Sunday’s Morning Briefing and Malta’s newspaper front-pages

Good morning,

The morning world headlines are dominated with the killings in the Pittsburgh synagogue and the crash of Leicester football team’s club chairman helicopter. The stories are continuously developing and you can read more on Leicester here the Pittsburgh’s killings here. 

Malta’s newspaper’s front pages refer to investigations linking Malta to an illegal tuna racket and a separate case related to the Libyan fuel smuggling. Another story concerns a continuation of the whistleblower’s revelations of alleged wrongdoing by MEP Casa.

The main story of The Sunday Times reports how an international fishing giant with a foothold in Malta is at the centre of an illegal tuna racket worth €20 million a year. The second front page story reports that TV programme Xarabank’s producer Peppi Azzopardi is considering legal action after a magistrate on Friday ordered him to keep two interviews off air. A photo, shows residents talkingto the media near the site of a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Independent on Sunday’s main story is about an arrest made by Italian authorities on Friday in which they seized €55 million in assets linked to the dirty oil investigation which to date has discovered over 350 million liters of Malta-smuggled Libyan fuel in two years alone. The second story concerns a decision by the Planning Authority to transfer €7 million which were earmarked for six localities, to use them for a car park project at University.

The main story of Maltatoday concerns MEP David Casa and quotes a whistleblower as stating that tax-declared salaries were deliberately inflated so that a portion of EP budget is retained by MEP’s office.

The main story of Illum states that almost all police stations in Gozo are seldom open and are under-staffed. Another story reports how the three experts appointed by court in relation to the inquiry on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder have costed €136,654.

The It-Torċa front page highlights some of the strongest aspects of this year’s Budget 2018 namely the gas plant which avoided price hikes in electricity, the monetary donations enjoyed by 100 NGO’s thanks to the IIP scheme and that studies for an underwater gas pipeline project is in an advanced stage.

Il-Kullhaddintroduces a report that analyses the benefits of this year’s Budget. Another story reports how the AG is suggesting a change in the law related to sub judicecases in the media and the third headline is about the ongoing feud between ex Sunday Times journalist Steve Mallia and blogger/journalist Manuel Delia.

Mument carries one major headline that quotes PN Leader Adrian Delia stating that the Government’s Budget failed to help families, workers, youth and pensioners.