Malta taken to court over sewage dumping at sea by Brussels

Feb 9 2022

The European Commission revealed in an announcement on Wednesday that it referred Malta to the EU Court of Justice because of the island’s failure to comply with so-called urban waste treatment directives. The directive requires member states to ensure that urban areas properly collect and treat waste water before this is dumped into the sea.

Brussels said in its announcement that the main issue was the performance of the island’s waste water transplants. Despite having a municipal collection system in place and waste water being directed to a treatment plant, the water exiting the plants of Malta’s urban areas does not meet the quality requirements of the EU’s directive. This is particularly the case for the northern part of the island. The commission said that since waste water is being discharged into a sensitive area it should be subject to even more stringent treatment.

The main concern expressed by the EU is linked to the discharge of farm waste (animal manure) into the municipal waste water system, a long standing problem in Malta. According to long reports about the issue by newsroom Times of Malta, Malta is the only country in the EU where all urban settlements do not comply with the urban wast water treatment directive. Furthermore, it is one out of only two countries that did not submit a report it was required to. The commission set a letter of formal notice to Malta in December 2016, followed by a reasoned opinion in October 2017.

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Official trailer for Disney and Pixar’s Lightyear finally drops

Feb 9 2022

Pixar has dropped the first full trailer for the upcoming Buzz Lightyear movie, featuring some very familiar faces. Lightyear, which stars Chris Evans who portrayed Captain America in the MCU, as the iconic character, it is set to provide the definitive origin story behind the Toy Story character.

The trailer sees Lightyear preparing for his launch on a test flight after appearing to have been marooned for several years on a planet with a scientist colony. Soaring through space, Lightyear explores some strange worlds and encounters robot-riddled space ships. And among them is the evil Emperor Zurg himself – and if you thought his toy version was sinister… think again.

Lightyear director Angus MacLane said Buzz’s world was always something he was excited about. ‘In Toy Story, there seemed to be this incredible backstory to him being a Space Ranger that’s only touched upon, and I always wanted to explore the world further’ he said. ‘What was the movie that Andy saw that made him want a Buzz Lightyear toy?’ asked MacLane. The trailer comes three months after Evans revealed the teaser for the movie, saying he is covered in goosebumps.

The film is set to launch to a screen on June 17th, and it’s set to expand the character’s world far beyond Andy’s bedroom…to infinity and beyond.

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Centre to reduce air pollution by 3,000 tonnes inaugurated

Feb 9 2022

A new centre for the distribution and storage of fuels in Ħas-Saptan was inaugurated with an investment of €70 million. The opening of the new plant follows the closing of a Birżebbuġa facility on the 31st of March 1979.

Prime Minister Robert Abela addressed the inauguration and said that with the closing of the Birżebbuġa implant and the opening of the new one, toxic emissions will be reduced by 20%. The effectiveness of the machinery will improve by 60%.

Abela said that through this investment, the government is sustaining the industry and Malta’s families, in particular those living in Birżebbuġa. During the event, it was said that the new centre will remove the need for around 44 voyages by fuel trucks on a daily basis.

This means there will be a reduction of around 3,000 tonnes of air pollution. It will also reduce the time taken to fill up a fuel tank from 50 minutes to 20 minutes.

Taking to Facebook, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said that the government kept to the promise made when the last truck left the implant back in 1979. She said that the government is continuing to regenerate the south of Malta and to offer a better quality of life for residents.

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A weekly jab for weight loss might be a possibility in the future

Feb 9 2022

A study has found a link between obesity loss and weekly usage of semaglutide, a widely used treatment of diabetes. Acting like a human glucagon-like-peptide-1 in that increases insulin secretion, jabs could be a reality in the near future. The study, which has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says that in participants with overweight or obesity, 2.4 mg of semaglutide once weekly plus lifestyle intervention was associated with sustained, clinically relevant reduction in body weight.

A total of 1,961 participants were included in the 2021 study with a body mass index of more than 30, without having diabetes. They were assigned to 68 weeks of treatment with once-weekly semaglutide or placebo alongside lifestyle intervention. It found that more participants in the semaglutide group than in the placebo group achieved weight reductions of 5% or more. In the semaglutide group, the weight dropped by more than 15kg and in the placebo group it was 2.6kg.

However, the side effects of the trial resulted in nausea and in some instances, diarrhoea, which were typically mild-to-moderate in severity and subsided with time. The study still confirmed that lifestyle interventions and weekly semaglutide are helpful to reduce obesity. As per data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975, with many studies also associating higher risk of COVID with obesity.

WHO defines overweight and obesity as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. A person whose BMI is more than or equal to 25 is overweight and a person whose BMI is greater than 30 is considered obese.

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