Former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has announced his resignation from Parliament after 12-years.
In a very brief address, Muscat noted that he had already signalled his intention to resign earlier this year. He said that he did not even informed his Labour colleagues about the submission of his resignation letter to avoid any ceremony.
Muscat insisted that he was proud to have served for three terms in the Maltese Parliament, including his time as Prime Minister.
The former Maltese PM, who campaigned against Maltàs EU membership, was elected to the European Parliament in 2004, and became Labour Party leader in 2008. He was co-opted to Parliament following the resignation of MP Joseph Cuschieri.
He became Prime Minister following the 2013 general election, and was re-elected in 2017 in spite of various corruption scandals, including the Panama Papers revelation that his chief of staff Keith Schembri and Labour Minister Konrad Mizzi had opened secret companies.
His second term was marked by the assassination his most prominent critic – investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The arrest of businessman Yorgen Fenech in November 2019 led to regular anti-government protests which led Muscat to resign from Prime Minister.
(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews

After just one week from the reopening of schools in Malta, the health authorities confirmed that seven educators and a student from four different schools have been tested positive for COVID-19.
So far, Malta has 518 active cases with a total of 2,770 recoveries and 39 deaths.
The Union of Professional Educators made a fresh call to the Maltese government to shift to online learning. The union said that notifications have been reaching the union’s offices informing of numerous alleged cases in a number of schools,and these notifications have not stopped rolling in since the re-opening of the schools.
The Union of Teachers accused the Maltese government of failing to take a strong lead in introducing restrictive measures and in enforcing them during the pandemic. The MUT added that the Government has to shoulder the responsibility for the re-opening of schools during a pandemic where the R-factor and the number of positive daily cases is high.
(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – Family lawyer Bernard Grech will become the next Leader of the Opposition in Malta. Late Saturday night he was voted to become the new leader of the Nationalist Party’s following yesterday’s leadership election as he has obtained more votes than the incumbent, Adrian Delia.
Addressing the party members, Bernard Grech declared “the first thing I will work on as PN leader is unity. This political party will be the party that everyone can feel part of. I want a party that is organized, credible and united.” “As from tomorrow we need to unite this party and start working towards a general election to make this glorious party a truly alternative government,” concluded Bernard Grech.
12,663 voted for Bernard Grech, that is 69.3% of the party members while Adrian Delia got 5,622 votes, 30.7%. There were also 77 invalid votes. In a statement issued by the PN’s Electoral Commission, shortly after the official result was announced, it was said 85% of the party members have voted.
Grech is the second successive PN leader chosen from outside Parliament, after Delia himself. MP and entrepreneur Ivan J. Bartolo has already offered to give up his seat to make way for Grech: since he was himself elected through a casual election, it will be up to the party to co-opt the replacement of its choice.
The leadership election was held on the strength of a decision of the PN’s general council on 1 August, with the council having rejected Deliàs preferred option of a simple confidence vote among the tesserati.
Delia had already lost confidence votes among the party’s parliamentary group and its executive committee, but insisted that only the party members could force his removal from the party’s leadership.
(ITALPRESS).

Source: medNews

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control shows that Malta is reporting the highest Covid-19 mortality rate in Europe, with 3.6 deaths per 100,000 population reported over the previous 14 days. Only Spain comes close, with a rate of 3.4. Meanwhile, the health authorities in Malta confirmed that three patients have died due to coronavirus during the last 24 hours, bringing Maltàs death count to 37. Two men, aged 90 and 78 years, died at Mater Dei Hospital. The 90 year old resulted positive to the virus on the 15th of September and was admitted to Mater Dei Hospital on the 27th of September. The 78 year old resulted positive to the virus on the 10th of September and was admitted to Mater Dei Hospital on the 15th of September. An 85-year-old man who was tested positive of the 27th September, has died of COVID-19 at a private hospital. Today, Malta has registered 44 new cases of coronavirus. This brings up the number of persons with COVID-19 to 434. 2,668 patients have recovered since last March.
(ITALPRESS).

Source: medNews

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – Following sufficient evidence, on Thursday, the Police in Malta arraigned Neville Gafà,former official at the Office of the Prime Minister for threatening investigative Italian journalist Sebastiano Scavo.
The Police said in court that on 5th August 2020 they received a complaint from Italian Journalist Sebastiano Scavo regarding a comment made by Gafà on Twitter following a post made by the humanitarian NGO Alarm Phone.
Gafà used his Twitter account to tell Scavo “stop your dirty business. If not, we will be stopping you.”
The Italian journalist has been following ground-breaking stories on pushbacks into Libyan concentration camps on migrants from all over the African continent.
During the interrogation, Gafà admitted that he posted the comment on twitter while he was at his residence in Mellie?a. Gafà insited that he had no intention to pose a threat or harm Scavo but it was a political comment as he wanted to make pressure on the issue of migration.
In court, the Italian journalist said that he still feels threatened by the accused even after he tried to clarify the matter with Gafà. Scavo recalls how, on Twitter, he had asked him what he meant when he wrote “we will stop you” and who is “we”. A question to which the accused had not replied.
The Italian journalist also said that since 2019 he has been under the protection of Italian Police and this year this protection has again been confirmed following the threats posed by Neville Gafà. Sebastiano Scavo has presented in court the documents which prove he is under protection.
The case will continue on 15th of October.
(ITALPRESS).

Source: medNews

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – The health authorities in Malta has confirmed new four victims in 24 hours after they were tested positive for coronavirus in recent weeks. Three were living in separate residential care and the other victim was a patient at a mental hospital. The latest victims were in their eighties and nineties; and were suffering form other health conditions.
So far, Malta has registered 31 deaths. Superintendent for Public Health, Professor Charmaine Gauci confirmed that 25 per cent of Malta’s COVID-19 deaths have been residents in homes for the elderly. Meanwhile, 623 cases are still active while 2,304 have recovered.
In its latest risk asessment, he European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is considering Malta to be a country whose Covid-19 trend is one of “high concern,” with the country reporting one of the highest death rates in the EU.
At present, Malta has registered the third-highest death among the 31 European countries, with the 14-day cumulative number of Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 reaching 2.2. Only Spain (3.0) and Romania (2.7) have reported higher rates.
Meanwhile, the Maltese government has announced that students will be back to school as from Wednesday 7th October. Teachers will be back at school on the 28th September. However, parents and custodians will be given the liberty to choose whether to send their children to school. In the past weeks and months, the government said that it made sure that all measures listed in the guidelines for the re-opening of schools are adhered to.
(ITALPRESS).

Source: medNews

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – Malta, former Chief of Staff at the OPM arrested over alleged bribery and money laundering Keith Schembri, the former chief of staff at the Office of the Maltese Prime Minister has been arrested as part of an investigation on bribery and money laundering allegations in connection to the selling of Maltese passport.
Keith Schembri was arrested at 12.30am last night while he was at his private residence in Mellie?a. He is being interrogated at the Police Headquarters. The police also detained Brian Tonna and Karl Cini from the financial advisory firm Nexia BT amongst others, the agents for the selling of Maltese citizenship to a family of three Russian nationals. The Panama Papers revealed that Nexia BT was responsible for the setting up of secret companies for Keith Schembri and former Labour government Minister Konrad Mizzi.
On Monday, Madam Justice Edwina Grima issued an order to freeze all assets held by Keith Schembri, his wife and one of his two daughters, among others. The lengthy list includes Nexia BT and its partners. The court concluded that there is reasonable suspicion that money laundering offences have been committed. The order followed a request by the Attorney General to freeze the assets of 40 individuals and several companies. Several companies were given 24 hours to comply with the order and to notify the Attorney General of all possessions of the defendants, together with any goods, accounts, services or safety deposit boxes they have with financial institutions.
The application comes days after the conclusion of a magisterial inquiry into whether Schembri took a €100,000 kickback on passport sales. The inquiry was based on a leaked report compiled by the Financial Intelligence Agency Unit.
Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg has refused to hand over a copy of the inquiry report into allegations of bribery between Keith Schembri and Brian Tonna to former Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil who triggered the investigation in April 2017.
(ITALPRESS).

Source: medNews

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – The health authorities in Malta announced three coronavirus related deaths in 24 hours. This week was a record-breaking week for coronavirus cases, with the first day of more than a hundered posituve cases registered from the start of the pandemic. Malta has now reported 20 coronavirus-linked deaths in total, with five this week alone.
Unlike in the two previous cases, for the twentieth victim, the health authorities specified that an elderly man was suffering from other health conditions. He is an 85-year-old who was tested positive on 12 September when he was hospitalised at Mater Dei Hospital. The man was receiving treatment at the Infectious Diseases Unit.
The eighteenth and nineteenth coronavirus victims are both woman, a 72 year old and an 86 year old respectively. The 72 year old was hospitalised on 11 August. She was tested positive the next day. The woman has been in intensive care since 15 August. The second woman was also in intensive care. She had tested positive on 8 September and was hospitalised on 16 September. Their death follows that of an 86 year old woman who died on Monday at the Infectious Diseases Unit and a 91-year old woman who died at Mater Dei hospital between Thursday and Friday night.
The number of COVID-19 active cases now stands at 663 while 2,071 patients have recovered.
(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews

Concerns on migration in the Mediterranean were on top of the agenda during a brief state visit to Malta by European Council President Charles Michel.
Michel, a former Belgian Prime Minister paid also his respect to Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia at the site of her assassination in Ba?rija. While addressing the journalists, Michel declared “what happened here is shameful for Europe and an attack on the free press. My presence here is to pay my respects to Daphnès memory and her family who gave her life for freedom of speech, seeking the truth.” He was accompanied by Caruana Galiziàs husband, Peter and one of her sons, Matthew. After visiting the site, he had a private meeting with Caruana Galiziàs family.
On his arrival to Malta, Michel paid a visit to the Armed Forces of Malta, followed by a meeting with Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela in Valletta. Migration was top of the agenda. A particular reference was made to the European Union’s new pact on migration and asylum due to be unveiled next week. The upcoming pact has been kept under tight wraps, though Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas emphasised on agreements with countries of origin and transit, stronger border controls and what Schinas described as a system of “permanent, effective solidarity.”
During the meeting, Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela argued that allocating EU funds to Malta was no solution, insisting that there should be burden sharing. He insisted that there should be a permanent mechanism through which asylum seekers could be relocated from member states on the EU’s frontiers. “The reality we face is that every day, the AFM commander informs us on a number of boats leaving Libya, each with 90, 100 or 120 people”, he said.
He lamented that in the absence of proper mechanisms, each case was dealt with ad hoc, as he defended the government’s controversial decision to prevent the Maersk ship ‘Etiennè from disembarking in Malta for 38 days after it rescued a group of 27 migrants. He insisted that the impasse would have been solved had every member state accepted to take in a single person.
However, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have long opposed any mandatory relocation of asylum seekers.
(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews

Malta has registered a record high number of new positive coronavirus cases. The local health authorities confirmed that after 2,470 swab tests, 106 new cases were detected. This is the highest number of cases registered in 24 hours since the start of the pandemic bringing a total of 2,560 cases; 591 still active, 1,953 patients have recovered and 16 others lost their life.
The Malta Union of Teachers, MUT, is urging the Maltese government to not re-open schools and educational institutions to protect the health of educators, students and their families. Also, the Union of Professional Educators expressed its concern at the increase in numbers of COVID-19 positive cases. It stated that the situation is unsustainable and with the opening of schools on the 28th of September 2020, the number of cases will defiantly increase to unsustainable numbers thus putting a burden on our health care system. The Maltese Association of Parents of State School Students has warned that the reopening of schools would be “premature” and should be postponed. The association representing parents of state school students also called on the Maltese authorities to take the necessary actions to control the spread of the virus as there was “clear evidence that the spread of COVID is not slowing down”. “It is evident that the measures taken so far have not been effective enough,” it said.
Meanwhile, in a paper published in the Journal of Community Health, five medical professionals, including Superintendent of Public Health, Professor Charmaine Gauci declared that inconsistent messages earlier in summer from sectors “outside health” claiming that “everything is under control” gave false signals that COVID-19 was over.
Superintendent of Public Health described the present situation as “serious and worrying”. While the number of people treated in hospitals has increased, over the past few days many elderly residents in different care homes have contracted COVID-19. The Ministry for Family together with the Parliamentary Secretariat for the Elderly have issued a set of measures to be adhered to at all homes for the elderly. The residential care homes are also using staff-to-patient allocation and creating safe zones on each storey as well as taking other measures aimed at controlling the infection and residents who test negative are being tested again every three days.
(ITALPRESS/MNA).

Source: medNews