Новости за 18.02.2016

Mad Max: Fury Road leads the pack at the Jameson Empire Awards with 10 nominations including best film. The fourth instalment in the Mad Max franchise has also picked up nods for its director George Miller and stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in the best actor and actress categories. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has nine nominations, followed by The Martian with six and Bafta favourite The Revenant with five. London-born Hardy will battle it out with his The Revenant co-star Leonardo DiCaprio to land the acting honour. Читать дальше...

A 59-year-old man took a digger on a joyride across the famous Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys, dumping boulders on to the road along the way, officials said. Monroe County Sheriff's spokeswoman Becky Herrin said Carl Blahnik damaged the road and the sides of the bridge while recklessly driving along it for 90 minutes. She said when Mr Blahnik left the bridge, he hit spikes that deputies had placed on the road. He was taken to hospital for treatment and will face charges.

A protest that rocked a New Delhi university this week has spread across India, with students and teachers in at least 10 cities joining demands for the release of a student leader arrested on sedition charges. Protesters were outraged by TV footage of Kanhaiya Kumar, student union president at Jawaharlal Nehru University, being kicked and punched while he was escorted to a court hearing on Wednesday, renewing allegations of intolerance by the country's Hindu nationalist governing party. He was arrested... Читать дальше...

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil is later today attending the European Peoples’ Party summit in Brussels. The summit will be discussing migration and the possible British exit from the European Union. Participants at the summit include European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, European Commission President Donald Tusk, EPP President Joseph Daul and other European leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Recently-seized documents show that former Polish president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security between 1970 and 1976. Mr Walesa has admitted signing a commitment to be an informant but has insisted he never acted on it. In 2000 he was cleared by a special court. Lukasz Kaminski, head of the state National Remembrance Institute, said on Thursday documents seized from the house of the last communist interior minister, the late General Czeslaw Kiszczak... Читать дальше...

The annual rate of inflation as measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices last month went down to 0.8 per cent, the National Statistics Office said. It said the annual rate of inflation stood at 0.8 per cent, down from 1.2 per cent in December. A year earlier the annual rate was 0.8 per cent. The largest upward impacts on annual inflation were mainly due to higher prices of cigarettes, household appliances and an increase in the price of meat. The main downward impacts were mainly due to lower fuel prices and cheaper mobile phones. Читать дальше...

From where I stand most market analysts and our own estimates are still nowhere near current market prices. As a matter of fact the upside that exists between our price targets and markets prices is consistently above 20 per cent. As an example; Apple’s earnings for the last 12 months was $9.38 per share. Suppose Apple does not increase earnings going forward. This still implies that investors will add $9.38 to their wealth for each share of Apple they hold. At current prices this would mean a 10 per cent increase. Читать дальше...

Four environment non-governmental organisations this morning welcomed the Prime Minister's offer to mediate with Palumbo shipyards over the air and noise pollution. They also welcomed Palumbo's undertaking that “they were willing to find a solution to the long-standing issues” with residents in the area surrounding the dockyard. Flimkien għal Ambjent Ahjar, Friends of the Earth, Ramblers, and MOAM said they had been aware of the deteriorating environmental situation at the three cities and the authorities'... Читать дальше...

European arrest warrant proceedings are being launched this afternoon kicking off the legal process for the deportation of a 27-year-old man wanted for the girsly murder of a woman in Poland. Pole Cajetan Poznanski was arrested by plain clothes policemen at Valletta City Gate yesterday afternoon. He offered no resistance. He is wanted for the murder of a young woman in Posnan earlier this month. The woman, identified only as Catherine, was Mr Poznznski’s Italian teacher. Her charred, decapitated body was found in a bag earlier this month. Читать дальше...

Authorities in France seized three stuffed lions, three leopards and a giant crocodile head from a private home and turned them over to Paris's natural history museum. The specimens were brought back from an African hunt in the 1980s and stored in a home near the eastern city of Besancon along with dozens of other animals that the homeowner's late father had killed and stuffed. Customs agents seized the specimens after a tip-off last year. Even dead, the animals are protected by the Washington Convention on trade in endangered animals. Читать дальше...

Bill Cosby has filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against a woman whose 2005 sexual assault accusation led to his recent arrest. The lawsuit, filed a day before a key hearing in the criminal case against Cosby, names accuser Andrea Constand, her lawyer, her mother and the publisher of the National Enquirer. The lawsuit remained under seal on Wednesday, and Cosby's lawyers declined to comment on the allegations in it. However, the defendants were all subject to confidentiality clauses that covered... Читать дальше...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered preparations for launching attacks on South Korea, Seoul's spy agency disclosed, as worries about the North grow after its recent nuclear test and rocket launch. In a private briefing to ruling Saenuri Party members, the National Intelligence Service said the North's spy agency has begun work to implement the order to "actively muster capabilities" to carry out cyber and other attacks on South Korea, North Korea has a history of attacks on South Korea,... Читать дальше...

Claims that V18 artistic director Mario Philip Azzopardi threatened to use political connections to block artists' access to public funding ought to be investigated in the interest of good governance, the Nationalist Party said. It said in a statement this behaviour was totally against any form of best practice in any democratic western country.  "Mario Philip Azzopardi is the artistic director for the Valletta European Capital of Culture 2018 and is expected to show responsible behaviour at all times. Читать дальше...

Turkish authorities have arrested nine suspects over the bombing in Ankara that killed at least 28 people, as prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Kurdish militants were to blame. Mr Davutoglu confirmed press reports that the man who detonated the car bomb that targeted buses carrying military personnel on Wednesday was a Syrian national who had been identified from his fingerprints. He pledged that Turkey would hit back at the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Dozens more pople were wounded... Читать дальше...

A new Malta-based global disability monitoring programme was launched today to document and support critical action on rights violations, with a special focus on the global south. Global Disability Watch, a one-stop disability platform will monitor, collate and report accessible information on disability and development policy from the ground up in an effort to support local advocacy efforts. The World Health Organisation and the World Bank estimate that around 15 per cent of the world’s population are disabled people. Читать дальше...

Ixaris, a global payment solutions provider, is opening the doors of its San Ġwann offices on March 1 and March 3 to show prospective candidates what working for Ixaris could mean for their careers and job satisfaction. Over the two days, Ixaris will present its plans and give an insight into the collaborative culture at Ixaris. With a number of full-time opportunities available across all business functions, candidates can find out about a range of posts including software development, systems analysis... Читать дальше...

Controversial TV presenter Emmy Bezzina will be hosting a no-holds-barred, adults only live show at the University of Malta on March 19. Dr Bezzina, famous for his colourful outbursts when contacted live on air by “idiotic” viewers, is promising a celebration of free speech during his show. Unfortunately, the show has already started off on a slightly sour note with Dr Bezzina expressing disappointment at the €10 admission fee. “That is a bit cheap. It should have at least been €1,000”, he joked when contacted by the Times of Malta. Читать дальше...

With the US presidential election race hotting up on the other side of the pond, it seems it is not just Scotland's own Hilary Clinton who shares her name with a candidate. According to the electoral register, across the UK there are at least 60 Donald Trumps and eight Hillary Clintons. There's also at least one Ted Cruz and one Jeb Bush - and giving Hillary a run for her money in the name stakes, there are at least 54 people called Bernard Sanders in Britain. Talking to the Press Association, one... Читать дальше...

A jury acquitted an Ohio man of stalking Gwyneth Paltrow after prosecutors said he sent her dozens of unsolicited letters and gifts in recent years. The case against Dante Soiu, 66, was the second in which he was accused of stalking the actress. The Columbus native was committed to a mental institution in the early 2000s after he was accused of sending lewd messages and sex toys to the actress and found not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury of six men and six women heard from a variety of witnesses... Читать дальше...

Barack Obama will pay a historic visit to Cuba next month, becoming the first US president to step foot on the island in nearly nine decades. The brief visit will mark a watershed moment for relations between the US and Cuba, a communist nation estranged from the US for half a century until Mr Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro moved to relaunch ties in 2014. Since then, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana and moved to restore commercial air travel, with a presidential... Читать дальше...

A group of lawyers want all pending cases before the Industrial Tribunal to be put on hold until independence and impartiality safeguards are in place and the set-up brought in line with the Constitution. Lawyers, including those specialising in industrial and labour laws, contacted by the Times of Malta say the Industrial Tribunal is at a “stalemate” following last week’s Appeals Court judgment ruling it unconstitutional. While some tribunal chairmen have opted to put off sine die the cases they... Читать дальше...

Pope Francis ended his five-day visit to Mexico with a message of love and compassion for its people and the migrants who pass through it on their way to the United States. For their political and religious leaders, the trip was more a lesson in tough love, as the pontiff criticised Mexico's ruling class for failing to protect people from predatory criminal gangs and rampant corruption. He also told bishops to get closer to their flock and ease their suffering, and visited some of the country's poorest... Читать дальше...

The following are the top stories in Maltese newspapers today. Times of Malta says a group of lawyers want all pending cases before the Industrial Tribunal to be put on hold until independence and impartiality safeguards are in place and the set-up brought in line with the Constitution. In another story, it says Valletta 2018 chairman Jason Micallef has defended the work of artistic director Mario Philip Azzopardi but refused to comment on claims of serious abusive behaviour made by former colleagues. Читать дальше...

British Prime Minister David Cameron will only have won a third of the battle if tonight he gets fellow EU leaders to agree on a deal giving his country special concessions. Mr Cameron will be making his case at a Brussels summit that will have on its agenda the UK’s request for a new deal redefining its EU membership. This is likely to overshadow the item on the agenda; migration – which is a very divisive topic. The deal is crucial for Mr Cameron to be able to convince a skeptical British public... Читать дальше...

Michael Schumacher’s manager hopes that the seven-time Formula One world champion “will be here again one day”. It is more than two years since Schumacher, 47, sustained horrific brain injuries in a freak accident while skiing in the French Alps, and updates on his condition have been infrequent. But Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm has provided a rare insight on the health of the stricken F1 Grand Prix star. Speaking at the opening of an exhibition of Schumacher’s career in Marburg, Germany, Kehm said... Читать дальше...