Robert Micallef was reconfirmed as president Santa Lucia FC for another year. The Premier League club held its annual general meeting last week during which the club members elected the new committee for the new season. The committee members elected last week, met for the first time during a mini-seminar at the Corinthia Hotel in Attard during which Micallef was again confirmed as the club supremo for the 2021-22 season. Kevin Attard will serve as vice-president while Ivan Vella will be the secretary and will be assisted by Paul Sammut. Continue reading this article on SportsDesk, the sports website of the Times of Malta

Two brothers, allegedly involved in a midday brawl on Monday, were granted bail after pleading not guilty upon their arraignment.  Ħamrun-residents Justin and Malcolm Mercieca, 32 and 31 respectively, were escorted to court under arrest over the fight that broke out shortly before noon on Marfa Road, Mellieħa. Details about the incident were somewhat scanty but the violent episode allegedly revolved around the two brothers, the former girlfriend of one of them and her new boyfriend.  A first-aid team assisted the injured man at the scene of the incident. He was subsequently admitted to Mater Dei Hospital for further treatment. The next day, the brothers were jointly charged with grievously injuring the woman’s partner without intending to endanger his life, assaulting the woman and threatening the couple.  After hearing submissions by both parties the court upheld the request for bail against a deposit of €2,000 and a personal guarantee of €4,000 each, as well as an order to sign the bail book twice weekly.  The court also issued a temporary protection order in favour of the alleged victims and their families, pending criminal proceedings.  Inspector Godwin Scerri prosecuted.

Celebrated French writer Emmanuel Carrere was awarded Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias prize for literature on Wednesday, one of the most important awards in the Spanish-speaking world.  Carrere, a leading exponent of ‘autofiction’, where writers fictionalise their own lives, is known for a string of books including L’adversaire (The Adversary, 2000), Un Roman Russe (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2007) and his new hit memoir Yoga.  In awarding the prize, the jury hailed the 63-year-old Parisian screenwriter and director for his “highly personal work that opens up a new space for expression that blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction”.  Over a writing career of nearly 40 years, Carrere has built up a body of work based on self-exploration, which often recounts the lives of others.  Such was the case with L’adversaire which was based on the life of Jean-Claude Romand, a notorious Frenchman who killed his parents, wife and children after years pretending to be a successful doctor.

The Maltese health authorities continue to insist polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are the "most reliable" and will continue to deny boarding for travellers presenting the so-called rapid tests when coming to Malta.  Rules in place for travel to Malta clearly indicate those arriving on the island must either present a vaccine certificate or a negative PCR test.  But the decision to only allow PCR tests – commonly referred to as swab tests – has raised eyebrows especially since the results take longer to be confirmed and other, quicker, tests are also commonly used.  In recent months, Malta’s health authorities have repeatedly said they accept results from rapid antigen tests as accurate enough and have been including them in daily tallies of new cases.  Travellers who visited other countries in recent weeks said most places accepted rapid tests as valid, with some countries even allowing travel with results from the less common saline gargle test.  And guidelines issued by the European Parliament on the newly-approved EU Digital COVID Certificate recognise both the PCR and rapid tests.  “Tests recognised under the certificate include Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT)...

Nium, a leading global B2B payments platform, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ixaris, a Malta- and UK-based leader in travel payments optimisation. The transaction is expected to be concluded early in the third quarter of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions. Ixaris provides flexible funding and payment methods that help airlines and online travel agents (OTAs) in the £230 billion (€267bn) travel sector reduce surcharges, earn rebates, flatten foreign exchange fees, and streamline reconciliation. As one of the industry’s leaders, Ixaris has issued more than 10 million virtual cards in 2019. Since its inception, it has processed 24 million transactions for over 200 customers in more than 40 countries for a total payment volume of £5 billion. Ixaris is best known for transforming the travel payments industry with the introduction of Europe’s first virtual prepaid card in 2003. All of Ixaris’ 86 employees based in London and Malta will join the Nium family. “Airlines and OTAs are actively transforming their technologies and processes in anticipation of a surge in global travel happening this year,” said Prajit Nanu, Nium co-founder and CEO. “The...

The six rebel English clubs that signed up to the European Super League have reached a financial settlement with the Premier League worth a combined £22 million ($31 million), reports said on Wednesday. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham announced themselves as founder members of the competition in April but the project quickly collapsed after widespread opposition. Sky News reported the settlement on Wednesday and sources at one of the clubs told Britain’s Press Association that agreement had been reached, with clubs facing a £25 million fine and 30-point deduction if there are further attempts to break away. Continue reading this article on SportsDesk, the sports website of the Times of Malta

Some 118,000 people have downloaded the €100 consumer vouchers by Friday’s deadline, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri told Parliament on Wednesday. 450,000 people are eligible to receive the vouchers, valued at €100, of which €60 can be used in restaurants and tourist establishments and €40 in retail and beauty outlets. Replying to a parliamentary question by Labour MP Ian Castaldi Paris, Schembri said that the reconciliation process was currently under way for the vouchers which were not downloaded to start being mailed. These will be sent door-to-door through Maltapost and recipients have to sign for them. If the recipient is not at home, a notification will be left and a second delivery will be attempted. Should the recipient not be at home when the second delivery is made, the vouchers will have to be collected from the post office. Schembri said that new features are to be introduced to make the process simpler. These new features, he said, will be announced in the coming days.

Economic growth in Malta in pre-pandemic days has been significant and since accession into the European Union, the country has not only topped growth charts but quickly converged towards and above the European average. However, economists and social experts alike have in recent years argued that GDP merely measures the size of a nation’s economy and does not reflect a nation’s welfare.  On its own, economic growth fails to truly measure the population’s quality of life, with issues such as measure the sociological and psychological effects having a significant impact on a person’s perception of his or her quality of life. The Malta Employers Association will be tackling these issues in a national conference on June 18, 2021. Due to ongoing social restrictions, this event will be held virtually. Commenting on the launch of this event, MEA director general, Joseph Farrugia said: “This discussion comes at an important juncture of the Maltese economy as its gears up for its regeneration process as the country comes out of a pandemic which had a devastating impact on society, families and businesses alike.  In parallel, 2021 happens to coincide with one the largest multi-annual...

A worldwide internet outage affecting major websites was caused by a "customer configuration change" which triggered a "bug" in a key delivery network, the technology firm at the centre of the mishap said Wednesday. Nick Rockwell of US-based tech firm Fastly said in a blog post that the outage was "broad and severe" after the glitch resulting from "a valid customer configuration change." The outage lasting about an hour took down media and government websites, including the White House, Britain's government site, the New York Times, Reddit and Amazon. The outage highlighted the dependence of much of the global internet on a handful of "content delivery networks" which help speed up websites. Rockwell said a Fastly software update from last month contained "a bug that could be triggered by a specific customer configuration under specific circumstances." This happened on Tuesday when "a customer pushed a valid configuration change that included the specific circumstances that triggered the bug." He added that the disruption was detected within a minute but that it took some 49 minutes to restore most of the impacted sites. "We’re truly sorry for the impact to our customers and...

A massive fire on the outskirts of Jerusalem led to villages being evacuated Wednesday as dozens of Israeli firefighters and 10 aerial tankers battled the blaze. The highway from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv was shut down along with the train line that connects Israel's two main cities, police said. There was no immediate word on the cause of the fire, which spread through woods close to populated areas and sent dark smoke into the sky over the hills outside Jerusalem. The villages of Maale HaHamisha and Yad Hashmona were evacuated, police said.

A 49-year-old woman was grievously injured on Wednesday in a traffic accident in Mellieħa. The police said the accident happened in Triq il-Marfa at 10.45am. The victim, who lives in Swieqi, was riding a Honda that collided with a Mazda Demio being driven by a 67-year-old man who lives in St Paul’s Bay. She was given first aid by a medical team onsite and then taken to Mater Dei Hospital by ambulance. The police are investigating.

The Nationalist Party is promising to close Mount Carmel Hospital and regenerate it as a public open space, with people having mental health issues being treated at a new hospital close to Mater Dei. A PN government would also update the outdated list of medicines on the government's formulary with innovative treatment for those suffering from chronic mental illness, the party's health spokesperson, Stephen Spiteri, promised on Wednesday. The shadow minister was addressing the launch of PN's proposals for mental wellbeing, which the party is promising to put on equal footing with physical health.  The sector, he said, had been neglected for far too long, and mental health patients were being treated as second class citizens.  At the same time, people were increasingly suffering from mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, ADHD and dementia. The PN's proposals include a 24/7 emergency psychiatry team, a mental health emergency observation unit, training in mental health for family doctors, and day centres for those who are unable to work due to their mental health issues. Addressing the same press conference, PN candidate Paula Mifsud Bonnici said a Nationalist...

Former Malta international Andre Schembri has been appointed as a football director with Cypriot top side Apollon Limassol. Schembri hung up his boots last season and immediately opted to study for a career in football management. Since then the former Malta international has been recruited by his former club Apollon Limassol where he initially served as a youth coach. Now, Schembri is set to embark on a new challenge as he has been appointed as a football director at the Cypriot club.  Continue reading this article on SportsDesk, the sports website of the Times of Malta

Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday said it would accelerate plans to cut carbon emissions following a court order in the Netherlands last month. The court in The Hague ordered Shell to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 in a landmark victory by climate activists with implications for energy firms worldwide. In response on Wednesday, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden expressed disappointment that the Anglo-Dutch giant had been “singled out”, arguing that the ruling “does not help reduce global CO2 emissions”. But he said: “For Shell, this ruling does not mean a change, but rather an acceleration of our strategy” to cut carbon emissions, without providing any further details.  The company had envisaged a 45 per cent reduction by 2035 with the aim of reaching net zero emissions by mid-century.  Campaigners hailed the “historic” verdict as the first time that a company had been made to align its policy with the 2015 Paris climate accords. Dubbed “the People versus Shell”, the case was backed by seven environmental groups and more than 17,000 Dutch citizens. Shell in February declared that its oil output is in decline after peaking in 2019 as it outlined green...

After the accolades, an agreement among the world's wealthiest countries to set a global minimum tax on the biggest companies now faces a long, bumpy road to implementation. The path is complicated even among the Group of Seven rich nations that endorsed the plan, with US President Joe Biden having to convince recalcitrant members of Congress. In recent years countries have previously clashed over taxing the overseas profits of big companies, especially US tech giants. But the mood has changed as governments look for new sources of revenue after spending huge sums to protect their economies during the coronavirus crisis.  The agreement between the US and its G7 partners Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Germany and Canada in London at the weekend is only the first step in a long process. "There is still quite a long road to go," Elke Asen, a policy analyst at the Tax Foundation think tank in Washington, told AFP. The reform now goes to finance ministers of the Group of 20 developed and emerging countries at a July meeting. The "more difficult part", Asen said, will be the next step: Negotiations between 139 nations under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and...

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana believes it is still too early to determine the effect on the country of a G7 commitment to a global minimum corporate tax of 15%. Caruana said that the proposal was still in its infancy and more details on the agreement would be available in around October. “The proposal still needs to be refined. It is still too early to say [what the effect would be],” he said when asked for a reaction to the broad agreement on imposing a global minimum tax of 15% on a country-by-country basis. The G7 meeting, held in London over the weekend, was attended by the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. The US is pushing the world’s largest economies to agree on minimum rates of tax paid by businesses. It intends raising corporate tax in the US from 21% to 28%. US President Joe Biden is calling for a unified minimum corporate tax rate of 15% in negotiations with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the G20. Proponents argue that a minimum tax is necessary to stem competition between countries over which can offer multinationals the lowest rate. They say that a “race to the bottom” saps precious revenues that could go...

When Times of Malta cartoonist Professor Ġorġ Mallia sat down to compose his latest in a series of cartoons about COVID-19, he decided to take aim at the spread of false news online. His tongue in cheek offering depicted an agitated man musing on whether COVID-19 was a scam and questioning his own reality as a comic strip character.  But when he posted it on Facebook on Wednesday, the journalism lecturer was surprised that his offering was removed from his page for spreading "false information about COVID-19 that could contribute to physical harm". Mallia, whose Żepp cartoons are published twice-weekly on Times of Malta, has been focusing on the pandemic in his 'new normal' series.  He said it was the first time that he had ever had a post banned by Facebook. “My Żepp strip from today satirises fake news about COVID-19... as it has done in all its 119 strips, but according to Facebook I am the one spreading fake news about COVID-19," he said. “If you want to see today's strip you'll need to go to the Times' website to do so." He said Facebook's fake news algorithm was "ridiculously hopeless" to claim it safeguards the well being of its users, "and yet all the actual fake news...

Serbian and Macedonian nationals are calling on the authorities to rethink keeping the two Balkan nations off Malta’s Amber list, saying they cannot reunite with their families because of the restrictions. There are 50 countries on the list, which enables travel to Malta without the need to quarantine upon return but Serbia and North Macedonia have repeatedly been left out. The decision has prompted thousands of those living and working here to set up a petition to argue their point. Almost 4,000 people have signed the appeal since it was set up. “With more than 15,000 Macedonians and Serbians working and living in Malta we are requesting the government to put North Macedonia and Serbia on the Amber list,” the petition says. It goes on to argue it is “nonsense” to keep the two countries off the list “when the number of COVID-19 infections is extremely low”. Travel from countries that are not on the Amber list is not permitted, unless travellers have spent at least the previous 14 days in an Amber list country before reaching Malta. Exceptions are made for Maltese nationals who have obtained prior written permission from the Superintendence of Public Health.  According to the...

Spanish fashion retailer Inditex – owner of brands such as Zara, Massimo Dutti and Bershka – said on Wednesday that strong growth in online sales helped it return to profit in the first quarter after coronavirus lockdown measures pushed it into the red a year ago. Inditex – which runs its business year from February to January – said in a statement that it booked net profit of €421 million in the three months to April, compared with bottom-line loss of €409 million a year earlier. “The first quarter stands out for its solid operating performance, with growth in operating expenses... significantly below sales growth,” the statement said. Revenues expanded by 50 per cent to €4.9 billion – with onlines surging by as much as 67 per cent in local currency terms – and underlying or operating profit jumped by 155 per cent to €1.2 billion. “Sales were higher across all geographies and every brand despite the fact that 24 per cent of trading hours were unavailable due to lockdowns and restrictions (16 per cent of the group”s stores remained closed at the end of the quarter) in addition to other capacity restrictions,” Inditex said. “Our differentiation and strategic transformation...

A court in Moscow was considering Wednesday whether to brand jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's prominent anti-corruption organisation extremist, a ruling that would ban its activities and could see staff jailed. Prosecutors in April requested that Navalny's network of regional offices and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) be hit with the label, saying the group was plotting an uprising with support from the West. Lawyers representing the anti-graft group in the closed-door hearing said they expected a decision on Wednesday. Ivan Pavlov, an opposition-minded lawyer whose legal group is representing FBK said on Telegram "the judge intends to announce the decision today". As the hearing stretched into Wednesday evening, FBK lawyers said they had had several key requests - including to have the proceedings made public - denied by the judge. The FBK routinely publishes investigations into alleged corruption by officials at all levels of government.  Its most notable probes, which have millions of views on YouTube, showed sprawling luxury properties allegedly belonging to President Vladimir Putin and former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. The allegations spurred...