengers were disembarked safely, it added.“A bus operated by Malta Public Transport was involved in a fire incident in Burmarrad, while serving Rout...

Former PL MP Deborah Schembri will lead the Malta Developers Association after being appointed its Director General with immediate effect, the association said in a statement.Schembri, who rose to prominence as one of the people behind the pro-divorc...

In the first quarter of 2021, the number of licensed motor vehicles increased by 1,876 over the previous quarter, the NSO said.At the end of March 2021, the stock of licensed motor vehicles stood at 404,303. Out of this total, 76.5% were passenger ca...

A British comedian has admitted to buying an old Malta bus online without knowing that it needed to be shipped.The Mirror reports that stand-up comedian Johnny Vegas bought the bus on e-bay, only to realise that it had to be transported from Malta.&l...

The English Learning Industry is expecting more than 10,000 as it prepares to reopening on 1 June as per government's announcement of the opening of the tourism season on the same day.Throughout the pandemic, ELT schools, members of the Federation of...

The United Kingdom has been placed on the amber list, the government has announced.Travellers arriving in Malta from any of the countries listed in the amber list are required to present a negative PCR Covid-19 test performed no more&n...

American tourists could soon be visiting continental Europe again, more than a year after the European Union restricted travel to the 27-nation bloc to a bare minimum to contain the coronavirus.EU officials said Monday they are completing plans to al...

Malta needs to look into the mirror and truly analyse itself.How have we arrived where we are at now? What mistakes were made over the past years and what needs to be done?We need to take a long and hard look at ourselves. From the sale of citizenshi...

The European Union's executive branch said Monday that it has launched legal action against coronavirus vaccine-maker AstraZeneca for failing to respect the terms of its contract with the 27-nation bloc.The AstraZeneca vaccine has been central to Eur...

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed as “total rubbish” a press report which quoted him as allegedly saying he would rather see “bodies pile high in their thousands” than impose a third national lockdown on the count...

ALS activist and sufferer Bjorn Formosa has launched a fundraising telethon as a final push for a bigger Dar Bjorn. “Can you believe that we are on verge of opening the second home for neurological patients in six years?”, a statemen...

Customers returned to the streets of Sliema as non-essential shops reopened on Monday after a six-week or so period of closure.The shops were, along with a raft of other outlets, closed in March as the government responded to a renewed spike in Covid...

41% of people receiving treatment for drug use are under the age of 35, a study has found.The report titled 'Substance use in adolescence and emerging adulthood', was compiled by the Faculty of Social Wellbeing and was commissioned and funded by the ...

A Maltese man who is critically ill with Covid-19 is set to be evacuated from India, where he was staying as part of a process to adopt a baby girl, via air ambulance on Tuesday.Times of Malta quoted government sources in saying that the 47-year-old ...

Two of the men accused of killing Daphne Caruana Galizia have sent another letter to President George Vella, making a second request for a pardon.George and Alfred Degiorgio are accused of being the hitmen who killed the journalist in October 2017. V...

15 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by health authorities on Monday, as the country reached another vaccination milestone.58 people have recovered from the virus while no new deaths were registered as a result of the virus, meaning that the number...

Visiting times at elderly homes have been increased as measures continue to be relaxed, the Ministry for Senior Citizens and Active Ageing announced on Monday. Consultation between the Social Care Standard Authority and the Public Health Departm...

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is being investigated by UEFA for his "alleged financial interest in a betting company," European football's governing body said on Monday.Swedish daily Aftonbladet reported this month that the 39-year-old AC Milan striker was a pa...

Since 2013, a total of 729 reports of theft from educational institutions, amounting to €106,376 worth of items, were reported, information tabled by Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri shows.He was responding to a Parliamentary Question posed...

The final inauguration of the Marsa junction cost €45,480, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg said on Facebook on Monday.He said that he had been asked by PN MP Karol Aquilina “rightly so” to give a rundown of the spendin...

A 40-year-old Polish San Gwann resident was grievously injured in a traffic accident in Swieqi at 2.30pm, the police said.The incident occurred on Triq Sant' Andrija. The 40-year-old was riding a Benelli motorbike, and was involved in a crash with a ...

Joaquín Correa scored twice as Lazio beat AC Milan 3-0 in Serie A on Monday to boost its chances of qualifying for the Champions League.Correa scored his first after just 77 seconds and doubled his tally in the 51st minute. Ciro Immobile compl...

Constitutional law expert Kevin Aquilina has said that the law regarding the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life should be changed, arguing that it should not be a Parliamentary Committee that takes decisions on a breach of ethics report.Aquili...

By means of a decree of the Court on 13 April 2021 relating to Zenith Finance Limited ('Zenith Finance'), Hector J. Spiteri was appointed as administrator of Zenith Finance to take control of the business of Zenith Finance as well as to preserve all ...

The number of people in severe material deprivation decreased slightly, as the percentage of people in material deprivation increased, a report by the National Statistics Office (NSO) revealed.The European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (...

The Nationalist Party will, tomorrow (Tuesday), present a Private Member’s Bill regarding the Environment and Resources Authority, this newsroom is informed.The bill will state that ERA Board meetings should be open to the public, that the minu...

€10 million worth of compensation is set to be given to around 5,000 workers to address past injustices, Minister for Solidarity and Social Justice, Family and Children’s Rights Michael Falzon said on Monday morning.Eligible people will be...

A man was critically injured in a traffic accident in Marsa on Sunday evening, the police said.The man, aged 24 from Paola, was going into a car in Worker’s Street, a Ford Focus, when he was hit by a Toyota Aygo driven by a 30-year-old from Qor...

Rescue groups and the Vatican are decrying the latest deaths of migrants who put to sea in traffickers’ unseaworthy boats, amid laments that central Mediterranean nations are choosing not to dispatch vessels to save them.Aid group Alarm Phone s...

Two people were injured after a rider lost control of his motorcycle on Sunday evening, police said.Police said that there were informed of an accident at around 8pm on Sunday in Triq San Pawl tal-Pitkali in Dingli.Preliminary investigations showed t...

A Spanish man with COVID-19 symptoms who coughed on work colleagues and told them “I’m going to give you all the coronavirus” has been charged with intentionally causing injury after allegedly infecting 22 people.Spanish police said...

Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a wistful portrait of itinerant lives on open roads across the American West, won best picture Sunday at the 93rd Academy Awards, where the China-born Zhao became the first woman of color t...

In these trying times, social distancing is the name of the game and fortunately this fits very well with birdwatching, which is best done alone or in very small groups of twos. This is so because birds are easily disturbed and scared away by people....

Italy’s gradual reopening on Monday after six months of rotating virus lockdowns is satisfying no one: Too cautious for some, too hasty for others.Allowing outdoor dining comes too little, too late for Italy's restaurant owners, whose survival ...

A technical issue that affected fundraising events recently came to light and caused a lot of concern for NGOs and organisations affected.Earlier this month, service provider Go admitted that a technical issue led to the double registration of pledge...

A number of Covid-19 restrictive measures will be lifted on Monday, including the opening of non-essential shops.Non-essential services will be able to resume, he said, while adding that the number of people who will be able to be out in public in gr...

Prime Minister Robert Abela has defended Malta's new Residence and Visa Programme (which replaced the IIP scheme), stating that "We have a programme that ticks all the necessary boxes."The Prime Minister was asked about recent revelations regarding t...

Pope Francis on Sunday decried as shameful the deaths of 130 migrants in the Mediterranean, saying they pleaded for two days for help for their overcrowded, foundering rubber dinghy in the sea off Libya but potential rescuers choose “to look th...

25 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Sunday and one more person has died.The latest victim was a 67-year-old man who died at Mater Dei Hospital while positive for the virus. The total number of deaths has risen to 413.The number of active cases ...

Receipts for Pastizzi from Rabat's famous Crystal Palace Bar and for a Red Bull from a nightclub in Paceville were amongst the so-called "genuine links" presented by IIP candidates in order to prove the ties they had developed to Malta as they sought...

Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Communities Alex Muscat has claimed that the Passport Papers investigation is an attack on Malta.The Passport Papers is a collaborative investigation by a number of local and international newsrooms, of whi...

Alex Muscat, now Parliamentary Secretary for citizenship, was named by Henley & Partners as their “contact person” at the Office of the Prime Minister. He was asked to discuss what resources were necessary to ensure a “positive ...

The PN will not negotiate with hackers, Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said on Sunday.The PN was recently hacked, with hackers threatening to publish sensitive information if the PN does not cooperate with them. Grech responded that the PN remains a...

A loss at home to promoted Benevento. A draw with city rival Torino. Another defeat at Atalanta.And now a 1-1 draw at relegation-threatened Fiorentina.There’s been nothing “super” over the last six rounds from nine-time defending Se...

Part one of Manchester City's treble chase has been ticked off.Aymeric Laporte headed in Kevin De Bruyne's free kick in the 82nd minute to give City a 1-0 victory over Tottenham on Sunday that clinched the League Cup for a fourth successive season.Ci...

A 19-year-old resident from Żabbar was arrested after attacking police during a beach inspection in connection with violations of Covid-19 regulations, police said.Yesterday, at around 6.30pm, Police from the Environmental Protection Unit (EPU) ...

Manchester United could be coming to Malta, Net TV's Replay has reported.The team is expected to come for a training camp in Malta, and are expected to play at least one local team, Replay said on Facebook. Manchester United were last in Malta back i...

From Pilatus Bank to Nexia BT venture BT International, Henley & Partners sought to set up introduction agreements across Malta in the hopes of raking in as many clients as possible, documents and correspondence seen by the Malta Independent on S...

Malta has seen a drastic drop in Covid-19 case numbers as of recent weeks. Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne believes that this is both down to the vaccination drive and the restrictive measures that were put in place. He also no...