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Wartime drama takes centre stage at festival
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Dementia helpline launched
A dementia helpine, 1771, was launched today.
Adrian Farrugia, the acting charge nurse of St Vincent de Paul’s activities centre, said the helpline will be operated by four nurses 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It is intended for use by dementia sufferers and their families for anything they might need, be it services, problems or assistance. There are some 6,000 known dementia sufferers in Malta.
The four nurses have been trained to deal with any possible problems.
The helpline will be operated from St Vincent de Paul between 7am and 4pm, after which the nurses would be on call. The service starts today.
Parliamentary Secretary for the Care of the Elderly Justyne Caruana said that dementia in Malta should not be underestimated.
Dementia, she said, was referred to as the contemporary tsunami since it had a huge impact on the economy.
“If we are not proactive and take action now, the health services could collapse as a result of dementia in future,” she warned.
She said that interviews were currently being carried out to set up dementia intervention teams. There would be a team of professionals in each region, visiting people in the community and assisting them. This was over...
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Increase in licensed vehicles
The stock of licensed motor vehicles at the end of June stood at 340,981, up by one per cent over the previous quarter, the National Statistics Office said.
It said that, 79.3 per cent were passenger cars, 14 per cent were commercial vehicles and 5.7 per cent were motorcycles.
Buses and minibuses accounted for less than one per cent.
New licences issued in the second quarter amounted to 5,443. The majority (4,224 or 77.6 per cent) were issued to passenger cars, followed by motorcycles at 672.
Newly-licensed ‘new’ motor vehicles amounted to 2,505, or 46 per cent of the total, and new licences in respect of ‘used’ motor vehicles totalled 2,938.
In the second quarter, 114 vehicles were exported. Garaged vehicles amounted to 1,951, while scrapped vehicles totalled 1,013.
As at the end of June, 206,766 vehicles had petrol engines, making up 60.6 per cent of the total. At 132,960, diesel-powered vehicles accounted for 39 per cent.
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Dozens killed as war plane crashes in Syrian town
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Libyans in Malta protest judgment sentencing Saif Gaddafi to death
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Warning for people who work in sun and heat
Anybody working in the sun and the excessive heat should take all the necessary measures to prevent health problems which might have serious consequences, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority said.
It said in a statement this morning that information about the dangers associated with this type of work, the measures to be taken as well as information on the duty holders was available in an OHSA guidance document which could be downloaded here.
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Cat colony razed to the ground
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Woman hospitalised after Coast Road crash
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Updated: Simon Busuttil files libel suits against GWU newspapers, Labour Party media
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MH370 probe: investigators discuss wing fragment
French and Malaysian investigators are meeting in Paris after the arrival of a wing fragment many hope will solve the mystery of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Experts are trying to determine whether the part comes from the plane, which disappeared on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.
It was found on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion and returned to the French mainland.
Air safety investigators, including one from Boeing, have identified the component as a flaperon from the trailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing, a US official has said.
Flight 370 is the only missing 777 and many are convinced the flap comes from the ill-fated jet.
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Fined €20 for masturbating in public
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Nightclub handbag thief handed suspended sentence
A Serbian man who was caught trying to leave a Paceville nightclub with a woman's handbag has been handed a suspended sentence.
Marco Stanojevic, 30, from Bugibba, admitted to stealing the handbag that contained cash and a mobile phone, among other things. The incident happened early on Sunday morning. He was apprehended by the bouncers of the nightclub.
Magistrate Gabriella Vella condemned him to 18 months in prison suspended for four years.
Police inspector Matthew Spagnol prosecuted while lawyer Joseph Mizzi appeared for the man.
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Caught with cannabis, resists arrest, flees custody
A man who was caught with a small quantity of cannabis in Paceville on Saturday night caused a commotion as he resisted his arrest and fled, with several police officers in hot pursuit.
Magistrate Gabriella Vella heard how Ivorian national Kofi Ani, 27, from St Paul's Bay, was stopped for a random search in Paceville. He was found in possession of cannabis, resisted arrest and fled the scene. He was apprehended after a short while. He told the court that he had panicked.
The magistrate fined him €466 which she allowed him to pay with instalments of €77 a month.
Police Inspector Gabriel Micallef prosecuted while lawyer Joseph Mizzi appeared for the man.
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Greece: stock market reopens with 22% loss
Shares on the Athens Stock Exchange are suffering huge losses of over 22 per cent after the market reopened for the first time in more than a month.
Greece is currently locked in intense negotiations with bailout lenders in an effort to negotiate the terms of a massive new rescue package in the next two weeks.
The main index plunged early today after the country's Capital Market Commission formally approved the reopening of the exchange.
The exchange and Greek banks were closed on June 29, when controls on money withdrawals and transfers were imposed to prevent a collapse in the banking system due to a run on deposits.
Banks have since reopened, while maintaining strict withdrawal limits.
Greek bank stocks suffered the most, hitting or nearing the daily trading limit of a 30% loss.
Markets in the rest of Europe, however, were largely unaffected.
Greece is expected to head back into recession in 2015 - after briefly emerging from a six-year contraction - due to the effects of capital controls and months of uncertainty over the country's future in the euro.
A monthly survey of business and consumer confidence, the Economic Sentiment Indicator, fell for a fifth consecutive month in...
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Maid makes clean sweep of jewellery
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INCOMING exchange
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German migrant population highest since 2005
The number of migrants living in Germany reached 10.9 million last year - a million more than three years earlier and the highest figure since officials started compiling numbers a decade ago.
The Federal Statistical Office said 620,000 of the immigrants arriving since 2011 were from the European Union, with Poles, Romanians, Italians, Bulgarians and Hungarians the most common.
But it also reported large increases in the number of Chinese, Syrians and Indians arriving in Germany.
The number of people with foreign roots, which also includes the German-born children of immigrants who have arrived since 1950, came in at 16.4 million - about one-fifth of the entire population of 80 million.
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Hal Far wedding hall owner cleared of electricity theft
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HSBC share price up as dividends increase
HSBC published its 2015 interim results this morning revealing a 6.8 per cent drop in profitability to €23.9 million during the first six months of 2015.
The improvement achieved on the income side, largely relating to lower interest expense and the fees generated from the newly transferred insurance portfolio, was offset by higher costs (mainly linked to regulatory and compliance factors) as well as increased impairment charges.
The bank declared a gross interim dividend of 5c1 per share (to all shareholders as at the close of trading on August 12) representing a 25.9 per cent increase over the adjusted interim gross dividend declared with respect to the first six months of 2014.
The difference in dividend is attributable to a lower charge in connection with the general banking risk reserve as per the revised banking rule 09.
On the secondary market, the bank’s share price edged 1.6 per cent higher to regain the €1.82 level across 13 deals totalling 52,000 shares. The uplift in the bank’s share price helped the share index extend its recent positive run with a further 0.3 per cent increase to 4,219.479 points.
Malita Investments also performed positively with a 1.1 per cent...
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Woman in Zurrieq accident dies
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