Новости за 02.01.2021

On Sunday, Senglea will be commemorating the first centenary of the granting of the basilical title to its collegiate church The year 1921 was a most remarkable and special year for the people of Senglea because of two major events that have grafted an indelible mark on the glorious annals of the ‘Unconquered City’. It was a year which saw the realisation of a long-awaited dream of the people of Senglea who had long yearned for the solemn crowning, through a decree of the Vatican, of their beloved Bambina... Читать дальше...

Gżira United have agreed terms with highly-rated forward Bahrudin Atajic. The Bosnian forward had been training with the Maroons for the last few days and has left a positive impression on Gżira coach Darren Abdilla who has decided to offer him a contract. The 27-year-old Atajic, who was born and raised in Sweden, has an eye-catching CV to his name. Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the sports website by Times of Malta

The police have managed to solve all murders committed in 2020, in a year where for the first time a father was charged with killing his son.  It is the second successive year where the police recorded a 100 per cent success rate, and the first time this has occurred since 2004, according to crime historian Eddie Attard. Six cases were solved last year and three in 2019 – in other words, the police mounted prosecutions in all the murders that took place, although they are all still pending a court judgment. Читать дальше...

The European Union is ready to help drug companies expand coronavirus vaccine production to clear a "bottleneck" in distribution, its top health official said Saturday. Health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told German news agency DPA that any delay in getting approved vaccines out was down to production capacity shortage, not EU planning. "The bottleneck at the moment is not the volume of orders but the worldwide shortage of production capacity," she said, in comments distributed by her office.... Читать дальше...

The pressure put on Maltese women to start a family is among the main themes in a new feature film which has just been released for worldwide streaming. In Corpore is Sarah Jayne Portelli’s second feature film. It looks at the relationship and identity of four separate couples across four countries – Malta, Germany, Australia and the US. It delves into love, lust, commitment, traditional expectations and all the in-betweens of relationships. The film has received a number of positive international... Читать дальше...

Updated 5.30pm with port request A boat with 97 migrants on board was rescued by a private vessel in Malta's search and rescue zone on Saturday after Maltese authorities ignored a request for assistance, according to the NGO Alarm Phone. The Open Arms rescue vessel is now requesting to disembark the migrants, among them 17 minors and two women, in Malta, a spokesperson told Times of Malta. Alarm Phone said it had received a distress call at 3am on Saturday from a boat which fled from Libya and was in Malta’s search zone. Читать дальше...

Hundreds of revellers were booked for breaking coronavirus restrictions as an illegal rave in northwestern France ended on Saturday after more than two days of partying that saw clashes with police. Police had failed to stop the underground event, which drew around 2,500 people from Thursday night in two disused warehouses in Lieuron, south of the city of Rennes in Brittany. Such mass gatherings are banned across France to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and a nationwide 8:00 pm curfew -- which was... Читать дальше...

A new sport is set to roll across the island in the new year. Malta’s first roller derby league is gearing up to make its debut in the coming days. Traditionally consisting of all-female teams, the sport is sometimes described as rugby on roller skates. The derby is played on an oblong rink in which two teams attempt to score points by skating counter-clockwise and out-lapping each other. A team consists of a ‘jammer’ and four ‘blockers’. It is the jammer’s job to race around the rink while blockers... Читать дальше...

A 71-year old man died in hospital on Saturday after an accident on a construction site in Iklin last month.  The man, who lived in Mosta, was injured in a fall while working on an apartment block in Triq il-Wied, Iklin, on December 1. He was taken to Mater Dei Hospital, where police said he succumbed to his injuries on Saturday.

Israel has vaccinated more than one million people against COVID-19 in just over 10 days, in what experts believe is the world’s fastest ever vaccine drive. More than one million Israelis have received an initial shot of a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech, including all medical staff and one in every four people aged over 60. Two doses of the vaccine must be administered, around three weeks apart, to confer full virus immunity.  Israel’s vaccination drive began on December 20 when... Читать дальше...

Dar tal-Providenza has requested further documentation over a €500,000 donation pledge fronted by former Opposition leader Adrian Delia on behalf of a Tunisian-based trading group. On the back of a funding drive on Friday that saw over €2.5 million being raised, Dar tal-Providenza said in a statement that cash donations above €5,000 and pledges above €10,000 from individuals and companies were subject to a vetting process.  As part of this process, the organisation said it had requested further documentation... Читать дальше...

Just two minutes into the new year, a baby girl popped into the world becoming Malta’s first newborn of 2021.  The girl was one out of eight babies born on New Year’s Day, said Mater Dei CEO Celia Falzon. Four girls and four boys were born on Friday. Last year, Mater Dei saw five newborns: two girls and three boys. Over 370,000 babies born on New Year’s Day United Nations children's agency UNICEF estimates that 371,504 babies were born around the world on New Year’s Day this year, with more than half of those births in 10 countries... Читать дальше...

With a ball made from rags and surging adrenaline, the young Jorge Bergoglio and his friends pulled off “miracles” playing football in the street, Pope Francis recalled on Saturday.  Now 84, the Argentine pope remembered “the joy, the happiness on everyone’s faces,” after the 1946 victory of his Buenos Aires team, San Lorenzo, in a 31-page interview about sport published Saturday in Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport. The first pope from Latin America called Diego Maradona a “poet” on the field, as he weighed in on the joys of sport. Читать дальше...

A man reported missing on December 31 remains missing three days later, with the police issuing an update on Saturday to reiterate calls for the public to help them locate him. Marcel Pisani was last seen at his house in Mosta on Thursday and has not been spotted since. Pisani uses a wheelchair and drives a light blue Renault Captur with a cream roof. The police on Saturday provided a sample photo of a car similar to his.  Anyone with information about Pisani or his whereabouts can contact the police... Читать дальше...

Valletta FC’s fixtures against Ħamrun Spartans and Sliema Wanderers are set to be rescheduled, as per a statement issued by the Malta FA on Saturday.  This follows the news of the club being put into mandatory quarantine on Friday after a number of cases were confirmed after a round of testing. The MFA said the side’s matches “are being postponed in accordance with the Malta FA special rules applicable to domestic competitions due to COVID-19”. Fellow quarantined team Gudja United have also seen... Читать дальше...

The family of a mother who was buried underneath the rubble of her own home after a construction accident in March of last year have been left in limbo. Miriam Pace’s death had caused public uproar after construction works adjacent to her home led to the collapse of her home in Ħamrun.  Every month since then, Carmel Pace has been taking to social media on a monthly basis to post tributes to his deceased wife as well as to question what authorities have done to remedy the situation. “My dear, we’ve begun a new year. Читать дальше...

The Manoel Theatre’s education programme Toi Toi is presenting a musical for children aged 5+ tomorrow. Titled Il-Ħrafa tas-Soppa tal-Ġebel, the show is based on a popular folk tale about a man who cooks up ‘stone soup’. It is set in a village where everyone seems happy with the way things are. Everyone follows a daily routine and an unchanging rhythm. However, one day, a stranger arrives asking for help and throws their daily dance into chaos, bringing a new rhythm and way of thinking. The show... Читать дальше...

How much would you spend on your children and grandchildren at Christmas?  A German grandfather decided to really push the boat out however and ordered each of his five grandchildren a Bugatti Baby II you see here – costing as much as €55k per car. Scary, right? Those kids must’ve impeccably behaved through 2020. But what about this present-to-end-all-presents, the Bugatti Baby II? It’s essentially a miniature version of the firm’s Type 35, which was the quickest car of its day in the 1920s, and is exceptionally valuable today. Читать дальше...

Bangkok's nightlife will go quiet as a ban on bars, nightclubs and restaurant alcohol sales goes into effect Saturday, among a raft of restrictions aimed at curbing the kingdom's rising coronavirus toll. Thailand initially appeared to have escaped the worst of the virus, registering just under 4,000 total cases in November, despite being the second country to detect an infection in January. But an outbreak last month at a massive seafood market has spiralled into a resurgence, with infections now detected in 53 of the kingdom's 73 provinces. Читать дальше...

Andrea Pirlo’s Juventus face a key test of their ambitions to clinch a 10th consecutive Serie A title in a packed January of football in Italy after a stuttering start which has left the holders sixth in the league. Serie A returns this weekend after the mini-break of the Christmas period with a tight January schedule. Juventus host Udinese on Sunday before taking on three of the top four this month, with six Serie A fixtures in addition to Italian Cup and Super Cup commitments.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk... Читать дальше...

A young woman hoping for some New Year’s Eve fun was knocked unconscious when a bottle flew across a restaurant into her head during a violent brawl that broke out among dozens of diners. Police unholstered taser guns and wrestled people to the ground during the fracas, which was caught on video by civilian bystanders. At least three people sustained injuries and several people were arrested, the police said. The woman, a Lithuanian national who asked to remain anonymous, told Times of Malta that... Читать дальше...

The Covid-19 pandemic took over the world, and uncertainties for the future still remain as the healthcare system remains under pressure while the vaccine has not reached the masses yet. However, the positive vaccine results in November gave financial markets much to cheer about. The MSE Equity Total Return Index posted a 12% decline during the year, as it closed at 8,471.335 points. A sharp decline was registered in March with the outbreak, as the index reached 7,761.132 points. Sentiment across local equities improved... Читать дальше...

The front pages of Times of Malta from 25 and 10 years ago.  Become a Times of Malta premium member to gain full access to our archive dating back to January 1930.

A woman with an incurable form of blood cancer is hoping that in the new year she will not need to continue begging the government to fund treatment that she says is keeping her alive. Lara Said, 52, has multiple myeloma, a cancer that forms in plasma cells. Her treatment consists of a combination of three medications, two of which are on the formulary list. However, the third medication – Daratumumab – is not, and she has to rely on funding from the Malta Community Chest Fund foundation. The academic... Читать дальше...

Spazju Kreattiv cinema is tomorrow showing a documentary and an award-winning film back to back. I Am Greta at 6pm tells the story of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg through compelling, never-before-seen footage. This intimate documentary from Swedish director Nathan Grossman starts with her one-person school strike for climate action outside the Swedish Parliament. Grossman follows Greta – a shy schoolgirl with Asperger’s – in her rise to prominence, and her galvanising global impact as she sparks school strikes around the world. Читать дальше...