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Five traffic fatalities in second quarter
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How odd! Police not taking even-handed approach to burglary inquiries
Attempted break-ins at odd-numbered houses were not fully investigated by one police force as part of an experiment to look at ways of saving money.
Leicestershire Police said the three-month pilot was launched earlier this year to see whether only responding to half of attempted burglaries had any impact on victim satisfaction rates.
For the purposes of the pilot, attempted burglaries at even-numbered houses would be fully investigated with forensic teams sent and fingerprints taken but this would not happen if the victim lived in an odd-numbered house.
The force added that if the victim was deemed vulnerable or the suspected burglary was part of a series of crimes, the property would be visited by officers regardless of house number.
Leicestershire Police said the pilot saw police officers attending all scenes of attempted burglary, but only sending forensic teams to half of all potential crime scenes had "no noticeable impact on victim satisfaction".
Jo Ashworth, director of forensic sciences, at the East Midlands special operations unit, said: "The pilot was developed to look at what value forensic teams bring to the detection of attempt burglaries. At a time when we are...
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Joseph Muscat is hostage to corrupt cliques - Beppe Fenech Adami
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New light on the brain
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73 new species recorded in Maltese waters
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Cecil the lion death: Zimbabwean trial of guide postponed
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Cycling the length of Great Britain to raise funds for Inspire
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Opposition leader files application for libel cases to be heard with urgency
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has filed an application in court for the five libel cases he filed against the General Workers' Union and Labour Party media to be heard with urgency.
He said he wanted the cases to be heard quickly because he was not afraid of the truth. He said he wanted the court to confirm as quickly as possibly that the allegation that he bribed the Gaffarena family, currently in the midst of controversy, was a lie from beginning to end.
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GWU asks Air Malta workers to only listen to what it had to say
The General Workers' Union has appealed to its members at Air Malta to only listen to what it had to say and ignore statements made by others for ulterior aims.
It said it was willing to cooperate with the government for the airline to be saved as long as this was done through discussions and agreement with the union.
The union said it noted Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis's declaration that there will not be a reduction in the workforce.
It said it was insisting with Air Malta to inform and discuss its plans with the union.
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Fisherman rescued
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Miss Piggy and Kermit break up ahead of new ABC Muppets show
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Price of fuel in Malta cheaper than European average - PL
European Commission statistics confirmed that the price of fuel in Malta was cheaper than the European average, the Labour Party said today.
Petrol cost 13c less than the European average and some seven European countries were paying more for petrol than Malta.
The party was referring to a statement yesterday by shadow minister Marthese Portelli in which she said that the cost of fuel in Malta did not reflect the drop in the price of oil.
The Labour Party said that if the Opposition followed the European Commission’s statistics it would see that the price of diesel was highest in the UK, where it was 38c more expensive than in Malta.
The PL said Maltese families and businesses knew that in the first part of this legislature the price of petrol had already gone down eight times and that of diesel seven times.
It said it was the last Nationalist administration which had increased the price of fuel by 36 per cent and that of electricity by 71 per cent when the international price of oil had only gone up by four per cent.
These two decisions had cost the average family in Malta €1,500 more each year.
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Pope: remarried Catholics 'will always be part of Church'
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Trading activity across equity market remains low
In contrast to the very high trading activity last week, volumes across the equity market remained low for the third successive day with only €184,000 worth of shares changing hands.
Despite this, the share index closed marginally higher at 4,220.747 points as the gains in HSBC offset the marginal declines in GO and Malita.
HSBC was the only positive performer of the day with a 0.8 per cent rise to €1.84 on total activity of 12,393 shares. Last Monday, HSBC Malta published its 2015 interim results 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...
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Hundreds could be dead as migrant boat capsizes
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Opposition questions public finances
PN deputy leader Mario de Marco said today that the Opposition on Friday tabled three Parliamentary questions in relation to the statistics on public finance issued by the National Statistics Office July 31.
The questions concerned the extraordinary increase in two revenue streams, namely customs and excise duty and grants.
These shot up by 62 per cent and 56 per cent respectively. Without these extraordinary, possibly one-off increases, the deficit in the first half of this year would have been at par with the deficit of the corresponding period last year, over €250 million.
The answer to these questions, Dr de Marco said, was relevant to determine whether government finances were being handled in a sustainable manner.
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Political agreement necessary for Libyans to work with EU on migration - Federica Mogherini
The European Commission and High Representative responsible for foreign policy, Federica Mogherini, has articulated her efforts to highlight the importance of migration in the UN-lead Libyan peace talks in a letter to MEP Miriam Dalli.
In earlier correspondence between the two, Dr Dalli urged Ms Mogherini to give prominence to migration in discussions on the instability in Libya. Dr Dalli's letter had garnered the support of another 64 MEPs.
“I have reached out to Libyan participants in the political dialogue and conveyed to them the urgency to reach a political agreement in order to be able to engage with the EU on this pressing matter. I also encouraged them to begin working together on shared challenges such as migration, not just because of the urgency and gravity of this but also as a trust-building measure that could bring closer cooperation,” Ms Mogherini said.
“I agree that the ongoing Libyan conflict has created an ideal environment for criminal activities of traffickers. Stabilising Libya is essential in order to prevent further loss of life off the Libyan shores,” she added.
Dr Dalli said that ensuring stability in Libya was a priority not just for Malta but also for...
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Two specialised doctors to start examining autistic children
Autistic children will now be examined by two specialised doctors and a representative from the social services department, Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia.
This was being done following complaints by parents and the Autism Parents’ Association that children with high-functioning or borderline autism were sometimes not being recognised as such and their applications were rejected.
Any person that is certified to be suffering from some kind of physical and/or mental disability may be granted disabled child allowance. This is over and above the children’s allowance.
Once an application is received, it is referred to a medical panel who decides if the child is eligible or not.
Dr Farrugia said the board had by the end of July this year received 132 applications for the disabled child allowance, 41 per cent of the applications from parents of autistic children.
Parents with autistic children who were not deemed eligible by the board would be reconsidered under the new arrangement.
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Editor's choice of your photos - August 5
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MH370 probe: Experts begin examining plane wing fragment
French and Malaysian experts have begun examining a plane wing fragment that could offer the first tangible clue about the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
MH370 vanished more than a year ago with 239 people aboard.
Intact and encrusted with barnacles, the metal piece washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion and was sent to France, where investigators will determine whether it is from the missing Boeing 777, which disappeared after veering far off its set northerly course from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing.
In addition to confirming the provenance of the 777 flap, analysts say the investigators will examine the metal with high-powered microscopes to gain insight into what caused the plane to go down.
Malaysian military radar last confirmed the Boeing 777 over the Strait of Malacca.
Highly technical efforts to extrapolate the jet's final hours before it would have run out of fuel gave force to the theory that it went down somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean.
No-one is certain why the plane deviated so far from its planned route.
The French agency that investigates air crashes, known as the BEA, confirmed the inquiry was beginning. Experts from Boeing were...
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