Former Rabat mayor Charles Azzopardi, disowned by the Labour Party, is a PN life member and vying for the parliamentary seat vacated by Edward Scicluna • PL deputy leader refuses to comment
The following are the top stories in Malta s newspapers on Wednesday.
Times of Malta reports that at 158 new cases, the numbers announced on Tuesday were the highest since November 18. It also reports that a restaurant where a big fight was sparked on New Year s eve has been told to stop operations. A witness had said there was zero consideration for COVID-19 rules.
Malta Today reports that former Rabat mayor Charles Azzopardi is to contest for the seat vacated in parliament by Edward Scicluna. Azzopardi had been banned from the Labour ticket in the 2019 local elections.
The Malta Independent quotes energy minister Miriam Dalli saying Malta could explore hybrid funding arrangements for a hydrogen-ready pipeline from Sicily to the power station. It follows an EU decision denying funding to Malta for a natural gas pipeline. The newspaper also reports how Labour MPs argued in the parliamentary standards committee that since former prime minister Joseph Muscat is no longer an MP
The following are the top stories in Malta's newspapers on Sunday.
The Sunday Times of Malta reports that 1,400 have received the COVID-19 jab and the authorit
Former minister Edward Scicluna resigned his parliamentary seat on Wednesday but Labour Party insiders are concerned about two of the candidates likely to replace him.
Scicluna, who had been finance minister since 2013, sent his resignation to Speaker Anġlu Farrugia on Wednesday morning and will take up the post of governor of the Central Bank on Friday.
His departure from the House will trigger a casual election between the candidates who had unsuccessfully contested the 2017 general election on the seventh electoral district of Żebbuġ and the surrounding neighbourhood.
Party sources have described a feeling of unease surrounding the casual election, as members of the Labour leadership have concerns over two of the three candidates.
Anthony Manduca pays tribute to some of the prominent Maltese people who died this year.
Cardinal Prospero Grech, died on December 30, 2019, aged 94.
The Augustinian scholar who became the second cardinal in Maltese history was one of 22 cardinals appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in February 2012. Once described as “possibly the most intelligent man alive” by English priest Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith in an article in the Catholic Herald, Cardinal Grech served as a professor at the Augustine Institute in Rome. In 1970, he co-founded the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum attached to the Lateran University in Rome and served as its president from 1971 to 1979. In 2011, he was appointed a Companion of the National Order of Merit.