**Malta is moving forward – with confidence and purpose** The sun rises over Valletta’s honey-coloured bastions, casting long shadows across a capital that has witnessed empires rise and fall. Yet this morning feels different. As construction cranes punctuate the skyline and electric buses glide silently through medieval streets, Malta stands at a pivotal moment –…
Pre-budget reflections: fixing the basics, building the future By Hot Malta staff Valletta’s baroque balconies are glowing amber in the late-October sunset, but inside the Auberge de Castille the mood is spreadsheet-grey. Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has spent the week “listening” to unions, hunters, hoteliers and TikTok-ing teens who want cheaper bus fares. In cafés…
Liberty at life’s end: how Malta is re-writing the final chapter By Ariadne Spiteri, Hot Malta correspondent The late-afternoon sun glints off the limestone walls of Sir Paul Boffa Hospital in Ħal Far, but inside Ward 4 the light is softened by muslin curtains the colour of honey. A 78-year-old woman from Żejtun—let’s call her…
**Breaking Through Boundaries: The Art Detained by Customs** When local artist Sarah Mallia opened her package at MaltaPost’s Qormi sorting office last month, she expected to find the vibrant ceramic sculptures she’d commissioned from a Tunisian artisan. Instead, she was greeted by customs officials who confiscated the pieces, claiming they “didn’t align with import regulations”…
**What Your Neck Size Reveals About Your Health: A Maltese Wake-Up Call** As Maltese men proudly button up their Sunday shirts and women fasten delicate necklaces passed down through generations, few realize that a simple measurement could reveal crucial health insights. Your neck size, that seemingly innocuous number, has become Malta’s latest health conversation starter—and…
AI and Malta’s future – how the islands can surf the silicon wave without wiping out By [Hot Malta Staff] Smart traffic lights that speak Maltese, ferry timetables that rewrite themselves when the sirocco whips up the waves, a digital twin of Valletta that lets planners test pedestrian schemes before a single limestone block is…
**A Law Older Than the Republic: Malta’s 19th-Century Weapon Against the Homeless** Valletta’s sun-drenched bastions mask a quieter battle. At 5 a.m., while tourists queue for pastizzi and commuters elbow onto bendy-buses, a handful of rough-sleepers are woken by wardens and told to “move on”. If they refuse, they risk arrest—not under any modern social-policy…
Letters to the editor – September 14, 2025 From the stone balconies of Valletta to the fishing nets of Marsaxlokk, Maltese ink still matters By 7 a.m. on the third Sunday of September, the Times of Malta kiosk on Republic Street is already a miniature parliament. Retired teachers in linen shirts, bakers still dusted with…
**Pharmacies open today – September 14, 2025: Your Sunday lifeline across Malta and Gozo** It’s a sleepy Sunday morning in September, the kind where the sun already feels like a warm shawl across the limestone balconies of Valletta. Church bells have just finished their 8 a.m. cascade and the scent of freshly-baked ftira is drifting…
Floriana’s Granaries shimmered under a honey-gold September dawn as cannon-fire from the Saluting Battery echoed across Valletta’s bastions. By 07:00 CEST on 14 September 2025, Malta had already digested the first wave of national announcements—some expected, others slipped in quietly while the country was still rubbing sleep from its eyes. From bus lanes to beatifications,…
Budget Day announced: October 27 ================================= Valletta’s baroque balconies were still dripping with post-summer rain on Monday morning when Finance Minister Clyde Caruana stepped up to the lectern in Castille and uttered the three words every Maltese waiter, shop-owner and taxi driver had been waiting for: “Il-Budget huwa fis-27 ta’ Ottubru.” Budget Day is 27…
**Academic Demands Answers After Child Mental Health Unit ‘Fails Malta’s Most Vulnerable’** A leading Maltese psychologist has broken ranks to demand a full public inquiry into “systemic failures” at the country’s only in-patient child and adolescent mental health unit, warning that children as young as nine are being restrained, sedated and discharged prematurely because beds…
