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2 NEWS 17.12.2020 RAFFAELLO Bezzina, Christa- belle Borg, Abigail Deguara, Joseph Tong and Michela Vel- la have made it into this year's Dean's List within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malta. e Dean's List is a recog- nition of excellence with very stringent requirements. is 24th edition was supported by Bank of Valletta who have sponsored each edition since its inception. e students were presented with a commemorative certifi- cate by Faculty Dean Dominic Fenech and a monetary dona- tion by Claudette Pace, Manag- er at Bank of Valletta. "To be placed on the Dean's list can be considered as a high- er honour than a First Class De- gree. e criteria for getting in the list are very stringent, with students needing to obtain a Grade 'A' in at least 80 credits within the first two years of the course, so there is no space for slacking and then recovering at a later stage," Fenech said. "For the first time, we have three students, Raffaello, Christabelle and Abigail, who were studying the same subject, Maltese, with Joseph studying Spanish and Michela with Lin- guistics." Pace said BOV felt it was an honour to celebrate these stu- dents' brilliance and hard work. "At Bank of Valletta we are proud to support an award that promotes such a high lev- el of excellence," she said. "We strongly believe that our invest- ment in education will give our society a greater return in the future." Five students make it into Faculty of Arts Dean's List MALTA International Airport yester- day officially set the ball rolling in re- lation to its multi-million investment in a new apron - Apron X - with the publication of a call for tenders for the development of a new aircraft parking area and supporting facilities. Strategically positioned between Apron 8 and Apron 9, Apron X and supporting facilities will be developed over an area covering approximately 100,000 square metres. is ambitious project constitutes the largest invest- ment in aerodrome infrastructure to be undertaken by the company since Malta International Airport assumed management of the aerodrome in 1998. e infrastructural project will see the development of a new aircraft parking area accommodating up to seven addi- tional narrow-body or three wide-body aircraft, with the enhanced parking ca- pacity contributing to a smoother oper- ation in the medium to long term. Besides equipping Malta Internation- al Airport with enhanced aircraft park- ing stand capacity, the Apron X invest- ment provides for the construction of a new taxiway, which would improve accessibility to the new apron, and the development of a staging area housing facilities for essential ground handling equipment. e project is also designed to sup- port MIA in honouring its environ- mental commitments through the de- velopment of adequate storm-water collection facilities, the installation of LED floodlighting systems, and the replacement of auxiliary power units, which are currently used by parked air- craft, with ground-power supply units. MIA launches call for tenders for Apron X investment IN line with the Authori- ty for Transport in Malta's continuous effort to en- hance Malta's capabilities to respond to an eventual oil pollution incident, the Au- thority has teamed up with national competent entities participating in the Marine Pollution Cooperation in the Western Mediterranean (West MOPoCo) project to enhance preparedness and response to marine pollution in the west Mediterranean region as well as to comple- ment existing cooperation frameworks. e Authority noted poten- tial opportunity to identify gaps in Malta's National Ma- rine Pollution Contingency Plan and strengthen commu- nication and cooperation with stakeholders as well as with the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre (REMPEC). One of the project's objec- tives is that every participating Coastal State organises a na- tional oil spill self-assessment workshop. e workshop organised yesterday, being a follow-up of last year's event, served as a platform to discuss the re- port issued by the Interna- tional Tanker Owners Pollu- tion Federation (ITOPF) and the continuous improvement programme which Malta has to follow. e Authority also updated all stakeholders with the progress that was achieved this year. Malta has transposed the Oil Pollution, Preparedness, Response and Co-operation Convention and HNS Proto- col into national law. e ap- plicable Regulations give the necessary force of law to the National Marine Pollution Contingency Plan and ensure that all ports, marine termi- nals and marine facilities are also prepared for pollution in- cidents and emergencies. Furthermore, the Authority obtained the necessary sup- port from the Government to better implement the National Marine Pollution Contingen- cy Plan as mentioned in this year's budget speech. National workshop on oil spill contingency planning improvement programme

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