**Sweden’s Youth-Crime Crackdown Resonates in Malta: Could 14 Be the New 14?** Valletta – While Swedish lawmakers prepare to drop the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 14 after a wave of gang shootings, Maltese living-rooms are buzzing with the same uncomfortable question: how young is too young to be held fully accountable? The…
Red Scarves in Strasbourg: How Malta’s Labour MEPs Turned Gaza Solidarity into a Mediterranean Moment By the time European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stepped up to the Strasbourg rostrum on Wednesday morning, the hemicycle was already a sea of crimson. But three seats in particular caught the eye of Maltese photographers: the ones…
EU Chief’s Sanction Threat on Israel: How Gaza Turmoil is Reaching Malta’s Shores By Hot Malta Newsroom Valletta’s Grand Harbour was calm at dawn on Tuesday, but the chatter inside city cafés was anything but. Over steaming cups of Kafè fit-Tazza, patrons swapped reactions to Brussels’ bombshell: EU High Representative Josep Borrell is formally asking…
Valletta cafés fell unusually quiet yesterday evening as televisions tuned to Al Jazeera showed Israeli jets wheeling above Doha’s glittering skyline. Patrons who had come for rabbit stew (fenkata) and mid-week Premier League replays instead watched the first flashes of what Israel terms “precision interdiction” and Qatar labels “a stab to the heart of diplomacy”….
Watch live: Von der Leyen gives her 2025 State of the Union speech – why every Maltese living-room is tuned in tonight By 8 p.m. the village band clubs have gone quiet, the festa fireworks are on pause, and even the usually boisterous ħobż-bi-żejt debate at the corner kazin has been suspended. Instead, televisions from…
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones: What a NATO Skirmish Means for Malta’s Christmas Markets and Winter Fuel Bills Żabbar grandmother Maria Pace was ladling rabbit stew for her grandchildren when her phone pinged with a Reuters alert: “Poland scrambles F-16s after Russian drones enter airspace.” She looked up, half expecting to see contrails over the…
**Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch Star in The Roses: A Cinematic Treat for Maltese Film Lovers** Malta’s cinema scene is set to sparkle as two of Britain’s most beloved acting powerhouses, Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, reunite on screen in *The Roses*, a darkly comedic drama already generating Oscar buzz. While the film is not…
VALLETTA – When Polish radar screens flashed “intruder” at 04:47 on Sunday, the ripple was felt 1,600 km south in a Sliema flat where 23-year-old Polish ER nurse Zofia Kowalska was video-calling her mother in Kraków. “Mum said the windows shook,” Zofia told Hot Malta minutes after her shift at Mater Dei. “She asked if…
Spain stubbed out its last legal loophole last week when Health Minister Mónica García signed a decree extinguishing cigarettes on bar terraces, in public parks, and even on the sandy fringes of the Costas. From August, Spaniards will have to choose between their cortado and their Marlboro—no more café con leche in one hand, smoke…
**US unveils new health plan avoiding curbs on junk food, pesticides – what it means for Malta’s dinner tables** When Washington sneezes, the world catches a cold – and Malta’s food importers are already reaching for tissues. Last week the United States released its new 2025 National Nutrition Strategy, a 78-page document that promises to…
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Air Amid AI Race and Tariff Pressures – What It Means for Malta’s Tech-Hungry Islanders By Hot Malta Newsroom Sliema’s Tower Road was still yawning itself awake at 06:00 CET when Apple’s pre-recorded keynote flickered onto the giant LED screen outside the iCentre outlet. By 06:03, a queue of slippers-and-coffee Maltese…
# Nepal protesters set parliament ablaze as PM quits: What it means for Malta’s Nepalese community Kathmandu’s skies turned orange on Monday night as furious demonstrators breached the gates of parliament, hurling petrol bombs at the 19th-century Singha Durbar complex and torching the main assembly hall. By dawn, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal – the…
