Maltese Hearts Go Out to East Jerusalem as Gunmen Kill Five in Dawn Market Rampage By Maria Pace, Hot Malta Correspondent The bells of the Carmelite Church in Mdina had barely finished their 7 a.m. chime on Friday when news flashed across Maltese smartphones: five Israelis—four women and one man—lay dead in an east Jerusalem…
Valletta cafés were buzzing this morning as news broke that France’s parliament is expected to topple Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in a no-confidence vote later today. For Maltese sipping their pastizzi and kafè lattes along Republic Street, the unfolding drama in Paris feels both distant and oddly familiar—another European capital wrestling with the same question…
Valletta’s Grand Harbour was once the last friendly port for refugees seeking Europe’s safety; this weekend, its sister harbour in Sfax, Tunisia, echoed that role in reverse. More than 1,000 Tunisians lined the stone quays at dawn on Saturday, waving Palestinian flags and hoisting baskets of dates, to welcome two small wooden trawlers limping in…
Valletta’s lunchtime hush was broken at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday by a jarring, siren-like screech that spilled from every passing phone. Tourists lining up for ftira at Is-Suq tal-Belt flinched, and elderly men playing briscola by the Triton Fountain looked up in alarm. It wasn’t an Amber Alert for a missing child in Gozo, nor…
Valletta, 11 July – The amber glow of a Mediterranean sunset over the Grand Harbour last night felt almost surreal against the backdrop of news that Russia had unleashed its largest air assault of the war on Kyiv, striking the very seat of Ukraine’s government. In cafés along Strait Street, where tourists usually clink Cisk…
‘Big Beautiful Bill’: How Trump 2.0 is redrawing America’s economic map – and why Valletta’s cafés are suddenly buzzing about tariffs, TikTok and tuna exports Tucked beneath the honey-coloured limestone arches of Strait Street, the chatter in Café du Brazil has shifted from yesterday’s Eurovision odds to something rather unexpected: Donald Trump’s 3,000-page tariff bomb,…
# Horror in Nigeria: 55 Resettled Families Massacred by Jihadists – Why Malta Should Care The Mediterranean sun was still rising over Valletta’s honey-stoned bastions on Monday when news broke that 55 internally displaced Nigerians—people who had already fled Boko Haram once—were slaughtered in their sleep by jihadists who stormed a government-backed resettlement camp in…
Israel tells residents to leave Gaza City ahead of offensive: Malta watches, prays and mobilises By Luke Caruana, Valletta On a balmy Tuesday evening that normally belongs to after-work spritzes on Strait Street, televisions in every bar flickered with the same newsflash: Israel’s military has ordered the evacuation of all civilians from Gaza City ahead…
Yvette Cooper Becomes UK Foreign Minister, David Lammy Deputy PM: What This Means for Malta’s British Community and Beyond The Union Jack may flutter 2,000 kilometres away, but the political tremor that shook London on Monday morning was felt just as keenly in Sliema’s Windsor Bar and Gżira’s British Legion Club. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s…
Killing for Points: How Ukraine’s Gamified War Echoes Through Malta’s Living-Rooms The WhatsApp voice note crackled over the loudspeaker at Ħamrun’s Busy Bee café during Wednesday morning’s pastizzi rush. “They’re shooting people for TikTok likes now,” the message claimed, relaying a cousin’s footage from Kharkiv of Russian soldiers allegedly uploading kill-shots to a Telegram bot…
Afghanistan Quake Deadliest in Decades, Killing Over 2,200 – A Shock Felt Even in Malta’s Living Rooms By Sarah Vella | Hot Malta The first jolt hit Baghlan Province at 11:11 am local time, but the after-shock rippled through Maltese WhatsApp groups just minutes later. By sunset, the death toll had climbed past 2,200 –…
Flags at half-mast in Valletta, black ribbons pinned to café awnings in Sliema, and a minute’s silence before last night’s football derby: Malta joined Portugal yesterday in a gesture of trans-Mediterranean solidarity after the horrific Alfa Pendular derailment near Lisbon that killed seven and injured more than fifty. For many Maltese, the tragedy feels closer…
