Valletta’s Republic Street was already buzzing with late-afternoon shoppers yesterday when the push-notification lit up phones: the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada will formally recognise Palestinian statehood within the 1967 borders. By the time the church bells struck six, the foyer of the Mediterranean Conference Centre had morphed into an impromptu forum—Maltese students still in…
Academy of Givers AGM celebrates milestones while re-writing Malta’s philanthropy playbook Valletta’s 17-century Sala Nobile at the Casino Maltese felt more like a living room last Thursday evening as 120 donors, volunteers and NGO leaders squeezed onto velvet-lined benches to toast a quietly revolutionary year. The Academy of Givers—Malta’s only membership network dedicated to strategic…
**Aldo Micallef-Grimaud’s Legacy Comes Home: Landmark Retrospective Opens at MUŻA** Valletta—The city’s baroque balconies were still dripping from an early-summer shower when the doors of MUŻA swung open on Friday night for the first comprehensive retrospective of Aldo Micallef-Grimaud, the Maltese artist who painted the island’s post-war soul in hues of terracotta and cobalt. Curated…
Maltese Dominicans Re-Elect Provincial for a Second Term: A Vote of Continuity in a Changing Archipelago The narrow cobblestones of Valletta’s Republic Street were unusually hushed at dawn last Saturday, but inside the 16th-century cloister of the Dominican Priory of St Dominic, the air crackled with anticipation. By 7:30 a.m., the chapter hall—its walls still…
**When Malta’s Tramlines Turned Deadly: The Forgotten Carnage of 1904** The morning of 17 February 1904 began like any other in Valletta: hawkers shouted prices for lampuki, church bells chimed for Tierce, and the new electric tram slid down Kingsway humming with modern promise. By 8:47 a.m., the promise lay shattered in a tangle of…
**Bridging Stone and Policy: How Malta’s Top Build Seminar is Rewriting the Rules of the Islands’ Skyline** Valletta’s 17th-century bastions have survived sieges, sunstroke, and selfie sticks, but they’ve never faced a challenger quite like Malta’s 2024 construction boom. On Friday, inside the vaulted halls of the Mediterranean Conference Centre—once a hospital for the Knights…
Astrology’s appeal in uncertain times – why Malta is looking to the stars again By Hot Malta staff Valletta’s Republic Street after 9 p.m. feels like a village that forgot to sleep. Past the closed pharmacies and neon pastizzerias, a narrow staircase between two souvenir shops leads to a softly lit studio smelling of frankincense…
Carmel Micallef’s name does not ring out from billboards or political podiums, yet walk into any village fête from Żejtun to Żurrieq this summer and you will feel his quiet choreography at work: the brass band hitting a crescendo exactly as the statue of the patron saint emerges from the church door, the boy with…
A dream deal for CrediaBank By our Business Desk Valletta’s morning espresso had barely cooled on Wednesday when word swept through Republic Street that CrediaBank – the violet-branched lender born in a converted Sliema townhouse only eight years ago – is being snapped up by Scandinavian giant NordKredit for €1.3 billion. In Malta, where the…
**Britain’s Palestine Recognition Sparks Reflection in Malta: From Refugee Routes to Republic Street Solidarity** Valletta’s evening air carried an extra charge on Saturday as news alerts flashed across phone screens outside Café Cordina: Britain will formally recognise Palestinian statehood at dawn on Sunday. By the time the cannon at the Upper Barrakka fired its sunset…
**Il-Beżżul Bieżel – September 21, 2025: The Day Valletta’s Narrowest Alley Went Viral** Valletta woke up on Sunday 21 September 2025 to find that its most famous pinch-point had become an overnight global celebrity. By 7 a.m. a queue already snaked from the corner of Triq il-Lvant past the old Opera House, phones raised like…
Żepp’s Wake-Up Call: How One Man’s September 21 Protest Became a National Conversation Valletta’s Republic Street was still yawning itself awake on the morning of 21 September 2025 when Żepp Pisani, 67, parked his sky-blue 1979 Bedford van sideways across the City Gate archway, unfurled a hand-painted banner reading “Kif se nsalvaw il-futur?” and switched…
