**Cutting university funds is a cost too high** *By [Author Name], Hot Malta* Walk down Republic Street on a weekday afternoon and you’ll see them: clusters of students in hoodies emblazoned with the University of Malta crest, arguing over espressos about AI ethics, Baroque apses, or whether the latest EU directive will sink the family…
# Fed Slashes Rates as Global Ripples Reach Maltese Shores: What the 2025 Cut Means for Malta’s Wallet, Work & Weekends Valletta – While Washington’s marble corridors echoed with talk of “labour-market rebalancing” on Wednesday night, the first U.S. Federal Reserve rate cut of 2025 was already pinging off the limestone walls of Strait Street….
# From Valletta to Copenhagen: How Denmark’s Missile Shopping Spree Hits Close to Home in Malta **Valletta** – When Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced this week that Copenhagen will splash out on “long-range precision weapons” to counter a resurgent Russia, the news ping-paced across NATO’s southernmost frontier faster than a Knights-period cannonball. Malta,…
**Inflation Bites: Maltese Families Feel the Squeeze as Prices Outpace EU Average** The aroma of fresh pastizzi wafting through Valletta’s morning air now comes with a side of sticker shock. What once cost 30 cents now demands 50, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, according to the Nationalist Party, which warns that Malta’s…
**Royal Fanfare, Maltese Ears: What Trump’s Gold-Leaf London Welcome Means for the Rock in the Middle** By the time the Valletta bus depot clock struck 9 a.m., café TVs normally tuned to ONE’s soap replays had flicked to BBC World. Pensioners nursing ħobż biż-żejt watched a scarlet-clad Welsh Guards band strike up “Hail to the…
From smoky back-room card games in Valletta alleyways to the gleaming glass towers of St Julian’s hosting global iGaming giants, Malta’s relationship with gambling has always been intimate, entrepreneurial and—above all—fast-moving. Today, the island commands 10% of the world’s remote-gaming market, yet the journey from church-hall tombola to blockchain-based casinos is a tale woven with…
Valletta’s morning light catches the honey-stone of the bastions and, for a second, the capital looks unchanged since 1565. Look closer, though, and you’ll spot rooftop solar panels glinting beside baroque statues, delivery drones skimming the Grand Harbour where galleys once moored, and a start-up crew live-streaming their pitch from a 17th-century palazzo. That contrast—antique…
**HSBC Malta’s €200m Exit: The End of an Era for the Red-and-White Bank** Sliema’s Tower Road was already buzzing with Tuesday-morning espresso steam when the WhatsApp forwards landed: HSBC Malta is being sold to CrediaBank for €200 million. Within minutes, pensioners in the queue at the branch opposite Preluna Hotel were asking tellers if their…
**MHRA Slams Pilots’ Industrial Action, Warns of Lasting Damage to Malta’s Tourism Lifeline** The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) has issued a blistering critique of the latest industrial action by pilots operating under Malta Air Traffic Services (MATS), warning that the escalating disruption is “chipping away at the very backbone of our economy” and…
# Eurozone Rate Cut Sparks Festa-Fire Spending Surge as Malta Braces for ‘Il-Ħana’ Harvest Valletta’s cafés were buzzing louder than the brass bands of this weekend’s Żejtun festa after the European Central Bank (ECB) trimmed its deposit rate by 25 basis points to 3.5 %—the second cut in three months. For Maltese households juggling €3.20…
US TikTok Deal Edges Closer: What a Ban-or-Sale Could Mean for Malta’s 300,000-Strong User Base By Hot Malta Staff Valletta – When US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Sunday that Washington is “very close” to a final agreement forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell or face a nationwide ban, the headline…
Alexander Demarco, the softly-spoken lawyer who has spent the last seven years whispering monetary policy into the Prime Minister’s ear, is odds-on to become the next Governor of the Central Bank of Malta when Governor Edward Scicluna’s non-renewable term expires in June. The whispers started in Valletta’s coffee houses, migrated to the law courts of…
