Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1006805
5 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 22 JULY 2018 Walid Nabhan: "It puts my emotional and linguistic abilities at stake. It is a decisive and binary moment in my career. We are talking about an audience of 384 million readers." Transport Malta fines bus company €183,000 for missed trips history, and burdened by a great responsibility of hav- ing Malta's most noble voice entrusted in my hands." Nabhan said that Arabs are generally fond of poetry, but not just any poetry. "It puts my emotional and lin- guistic abilities at stake. It is a decisive and binary mo- ment in my career. We are talking about an audience of 384 million readers." The literary project is supported by the National Book Council, and involves the translation of a selec- tion of Dun Karm's poems into Arabic, apart from an academic examination of the poet's legacy and the translated poems. The pro- ject will be completed by the end of 2019. "The signifi- cance of this pro- ject lies in the regrettable fact that Malta's national poet has never b e e n translated into Arabic, de- spite the cultural and ge- netic linguistic closeness between Arabic and Mal- tese," Nabhan said, who described the outcome of the translation as a chem- istry of cultures and a deep understanding of historical context. "Translation for me, is about re-flowering the re- ceiving language with the exact odour and colour of each petal depicted by the poet, meaning, capturing the inner feelings of the poet at the very moment of giv- ing birth to his poem. This requires a solid knowledge not only of the language, but also of the culture of the language and its people. Nabhan worked as a sci- entist at the laboratory at the Malta Dairy Products factory for a number of years, and is the author of L-Eżodu taċ-Ċikonji (2013) which won the Maltese Na- tional Prize for Literature in 2014, and the EU Prize for Literature in 2017. He also published a collection of poetry in Maltese in 2014. Nabhan has also translated works of Maltese literature into Arabic and is currently translating poems by for- mer MaltaToday journalist Karl Schembri. (C) VIRGINIA MONTEFORTE RELJIC Expression of Interest Invitation to submit proposals for the lease of space for Corporate Administrative Offices in Malta Due to further growth and expansion, the Malta Residency Visa Agency would like to receive offers for the leasing of suitable offices in accordance with the requirements and specifications referred to in the document which can be collected from the following address:- Ms. Luana Esposito Malta Residency Visa Agency, Clock Tower, Level 1, Tigné Point, Sliema TP01, Malta Ref : MRVA/072018/Corporate Offices Proposals are to be submitted by hand at the above-mentioned address by the 27 th of July 2017, at 12:00 noon CET. Late submissions will not be considered. JAMES DEBONO ONE out of every 33 sched- uled bus trips in 2017 did not take place, a rate that went down from one in 20 in 2016. The operators of Malta's public transport service were penalised for these missed trips to the tune of €183,559 in 2017. Transport Malta started im- posing penalties on missed trips from April 2016. During that year, the authority issued a total of €82,125 in penalties. In 2017, Transport Malta is- sued penalties to the tune of €183,559. Transport Malta monitors the reliability of the bus ser- vice by calculating the ratio between the actual num- ber of trips fulfilled against those scheduled. The ratio is worked by gathering GPS data from all the buses in service, so that the ratio is actual and not just a sample. According to a spokesper- son for Transport Malta, the average reliability during 2016 was 95% whilst that of 2017 was 97%. MaltaToday asked for these statistics in view of com- plaints made on the social media by commuters over missed trips. While commuters gener- ally report an improvement of the service, occasional missed trips with sometimes seri- ous consequences in terms of missed appointments and late arrivals to work, are still reported. TM did not reply when asked whether commuters can seek redress when they miss appointments as a result of missed trips. TM is reporting a growth of one million passenger trips in the first six months of 2018 when compared to the same period for last year. On Thursday, Malta Public Transport launched a bus control centre which will aim to reach greater efficiency in the service through techno- logical upgrades. The control room, situ- ated in Malta Public Trans- port's Qormi premises, will be tracking all buses – num- bering around 400 – operat- ing on Maltese roads, in real time, providing information on traffic delays, accidents and diversions.