Новости за 16.01.2021

Healthcare workers detected 175 new COVID-19 cases between Friday and Saturday while two virus patients died overnight, figures released on Saturday indicated.  The 175 new cases were identified following 3,293 swab tests, meaning just over 5.3 per cent of tests administered resulted positive.  The virus death toll rose by two to reach 238, although no details about the latest victims were available at the time of writing.  Meanwhile, 67 virus patients recovered overnight. As a result, there were... Читать дальше...

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party on Saturday picked her ally Armin Laschet as its next leader, in a vote that kicks off the race for Germany's top job as a deadly pandemic roils Europe's biggest economy. In the close race, Laschet, the state premier of Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, triumphed over old Merkel nemesis Friedrich Merz, after a first round that saw Merz leading by just five votes. A third hopeful, foreign affairs expert Norbert Roettgen, was knocked out of the race. Читать дальше...

Academic and diplomat Simone Borg will chair a steering group tasked with drafting a post-COVID strategy for Malta, the government announced on Saturday.  Borg, who heads the Department of Environmental Law at the University of Malta’s Faculty of Laws, will lead seven other steering group members and coordinate development of the post-COVID strategy.  Her appointment was announced by minister Owen Bonnici, whose portfolio includes coordination of post-COVID-19 strategy.  The steering group has been... Читать дальше...

Mauricio Pochettino needed less than two weeks to win his first trophy with Paris Saint-Germain but his new team are still doing the chasing in Ligue 1, a point behind leaders Lyon heading into the second half of the season. PSG go to Angers on Saturday fresh from beating Marseille 2-1 in Lens in midweek to win the Champions Trophy, the traditional curtain-raiser to the French season moved to the middle of winter as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on football. The game conveniently... Читать дальше...

Police officers forced into quarantine due to COVID-19 should be granted quarantine leave rather than be required to use up their sick leave, a Nationalist Party MP has argued. Beppe Fenech Adami said that the government was treating police officers like “second-class frontliners” by refusing to grant them a quarantine leave allowance.  “The government is refusing to treat the police with dignity and respect,” Fenech Adami said. The PN MP serves as Opposition spokesperson for national security. ... Читать дальше...

With hospitals decked out with flowers and balloons, India began Saturday one of the world's biggest coronavirus vaccine rollouts, a colossal and complex task compounded by safety worries, shaky infrastructure and public scepticism. The world's second-most populous nation hopes to inoculate around 300 million of its 1.3 billion people by July -- a number equal to almost the entire US population. Health workers, people over 50 and those deemed at high-risk are prioritised to receive one of two approved vaccines... Читать дальше...

Design competitions to turn three government buildings into homes for vulnerable people have attracted a lot of interest from architects, which can only benefit the communities. Fiona Galea Debono has more... Architectural firms have applied in droves for design competitions to rehabilitate three derelict government buildings for the use of NGOs and the vulnerable groups they represent. The Architectural Design Competitions have attracted 66 registrations from large and small practices alike – double... Читать дальше...

Property sales in 2020 generated around €3 billion in turnover, the Malta Developers Association said on Saturday, matching results obtained in 2019.  The MDA said that 13,867 promises of sale had been signed between January and December of last year – 624 more than were registered one year prior.  Sales boomed in December, when 1,390 promises of sale were signed for a total value of €382 million, according to the MDA’s preliminary data.   “The value of the sales produced in 2019 and 2020 was similar... Читать дальше...

Nurses have threatened to declare an industrial dispute unless logistical problems plaguing COVID-19 vaccine rollout at health centres are resolved.  The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses is demanding at least two additional security guards at each healthcare centre, patients to be contacted by phone ahead of their vaccine appointment tand for time intervals allocated for vaccinations to be doubled, to give nurses enough time to administer jabs.  In an open letter addressed to the permanent secretary within the health ministry... Читать дальше...

Manchester United’s bid to win the Premier League for the first time in eight years will face a major test when the leaders face champions Liverpool on Sunday. With points certain to be dropped by one of the title contenders at Anfield this weekend, third placed Manchester City can climb back into the race. Slumping Chelsea have been forced to put their own title ambitions on hold after a woeful run that must be arrested soon to take the pressure off boss Frank Lampard.   Continue reading this article on Sports Desk... Читать дальше...

Floriana are set to complete their first signing of the January transfer window as they have offered a contract to Dutch midfielder Jeroen Lombe, the Times of Malta understands. The Greens are passing through a lean spell in the Premier League which has seen them fall off the pace in this season’s title race and are keen to bring in reinforcements to try and turn their fortunes around. Continue reading this article on Sports Desk, the sports website by Times of Malta

Malta is vaccinating people against COVID-19 at a faster rate than most of its European Union peers, according to data collected by a global statistics website. With 9,496 vaccine doses administered by Friday, Malta is outpacing every other EU member state apart from Denmark when calculating the proportion of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people, according to figures collected by Our World in Data. The data, which was last updated on Friday, states that 2.15 per cent of locals have received a vaccine dose... Читать дальше...

On Tuesday, the Italian Cultural Institute and Merlin Publishers are presenting an online discussion with Italian authors Giacomo Mazzariol, Paola Frusca and Federico Buffa on the occasion of the publication of their books’ Maltese translation. [attach id=1015065 size="medium" align="right" type="image"][/attach] Mazzariol is the author of Mio fratello rincorre i dinosauri (2016, Giulio Einaudi Editore), which has been translated into Maltese by Ludvic Azzopardi Ferrando, who will also be present for the discussion. Читать дальше...

The Malta Marathon has fallen victim to COVID-19, with organisers on Saturday announcing that the 2021 edition has been cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. In a statement, the race organisers said that they were taking their responsibilities towards the COVID-19 pandemic very seriously and said that the decision to cancel the event is ‘understandable’ given the current circumstances in Malta. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the cancellation of the GiG Malta Marathon 2021,” the Malta Marathon organisers said in a statement. Читать дальше...

The MSE Equity Total Return Index registered a further 1.4% decline, as losses in the opening and closing sessions were enough to outweigh the gains in the other three sessions. The local equities’ index ended the week at 8,241.788 points. A total of 19 equities were active, three of which headed north, while another 10 closed in the opposite direction. A total weekly turnover of €0.8 million was generated over 152 deals. BMIT Technologies plc was the most liquid equity, as it registered a total turnover of €161,511 during the week. 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.

RSM Malta has appointed George Gregory as managing partner, following the retirement of Maria Micallef on December 31. Micallef has been RSM Malta’s managing partner for the past five years. During her tenure, Micallef led the firm through a period of growth in terms of portfolio and staff complement, including the move to the firm’s offices in Żebbuġ. Micallef is also one of the founding partners of RSM Malta. Gregory, another founding partner of RSM Malta, has been involved as partner in charge... Читать дальше...

These are the leading stories in local newspapers this Saturday. Times of Malta reports that Prime Minister Robert Abela did not recuse himself from a cabinet decision to refuse a pardon request filed by alleged Daphne Caruana Galizia hitman Vince Muscat. Abela, a lawyer, had in the past represented clients who Muscat was offering information about.  The newspaper also gives prominence to news that a new law in the works would make it a crime for a police officer to refuse to undergo a drug test. Читать дальше...

Malta has banned the importation of certain single-use plastics, such as bags, containers and cotton buds. Put into perspective of the enormous environmental damage caused by plastic waste, this is a mere drop in the ocean. Plastic is a highly toxic material made from fossil fuels. A 2017 global study showed that we created 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste up to 2015. Of this, only nine per cent has ever been recycled and 12 per cent has been incinerated, thus polluting the atmosphere, while... Читать дальше...