Brightly coloured spinnakers in red, orange and pink brightened up an otherwise dull and dreary Marsamxett Harbour on Saturday as twelve boats took part in the Autumn Round Comino Race hosted by the Royal Malta Yacht Club. As the rain pelted the fleet throughout most of the  30 nautical mile course, the wind conditions – close to 25 knots, were perfect in providing the boats with conditions for a short yet fast race that saw big waves to the west of Comino but generally flat on the eastern side of Malta. As Race Officer Peter Dimech set the fleet off in one start, the Ripard family’s Calypso, Andrew Agius Delicata’s Vivace and Lee Satariano’s Artie III took charge and led the fleet out of the harbour. From then on Satariano took the lead to gain a considerable advantage as he steered the HH42 around the Fairway Buoy before taking a straight course to Comino.  Continue reading this article on SportsDesk, the sports website of the Times of Malta

Claire Pisani has won the third edition of the Malta Businesswoman of the Year Awards, in appreciation of her exceptional role in supporting finance, manufacturing and supply operations for TEVA Pharmaceuticals (Malta) as vice president.  HSBC, which organises the event, said her tenacity and determination were vital in supporting operational leaders in 26 sites by developing strategic and operational plans. The sites produced 60 billion tablets supplying markets within the EU, USA, and Asia, with a revenue of USD$5 billion. Krystle Penza was handed the Female Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2020 for inspirational leadership she demonstrated during her 15 years of experience in fashion brands, brand management, distribution, wholesale, retail and franchising. When she first started her business Mvintage, she was the acting salesperson, accountant, operations and product manager, striving to ensure that her product line, which is inspired by local cultural values, meets the highest standards. The Sustainability Role Model Award 2020 was presented to Dr Roberta Lepre for her contributions to the community. Established in 2007, her boutique firm Weave Consulting, has been built on...

Walter Busuttil, a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon, has been appointed chief government medical officer. He succeeds Dr Dennis Vella Baldacchino, who was made Commissioner for Mental Health a few weeks ago.  Busuttil graduated as a doctor in 1987 and is also a graduate in business administration.  In the past four years he was the medical director of Mater Dei Hospital. 

The owners of a property in the heart of Sliema’s centre have been awarded €175,000 compensation by the government after a constitutional court found that the old rent laws breached their right to the enjoyment of property they had inherited. Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, presiding over the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, ruled that the owners’ human rights had been violated when they were forced to continue receiving a paltry amount for the property first rented out in 1948 for a period of 99 years. He was ruling in a case filed by Louis Bianchi, Madeleine Aquilina, Veronica Rossignaud, Philip Bianchi, Adrian Bianchi, Anne Pullicino and Ganado Trustees and Fiduciaries Limited against the state advocate and Martin Micallef, who runs Victor’s Pharmacy at The Strand. The Bianchis told the court that the property and a number of adjacent ones had been leased to their grandmother, who subleased it to Emanuele Micallef to run a pharmacy. They were receiving €412 annually in rent. They said they had approached the tenant, Micallef, who insisted that he had title over the property, which he had inherited from his grandfather. He said he always paid the...

Church organisations have called for a free vote in parliament after the government ignored all suggested changes to the bill on cannabis use as it was rushed through the committee stage of the debate on Tuesday. "Despite numerous reasonable and balanced amendments... the government side refused to consider any of the suggestions and remained adamant to pass a very weak regulatory framework which risks leaving a massive negative impact on our society, especially among children, youths and the most vulnerable," Caritas Malta, OASI Foundation, the Secretariat for Catholic Education and the Church Schools’ Association said in a joint statement. They said they were urging the prime minister to allow a free vote for government MPs so that they could vote according to their conscience and not along party lines During the committee meeting, the organisations urged the government to raise the age when smoking cannabis would be made legal from 18 to 25. They also urged it to extend the allowed distance between cannabis clubs from schools, youth centres and post-secondary institutions from a mere 250 metres to one kilometre. In other suggestions, they called for a doubling of the fines...

Manchester United caretaker manager Michael Carrick says he has not spoken to incoming interim boss Ralf Rangnick as he prepares to take charge of a third match at home to Arsenal on Thursday. United confirmed the appointment of Rangnick as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s short-term replacement this week but the German is still to receive a work permit.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website by Times of Malta

Yorgen Fenech cannot use constitutional court proceedings as a form of appeal against a lower court's decision allowing information he had given in the hope of securing a presidential pardon to be admitted as evidence against him, a court has ruled. The decision was delivered by the Constitutional Court when turning down an appeal filed by Fenech against a judgment delivered in July by the First Hall, Civil Court, stating that his constitutional action was premature since the applicant had not exhausted ordinary remedies. Fenech’s claim centred upon information he had given the authorities as he sought a presidential pardon in the case where he stands accused of complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. His lawyers argued that such confidential information should not be admissible as evidence because it was given to the prosecuting officers under the express promise that it would not be used as such if the pardon was not granted. Fenech’s defence argued that they had turned to the constitutional court for an effective remedy since no other remedy in terms of ordinary law was available. When delivering judgment on Wednesday the Constitutional Court confirmed the...

Former British number one Johanna Konta announced her retirement from tennis on Wednesday. The 30-year-old has struggled with persistent knee trouble over the past couple of seasons and has slipped to 113 in the world rankings — a far cry from her career high of number four. Konta, who reached the semi-finals of three of the four majors, plus the quarter-finals of the US Open, made her announcement on social media with a post headlined ‘Grateful’.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website by Times of Malta

A person was treated for a bite by an ‘exotic animal’ at Mater Dei hospital in November, Health Minister Chris Fearne confirmed in parliament this week. He was replying to a question from PN MP Mario Galea, who asked whether anybody had been admitted to hospital after suffering a bite from “an exotic animal such as a tiger”. The person suffered minor injuries. Neither Galea nor Fearne gave further information about the incident.   In November last year, the Ministry of Agriculture published draft regulations on the keeping of wild animals in zoos that would have forbidden direct contact between zoo visitors and animals, cutting off the practice of cub petting popular in many local zoos. However, following a backlash from zookeepers, the ministry backtracked and changed the draft law within 24 hours, allowing cub petting to happen under the supervision of a vet. When asked about the ministry’s U-turn on cub petting, Agriculture Minister Anton Refalo later said that the regulations were “not set in stone” and that they required further consultation. In a parliamentary question last month, Agriculture Minister Anton Refalo confirmed that an impact assessment on the draft...

A new online geographic information system (GIS) launched by the Planning Authority on Wednesday, enables people to report illegal development by clicking on the particular site on the mapserver and even uploading pictures of the alleged illegal works, while remaining anonymous. The PA said the new facility, an invaluable tool for planners,  will bring users closer to the ‘real-time’ planning data and services that the Authority provides to the public. Ing. Stephen Ferrito Director for ICT, Mapping and Digital Services said  interactive mapping had changed enormously over the past few years, and the PA had continued to invest in its infrastructural software to ensure that it increasingly integrated GIS into the heart of its operations. “After having launched a new basemap for the Maltese Islands last year, our next step had to be the upgrading of our GIS. This is another important piece of the bigger picture as we keep developing Malta’s National Spatial Data Infrastructure. Our MapServer connects the voluminous planning data that we collect from different sources onto a map, integrating location data with all types of descriptive information." He said that an important function...

The MSE Equity Price Index on Wednesday erased Tuesday's decline as it climbed by 0.15% to 3,762.326 points. Gains in the share prices of BOV and HSBC outweighed drops in FIMBank, MPC and MaltaPost. Four other equities remained unchanged as trading activity amounted to €0.08 million. On Tuesday,  International Hotel Investments plc announced that following an increase in the level of business during the second half of the year, it is now expecting to generate a consolidated EBITDA of over €24 million for the current financial year. Although this is substantially higher than the earlier forecasts of €11 million (June 2021) and €15 million (October 2021), it is still 65% lower than the record EBITDA of close to €70 million generated in the 2019 financial year. Meanwhile, IHI also announced that the offer for €80 million in unsecured bonds has been oversubscribed. The equity remained inactive on Wednesday. Bank of Valletta plc advanced by 1.8% to the €0.865 level on two trades totalling 5,000 shares. Also in the retail banking sector, HSBC Bank Malta plc moved to a five-month high of €0.84 (+1.2%) across 14,954 shares. In contract, FIMBank plc dropped by 3.4% to an all-time low of...

The Gaming Authority (MGA) has published new regulations changing the way key personnel – called ‘post holders’ – will need to be hired by gaming companies that are licensed in Malta. This is a regulatory requirement.  This change will oblige iGaming companies to make a number of operational and human resources adjustments that are challenging, given the robust state of the employment market. The B2B key functions have been reduced from nine to seven and the B2C key functions have been reduced from fifteen to eight but the job descriptions and key requirements for each role have become more comprehensive.  Two leading Maltese firms, AE Business Advisors and Exacta Solutions have joined forces to support iGaming companies based in Malta, in the implementation of the new rules. “We have been supporting the business community for more than two decades and, as compliance tightens, we can help them overcome the challenges that come with this development.” Said Dr Georg Sapiano of AE Business Advisors. AE provides technical persons, who are already approved by the MGA, for the key regulatory roles that an iGaming company needs to fill and wants to outsource for a period of up to one...

The woman in charge of the gun fatally fired by Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust told police she "didn't really check it too much" immediately before the tragedy. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, armourer on the low-budget Western, spoke to investigators as they probed how live rounds ended up on the New Mexico film set last month, leading to the death of Halyna Hutchins. Cinematographer Hutchins was shot and killed as Baldwin rehearsed a scene in which he fires a gun at the camera. According to an affidavit released Tuesday, Gutierrez-Reed told police she had loaded the Colt .45 with five dummy rounds before a lunch break. After lunch, the weapon was retrieved from a safe, and Gutierrez-Reed added a final round before handing it to another crew member. Moments later, she heard a gunshot from inside the set. Gutierrez-Reed said she "didn't really check it too much" because the weapon had been locked up at lunch. "We had the gun the whole time before that, and nothing happened, and I wasn't in there, and they weren't even supposed to be pulling the hammer back," she added. Police seized more than 500 rounds of ammunition from the set, which they believed to be a mix of blanks, dummy rounds...

The Opposition on Wednesday formally gave notice of a motion to change the composition of the parliamentary standards committee so that its majority would no longer be formed of MPs. A bill announced by Opposition Leader Bernard Grech also seeks to clarify current legislation by stating that the Standards Commissioner and the parliamentary standards committee may also investigate former ministers and MPs, and not just serving ones. Grech had first suggested the change in the composition of the standards committee when he spoke in parliament on Monday. The committee is currently chaired by the Speaker of the House and has two members each from the government and the opposition.  On Monday, during an emergency debate, Speaker Anglu Farrugia was criticized by the Opposition for invariably casting his vote for the government when there was a tie in the standards committee, letting politicians easily off the hook when they are found in breach of ethics by the standards commissioner.  "Worse than that, sometimes they are even protected," insisted MP Karol Aquilina, who drafted the bill together with MP Therese Comodini Cachia. The opposition is proposing that while the committee...

An Austrian court has fined a surgeon for amputating the wrong leg of an elderly patient, a spokesperson for the tribunal in the northern city of Linz said Wednesday. While the 43-year-old defendant said her actions were due to "human error", the judge found her guilty of gross negligence and fined her 2,700 euros ($3,060), with half the amount suspended, the spokesperson said. The surgeon had marked the wrong leg of the 82-year-old patient for amputation ahead of the operation in May in the central town of Freistadt, only noticing the mistake two days after carrying out the surgery. The court awarded 5,000 euros in damages plus interest to the widow of the patient, who died before the case came to court.  The surgeon said there had been a flaw in the chain of control in the operating theatre. She has since moved to another clinic and can appeal the judgement. The management of the institution involved said in a statement that "the causes and circumstances of this medical error have been analysed in detail", internal procedures discussed with the team and training provided.                   

A local exhibition open in Sliema seeks to explore ideas related to the increase of urban and virtual environments. JP Migneco’s Virtuality incorporates grid patterns as metaphors for models of built environments and digital landscape simulations. Migneco’s work is interdisciplinary in nature, with landscape painting, geometry and colour theory all feeding into his work. His first solo exhibition, 2018’s Chroma Terra, reinterpreted landscape topographies using stereoscopic colours. Virtuality, which is exhibited at Bishop’s House in Sliema, incorporates grid patterns as metaphors for models of built environments and digital landscape simulations. Migneco developed each artwork by reinterpreting natural landforms found in Malta and Gozo through the use of three-dimensional grid structures obtained from photographic references. Migneco's Ras id-Dawwara. He then used those structures as a framework to apply various shapes and tonal values, creating a sense of time and motion. "These representations have been adapted to reflect ideas of the separation between human culture and nature in an increasingly complex technological world," he said.  Migneco’s work is the first to be...

Europe's top official said Wednesday it was time to "think about mandatory vaccination" as the fast-spreading Omicron variant darkened forecasts and deepened fears of another difficult winter. Ignoring a WHO warning against blanket travel bans, Japan suspended new flight bookings into the country as the OECD warned that Omicron threatens economic recovery and lowered the growth forecast for 2021. Rising infection rates have already seen European governments reintroduce mandatory mask-wearing, social-distancing measures, curfews or lockdowns in a desperate attempt to limit hospitalisations, but leaving businesses fearing another grim Christmas. In Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was "understandable and appropriate" to discuss how to "encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination" in the bloc -- although only individual member states can impose vaccine mandates. Austria has already said it will make Covid-19 jabs compulsory next February, Germany is mulling following suit and Greece on Tuesday said it will mandate vaccines for over-60s. The EU's vaccination drive is very uneven across the 27-nation bloc.  Portugal, Malta, Spain,...

A woman who robbed her elderly neighbour by helping herself out of her victim’s savings has had a €25,000 fine and suspended two-year jail term confirmed on appeal. Doris Borg, a 60-year old who got by on social benefits and held no property to her name, was convicted by a Magistrates’ Court in June after being found guilty of the theft and money laundering to the detriment of the elderly widow. The court had heard how Borg would “insist” on helping her neighbour by cooking her meals, washing her laundry and keeping her company. But when in October 2016 the elderly woman discovered that her bank savings had plunged from around €9,000 to €8.06 in three months, a police report was filed and investigations kicked off. Those investigations led to criminal action against Borg who was shown to have made frequent and regular use of the old woman’s cash card as though it were her own. Not only did she make frequent withdrawals from bank ATMs but she also went on shopping sprees at various local outlets and even made a €5000 cash payment on a car purchase without explaining the source of funds. She even used her neighbour’s credit card to furnish her car with extras, noted the court,...

Overcrowding and a lack of effort to rehabilitate prisoners have been singled out as pressing issues at the prisons by the National Audit Office (NAO). A performance audit, published on Wednesday, found that while efforts were being made by the prison authorities to design care plans for prisoners, these were not reaching the entire prison population. While several factors contributed to overcrowding in the prison, the NAO said that housing more than one prisoner per cell was not ideal and had obvious negative implications. The report came after last-month under-fire prison director Alexander Dalli suspended himself from his position after the 14th person died in the prison under his watch. However the audit had started earlier.  Prison capacity cannot keep up - 140 inmates crammed in dorm The prison, the NAO found, has 474 cells which would ideally house one person each. However the prison population went up from 550 in 2016 to around 800 at the time of writing, and there were 900 inmates at one point in 2020. The situation was further compounded by the prison management attempting to adhere to segregation rules set out by laws and court orders. “Such segregations complicate...

Norwegian 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm was named men’s World Athlete of the Year on Wednesday for smashing the world record at the Tokyo Olympics. Warholm’s time of 45.94sec in winning gold is widely considered one of the greatest Olympic track performances of all time. The time erased the 29-year-old record of 46.78sec set by Kevin Young at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the new sports website by Times of Malta