Evening News Roundup

Good evening,

What follows are the main news as reported by Malta’s News Portals.

The President of Malta Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has begun a visit to the London hospitals where Maltese patients go for treatment. In all she will visit seven hospitals and three residencies where patients and their relatives live, TVM reports.

The father of a child accused of sexually abusing his eight-year old daughter has had his acquittal confirmed on appeal. The Times of Malta reports that the man’s ordeal kicked off in April 2016 when an LSA watching over the child during school hours expressed concerns about the girl’s behaviour.

Malta and Macedonia will continue to strengthen their political and economic relationship following talks held in the capital, Skopje, between the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Macedonian PM, Zoran Zaev.  TVM reports On his first official visit to Macedonia, PM Muscat announced the opening of a Consulate for Macedonia in Malta to service the needs of the 5000 Macedonian citizens working in Malta. Story also reported on One News. 

A Maltese delegation led by Minister for EU Affairs and Equality Helena Dalli today faced a grilling as the UN’s highest human rights body – the Human Rights Council (HRC) – reviewed the country’s track record on human rights. Shift News reports that several countries recommending that Malta takes “all the necessary steps and conducts a fully transparent investigation into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia to ensure justice is done”.

Electrogas consortium partner Siemens, a German company, told The Malta Independent that is monitoring the situation in Malta “very closely” after recent revelations with regard to a company named 17 Black. The Electrogas consortium is made up of Siemens, SOCAR (an Azerbaijan state-owned company), and a collection of Maltese investors known as GEM Holdings, of which Tumas Holdings forms part. Siemens, in response to the many questions sent, responded with one short paragraph. “Regarding your questions I can tell you that Siemens has no business relationship with a company called ‘17 Black Ltd.’ Siemens is monitoring the situation in Malta very closely. Please understand that we currently do not want to comment on the topic any further.”

Speaking in Parliament, Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Schembri said that Nationalist Party MP Jason Azzopardi made a series of serious false allegations on the issue of Satabank. Newsbook reports that Schembri accused Azzopardi of misleading the Parliamentary Chamber with his allegations.

In a break with his party’s tradition, PN MP Ivan Bartolo said Alfred Sant “was right” on his stand against political party participation. Malta Today reports Bartolo’s speech during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday evening on changes to the local council law, where he expressed misgivings over political bickering at council level that sometimes stifled the work at local level. While not urging political parties to withdraw from local elections – Bartolo himself was elected on a political party ticket to the Mosta council – he called on the parties to carry out better screening of candidates to avoid having unwilling people elected to local government.

Net News follows up the story about the issues related to the management of waste, particularly that of white goods, reporting that the contractors responsible for the collection of white goods have been notified not to take the goods to the civic amenity sites.