Maltese Paralympic swimmer places second in World Series

Mar 16 2022

More amazing local athletes are making waves (literally) on the international scene. Paralympic swimmer Maja Theuma has just managed to place second in the 50m freestyle on Saturday at the World Series in Lingano.

21-year-old Theuma managed to achieve a season best and then went on to clock more amazing achievements in the 400m freestyle and 100m backstroke.

The athlete managed to clock in 10:02:26 and 3:10:94 respectively, with the latter being her second fastest result in all of her events.

But that is not all as she also managed to place second in the 50m sprint with a time of 1:08:42. This was Theuma’s first international event of the season and is the run up to the upcoming ASA International Easter tournament this April.

Together with her team, Exiles, they will be heading out to Italy to participate in a training camp to prepare for the Easter event. Maja will continue to prove her athletic skill there, setting her up to be one of Malta’s very best.

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€400,000 investment for Naxxar’s Marija Bambina collegiate

Mar 16 2022

A €400,000 investment for Naxxar’s Marija Bambina collegiate was announced, with a sneak peek posted as to how the building will look after the change.

The investment will see the church get new professional lighting, with Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo posting to social media a snapshot of the model.

The project seeks to give the building a brand new look as well as raising its value. Works will being in the coming weeks following the completion of another major project which saw the restoration of the church’s front.

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Employers demanding PL drop pledge for mandatory union membership

Mar 16 2022

The Labour manifesto has revealed that the party agrees with the principle of mandatory membership in a trade union, promising to start discussions on the implementation of this measure.

However, this received backlash from three leading employers’ associations, who called on the party to drop this proposals with immediate effect.

The Malta Employers Association (MEA), Malta Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of SMEs declared that they are against the proposal during a news conference Wednesday morning.

MEA’s director-general Joseph Farrugia said that the three associations are completely agains the proposal and consider it not open for discussion.

Farrugia warned that any decision to forge ahead may lead to a disruption in established social dialogue structures which already exist. ‘The way the proposal is written in the manifesto makes it clear that it has already been decided that trade union membership will be made mandatory, but we cannot agree with this.’

This pledge goes against the European Charter of Human Rights, the Maltese constitution and the UN’s Charter for Human Rights, said Farrugia.

The proposal was however defended by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana who argued that unions help prevent the exploitation of employees. He did however say that he did not believe the proposal will result in 100% worker unionisation rates.

Instead, Caruana said, the measure will facilitate the process for workers who were hesitant to join a union because of any potential repercussions from their employers.

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PL and PN called out by Birdlife for ‘appeasing’ hunters for votes

Mar 16 2022

Birdlife Malta has expressed disappointment at what it deems the two main political parties’ attempts to appease hunters and trappers for votes.

This comes at the detriment of the rest of society, the organisation said in a press conference on Wednesday morning in Valletta.

Birdlife Malta CEO Mark Sultana said that this is putting Malta at risk of being taken again to the European Court of Justice on spring hunting, bird trapping and the illegal killing of protected birds.

Sultana said that for the two main parties, ‘those persons that do not have a hunting or trapping license are irrelevant. PL and PN both seem alienated from the fact that nobody enjoys the countryside when there are 10,000 hunters with loaded shotguns in our limited natural spaces.’

Sultana called out the lack of courage and ‘spine’ to stand up and bring solutions to control the illegal hunting in Malta which is ‘clearly rampant.’ The PN and PL are ‘both eager to see another spring hunting season, the most unsustainable practice, that goes against the EU Birds Directive.’

The ORNIS Committee, which is entrusted with advising the minister on matters concerning the conservation of wild birds, will be meeting on Wednesday and the agenda is aimed at weakening laws. This is an excuse to open a spring hunting season on the vulnerable turtle-dove, said Sultana.

‘While all of Europe is protecting this bird from extinction, Malta wants to hunt it down a few days before it reaches its breeding grounds’ he said.

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