Village brass bands strike up a triumphant march at 7:30 a.m., fireworks crackle over Gozo’s earliest light, and the scent of freshly baked qagħaq tal-ħmira drifts through Xagħra’s narrow alleys. In an instant, the island’s second-largest village wakes up to its most cherished day: the feast of Jesus the Nazarene, a celebration that blends Mediterranean…
Watch: Eyes down, spirits high as thousands flock to tombola night By our staff reporter Valletta’s Republic Street echoed with the percussive clatter of thousands of plastic counters on cardboard last Saturday night as Malta’s biggest street tombola drew an estimated 12,000 players—grandmothers clutching rosaries, teenagers Face-timing their numbers, and tourists who thought they’d wandered…
Young Europeans are losing faith in democracy – here’s how Malta can earn it back By Hot Malta Staff The queue outside the Mosta polling station on 8 June looked more like a quiet bus stop than the beating heart of a republic. By 10:00 am only 37 of the 800 registered voters had bothered…
# Art: Are You Safe? *How Malta’s Creative Pulse is Fighting for Survival in the Age of Rising Rents and Vanishing Venues* Valletta’s Strait Street hasn’t been this quiet since the 1980s. The jazz bars that once spilled saxophone solos onto the cobbles are shuttered; the pink neon of the old “Atlantic Bar” now flickers…
‘We’re a family here’ – Aurelio Belli opens up on 50 years of feeding Sliema, one plate of rabbit at a time Sliema’s promenade hums with the clang of yacht masts and the hiss of espresso machines, but step inside Ta’ Kris restaurant on a Tuesday afternoon and the soundtrack changes: clinking carafes of local…
Letters to the editor – September 26, 2025 By Hot Malta Staff Valletta’s 17th-century printing press, now a hip wine-bar by night, still smells of ink at dawn. That scent drifted across the Grand Harbour this morning as editors at Times of Malta, Malta Today and The Shift unsealed the weekly postbag—an analog ritual that,…
War is a racket, said U.S. Marine Major-General Smedley Butler in 1935, and ninety years later the phrase still reverberates through Valletta’s limestone alleys every time another arms fair sets up in the Mediterranean. Malta, officially neutral since 1980, likes to style itself as a “peace lab” that once brokered talks between Gaddafi and the…
**Why the PN Can Win Again: A Maltese Political Phoenix Rising** The Nationalist Party’s headquarters in Pietà hums with a different energy these days. Where once hung an air of defeat, there’s now the unmistakable buzz of possibility. After nearly eleven years in opposition, the PN might just be positioning itself for a comeback that…
**Islanders Pause as September’s Final Friday Unfolds: What Today’s Announcements Mean for Malta** Valletta’s bronze bells had barely finished chiming nine when Prime Minister Robert Abela stepped up to the Auberge de Castille microphone, flanked by a turquoise backdrop that echoed the September sea. The date—26 September 2025—will be bookmarked in local diaries as the…
Skills for the Rock: How Malta is Rewiring its Workforce for the Next Decade By Hot Malta Correspondent On a Tuesday evening in Birkirkara, while most cafés are shutting up, the old police station on Triq il-Wied is buzzing. Teenagers in hoodies and pensioners in cardigans share the same long table, heads bent over Arduino…
**To boycott Eurovision or not? Former contestants weigh in** As calls to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest grow louder across Europe, Malta finds itself at a crossroads between its cherished Eurovision tradition and mounting pressure to take a stand against Israel’s participation. With decades of Eurovision passion woven into Malta’s cultural fabric, the debate has…
Aparthotel in Sliema to rise from seven to 10 storeys: Another slice of skyline gone? Sliema’s skyline is about to stretch a little higher. A seven-storey block on Cathedral Street is poised to sprout three extra floors, morphing into a 10-storey aparthotel that will loom over the traditional townhouses and 1960s apartment boxes below. The…
