Новости за 02.06.2021

Bitcoin, Ethereum, DLT – in the past few years, the number of newly-minted terms and acronyms surrounding crypto assets has fuelled curiosity about the potential of easy money, as well as created a huge amount of scepticism.  “The simplest definition of crypto assets, or Virtual Financial Assets (VFAs) as they are referred to in Malta – is as a digital representation of value that is stored on Distributed Ledger Technology, or the blockchain, whose access is based on cryptographic keys,” said Herman Ciappara, MFSA’s Head of VFA Function. Читать дальше...

The Malta Basketball national teams discovered their opponents in this summer’s European Championships for Small Countries. The women’s team were handed a tough draw as they were drawn in Group A and will be up against Norway, Ireland and Andorra. On the other hand, Group will be formed by Luxembourg, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Kosovo. For the Maltese girls, the draw is quite tricky given that they will be up against two teams who are expected to challenge for a top-four placing in the tournament, namely Norway and Ireland. Читать дальше...

A traveller is being investigated for money laundering after €24,745 were found on his person and his luggage at the airport on Wednesday. The Customs Department said the Guinean passenger was travelling to Mali via Istanbul. When questioned, he declared that he was carrying €3,000 only on his person. A search on his person and his baggage, in which the sniffer dog Zekkin was involved, turned up a further €24,745. During questioning and investigations it was noted that the passenger was acting as a cash courier for another person... Читать дальше...

One of Iran's largest naval ships sank Wednesday after catching fire while on a "training mission" off a strategic port near the head of the Gulf, the navy said. The British-designed fleet replenishment vessel Kharg, which measured more than 200 metres (more than 650 feet) long, caught fire on Tuesday off the port of Jask on the Gulf of Oman, the navy said. Footage aired by state television showed a massive column of smoke rising from what it said was the burning vessel. The fire broke out in "one of the systems" of the ship... Читать дальше...

Carlo Ancelotti returns to Real Madrid bringing not only a history of winning trophies to a club that particularly craves them, but also an aura of calm that it sometimes lacks. “Carlo never gets angry.” So said Paolo Maldini, who spent five seasons alongside Ancelotti the player and eight under Ancelotti the coach.  The 61-year-old Ancelotti is returning to Madrid, where he coached Real from 2013-15, with unfinished business.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website... Читать дальше...

The pandemic has pushed over 100 million more workers into poverty, the UN said Wednesday, after working hours plummeted and access to good quality jobs evaporated. In a report, the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO) cautioned that the labour market crisis created by the pandemic was far from over, with employment not expected to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 at the earliest. The ILO's annual World Employment and Social Outlook report indicated that the planet would be... Читать дальше...

Badminton player Matthew Abela has been confirmed as the second Maltese athlete to form part of the Maltese contingent at the forthcoming Olympics in Tokyo, the Maltese Olympic Committee announced. Abela, who has been competing in the sport since a very young age, will be the first Maltese athlete to compete in the sport of Badminton at the Games since their introduction in 1992. He has built considerable international experience having been based in Denmark for a period of time. He regularly... Читать дальше...

Horror film A Quiet Place: Part II opened in North America this weekend to considerable fanfare and with numbers unlike any seen since the pandemic began, as COVID-19 curbs began falling and theatres began filling up again. After Hollywood's brutal year of dark screens and empty seats, final box office figures for the long weekend out Tuesday showed that movies are starting to come back. "The symbolic importance of this Memorial Day Weekend to the movie theatre industry cannot be overstated," said Paul Dergarabedian... Читать дальше...

At least 23 migrants were missing and two bodies recovered from the sea off Tunisia, the Red Crescent reported Wednesday, after the military said more than 100 migrants were intercepted. The Tunisian navy said a boat headed for Europe from Zuwara in Libya was intercepted on Tuesday near Miskar oil platform, some 67 kilometres off the coast. The migrants - 37 Eritreans, 32 Sudanese and an Egyptian, aged between 15 and 40 - were handed over to the Red Crescent and International Organization for Migration in the southern port Of Zarzis. Читать дальше...

People who need help to download or print their COVID-19 vaccine certificate can get it from servizz.gov hubs as from Tuesday, June 8, the government said on Wednesday.  This was announced by chief civil servant Mario Cutajar during a visit to Centrecom, servizz.gov’s strategic partner. There are 23 servizz.gov hubs across Malta and Gozo. Vaccine certificates, unveiled on Monday, are available to Maltese ID card holders 14 days after they are fully vaccinated. They can be obtained online and used digitally or else printed out. Читать дальше...

Embattled Chinese tech giant Huawei will launch a homegrown new mobile operating system on Wednesday as it fights for survival in the smartphone arena after the United States blocked it from using Android. Huawei will unveil its first mobile devices loaded with the new HarmonyOS in an online event broadcast from its headquarters in the southern city of Shenzhen beginning at 8pm (1200 GMT). The development of HarmonyOS has been closely watched by the tech world since Donald Trump’s White House... Читать дальше...

Just 10,184 tourists visited Malta in April 2021 spending 175,606 nights on the island. Malta officially restarted its tourism season on Tuesday, when 1,500 passengers were expected to arrive at Malta International Airport. But scheduled flights had only a fraction of the passengers they normally carry, as confidence in travel takes time to build up after the COVID-19 pandemic, which shattered the local tourism industry. The National Statistics Office said on Wednesday that 6,577 of the tourists in April came for holiday... Читать дальше...

A new temporary residency scheme has been launched for people who want to move to Malta but work remotely. The programme offers a six-month visa and an option of obtaining a one-year 'Nomad Residence Permit' and costs €300. To qualify, applicants must prove they are contracted to work remotely by a company based overseas, show that they run their own business or offer freelance service to clientele based abroad.  Announcing the scheme, Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship, Alex Muscat, said it could be a "profitable economic niche". Читать дальше...

Ten people tested positive for COVID-19 overnight, the highest number since May 10. Another four people recovered, bringing the number of active cases in the country to 76. The new cases were found from 2,275 swab tests carried out overnight, according to data from the health authorities. No deaths have been reported for over a week. Malta reopened for tourism on Tuesday when seated weddings with 100 people inside and 300 outside also became permissible. Language schools can also start to reopen... Читать дальше...

Britain’s antitrust authority on Wednesday approved Norwegian firm Adevinta’s acquisition of US e-commerce giant eBay’s classified advertising business after the two agreed to sell off UK units. The Norwegian classified ads company announced in July last year that it would acquire the eBay division, paying $9.2 billion (€7.7bn) in cash and shares, thereby creating the largest player in the field. But Britain’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) had expressed concern that the merged company would be too dominant in the sector in the UK. Читать дальше...

Bradley Mifsud broke the national record for the Javelin throw during the Andorran National Championships held last weekend. Mifsud, who hails from Pembroke Athleta, had recently returned from an 18-month sporting sabbatical and registered a throw of 66.47m to put his name in the history books of Maltese athletics. Some 32 athletes took part as guests in these championships held at Andorra La Vella, competing against strong opposition at some 1,100m elevation, with two other athletes putting their name in the age category record books. Читать дальше...

A French heiress who spent years trying to win back a priceless impressionist painting that was stolen by the Nazis on Tuesday renounced her claim to the work to end a feud with an American university. Leone Meyer, 81, spent nearly a decade trying to secure ownership of Pissarro's 1886 La Bergère rentrant des moutons ('Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep'), which was seized from her parents during the occupation of Paris in World War II. After the war, the painting ended up in Switzerland before winding up in a private US collection. Читать дальше...

Endurance swimmer Neil Agius has had to cut short his attempt to swim three laps around Gozo in three days after labouring through bad weather and almost risking hypothermia.  The 34-year-old former Olympian was attempting the challenge as part of his training for a 153km swim from Tunisia to Sicily. He said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that he was three hours into his third lap of Gozo when his body temperature dropped and he decoded to end the swim early. He had already skipped a 12 hour... Читать дальше...

Volkswagen has hit on a pretty successful recipe: build cars for every segment, then slap an R badge on the boot, give it a sporty look and rapid engine, and you’ve got yourself yet another performance car as a halo for the line-up. That might sound like a cynical intro, but it’s a recipe that works. We’ve got the Golf R hatchback, T-Roc R crossover, Touareg R SUV and now this, the Tiguan R. It’s a mid-sized SUV that takes the usual VW R combination and applies it to the firm’s best-selling model. Читать дальше...