Новости за 06.06.2016

Champions Valletta have high hopes of finalising a deal in the coming days to re-sign Steve Borg. As reported by the Times of Malta last Friday, the Citizens have stepped up their efforts to lure Borg back to their fold after the Malta defender had signalled his readiness to return to the BOV Premier League following the end of his one-year stint with Cypriot club Aris Limassol. Paul Zammit, the Valletta coach whose admiration for Borg stretches back to the years when the latter was progressing through the youth ranks of Mosta... Читать дальше...

Goals from Emil Forsberg, Mikael Lustig and John Guidetti helped Sweden thump fellow Euro 2016 finalists Wales 3-0 yesterday in their final friendly before the tournament. Captained by Zlatan Ibrahimovic at the Friends Arena in Stockholm, Sweden named a strong side, while Wales coach Chris Coleman chose to keep attacking talisman Gareth Bale on the bench until the second half. Ibrahimovic combined with winger Forsberg to cause no end of problems for the Wales defence in the first half and the latter... Читать дальше...

The introduction of a maternity leave fund in July 2015 was a good policy aimed at ending gender discrimination in the workforce. Employers pay 0.3 per cent of the basic pay for every employee to build up a fund from which the 14-week maternity leave will be paid. Making it easier for female workers to find the right balance between family and work commitments is a good strategy. Spreading the cost of family-friendly measures is the right tactic. However, getting tangled in a bureaucratic maze that... Читать дальше...

Emergency crews in Polling, Germany, are working frantically to keep flood waters from spreading further, after heavy rainfall flooded parts of the town prompting officials to declare a state of emergency.  Large parts of this small town, about 34 miles, or 55 kilometers, southwest of Munich, now lie under water . "If we are not able to relieve the pressure from the rivers soon, then the entire center of the town is going to be flooded," an administrative official said. Floods have killed at least six people in southern Germany in recent days. Читать дальше...

The Constitutional Court, in two cases filed by the General Workers’ Union, recently decided that provisions in the Employment and Industrial Relations Act, 2002, relating to the Industrial Tribunal, breach the right to a fair hearing. To address these judgments, the government proposed some changes to the law. The tribunal was established by the Industrial Relations Act, 1976 replacing the Malta Arbitration Tribunal, which previously served the country for 27 years. The Industrial Tribunal was taken... Читать дальше...

Not everything seems to be sailing smoothly aboard the Labour Party. For a starter, scientific surveys are showing that its 36,000 vote majority has all but disappeared. Yet it might also be evident that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is facing an internal problem of diminishing authority in view of his staunch defence – or powerlessness – over Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. Traditionally, Labour’s structure has been hierarchical and rather lacking in pluralism. Everyone is expected to toethe party... Читать дальше...

Joachim Loew was pleased to see Germany keep a rare clean sheet after his side concluded their preparations for the European Championship with a 2-0 victory over Hungary in Gelsenkirchen. A first-half own goal from Adam Lang and an effort from Thomas Mueller just after the hour mark saw a dominant Germany side cruise to what in the end was a comfortable win at Schalke’s Veltins-Arena home on Saturday. It was only a second clean sheet in 11 matches for Germany, with the other coming against minnows Gibraltar last summer... Читать дальше...

There was once a time when a pole was very often used to hold a flag. Nowadays it is being used for dancing as well. There was a time when vegetables and fruits were always good for you. Nowadays we are not so sure because of pesticides, genetic modifications and the plastic look these things have. There was a time when air-conditioning was a luxury, when holidays by plane were rare and far between, when swimming pools were for the rich. We didn’t worry in those days about global warming or environmental catastrophe. Читать дальше...

Eight times champions Brazil were held 0-0 by Ecuador in the glamour game as the second day of the centenary Copa America tournament mustered up only one, albeit spectacular, goal from three matches on Saturday. Paolo Guerrero’s diving header helped put Peru in the driving seat in Group B with a 1-0 win over Haiti in Seattle after Costa Rica and Paraguay had also played out a goalless draw in Group A in Orlando. Neither Brazil nor Ecuador were able to dominate the match in Pasadena and it was the... Читать дальше...

FIFA president Gianni Infantino accused the man who masterminded reforms of football’s global body of “playground” behaviour and told Swiss newspapers that his salary, still to be confirmed, would be less than 2 million Swiss francs ($2.05 million). Infantino, elected three months ago to haul FIFA out of the worst graft scandal in its history, said his “enemies” wanted to make him look greedy after a newspaper leak said he had been angered by a suggested package. FIFA has been embroiled in crisis... Читать дальше...

American investors Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan have completed their takeover of Swansea City, subject to Premier League approval. A statement on the Swansea website said the investment consortium led by the two businessmen had acquired a “controlling majority” of the shares. Several existing shareholders would have a smaller stake and chairman Huw Jenkins, who remains in charge of the day-to-day running of the club in an executive role, will “maintain an ownership stake”. Swansea said the takeover... Читать дальше...

The Venice Architecture Biennale is usually a showcase of prestigious architecture projects from around the world, but Germany’s entry this year has taken a different angle, focusing instead on simple shelters used to house asylum seekers. The structures, designed and developed to deal with the influx of migrants into Europe from Africa and the Middle East, provide a direct contrast to Germany’s 2014 submission – a scale replica of the former German Chancellor’s residence. The curators said they... Читать дальше...

Messi: Lionel Messi looks likely to miss Argentina’s most important match of the opening phase of the Copa America against title holders Chile at Santa Clara, California tonight. Messi has not trained with his team since he suffered a back injury in a warm-up friendly 10 days ago, a 1-0 win over Honduras in Argentina. Bernardeschi: Italy youngster Federico Bernardeschi wants to use today’s friendly against Finland to stake his claim for a place in the starting line-up at Euro 2016. “I’m the youngest in the group,” Bernardeschi... Читать дальше...

Two international races topped the bill during yesterday’s 29th meeting of the season at the Marsa Racetrack. The 12 trotters in each race were under the charge of female drivers coming from 11 European countries. Malta was represented by Lorraine Cunningham while the other drivers hailed from Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Holland, Sweden and Hungary. This championship was organised by the Malta Racing Club with the assistance of SportMalta. In the second and most important ladies’ event... Читать дальше...

With just one week to go for the inaugural European Championships for Small States at the Marsa athletics track, a team of four athletes, accompanied by coach Ivan Roshnov, are in Tunis taking part in the second edition of the Under-23 Games, organised by the Mediterranean Athletics Union. This competition pits athletics giants France, Italy and Spain with other renowned achievers Morocco, Egypt and hosts Tunisia, among the 27 participating countries on the Mediterranean littoral that also includes Kosovo. Читать дальше...

Ask any student of history what the French are most famous for and you are likely to be told that they are good at starting revolutions. I remember quite distinctly the 1968 French student revolution that blew a breath of fresh air into European society. More recently, French farmers took to the streets of Paris and even Brussels whenever they perceived that the EU was trying to curb their very substantial agricultural subsidies. But the most recent revolution is that of French students who cannot... Читать дальше...