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TRUTH IS OF NO COLOUR WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT SUNDAY • 18 SEPTEMBER 2022 • ISSUE 1194 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY maltatoday Collective responsibility Refugee Council demands inquiry into tragic death of young girl BACK Transport Malta backlog as investigations into scandal continue PAGE 4 Licensing WE'RE RECRUITING! JOIN OUR TEAM HELP YOU franksalt.com.mt/befrank Loujin JAMES DEBONO THE Planning Authority is set to approve plans which give the coun- try space to deposit 850,000 cubic metres of waste by increasing the height of the Għallis engineered landfill. In a race against time be- fore a new incinerator starts func- tioning, this will give Malta a res- pite of an additional two years in preparing for the infrastructure to address the waste problem. A Planning Authority case of- ficer, recommending approval for the increased heights, describes "the limited void space" available at Għallis's non-hazardous landfill as "the most significant waste man- agement issue at the national level". €1.95 Absolute majority don't want women sent to prison for abortion KURT SANSONE AN absolute majority of people believe that women who have an abortion should not be sent to prison, according to a MaltaTo- day-Polar survey. The findings show that 53.3% of people, up from 46.9% last year, disagree that women who terminate their pregnan- cy should be liable to a prison sentence of up to three years. Maltese law criminalises abortion without exception. A woman can be imprisoned for up to three years, while the medical practitioner carrying out the abortion can be jailed for up to four years and lose their warrant. PAGES 2-3 chief executive Gauci INTERVIEW MT2 MaltaToday Survey Race against time: new Maghtab 'hill' needed to avoid waste crisis PAGES 8-9 Police financial crimes department could lose top investigator as Alexandra Mamo goes out on long leave PAGE 4 EAW investigation: official ignored three reminders maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 SEPTEMBER 2022 COMMENT What are we skinning? Na- tionalist MP Edwin Vassallo's objection to an episode of Peppa Pig which introduces a character raised by a same-sex (lesbian) polar bear couple, on the grounds that this is, appar- ently, yet another example of "enforced ideological indoctri- nation" that is corrupting our children and robbing them of their essential innocence in early years. Why are we skinning it? Be- cause it's yet another example of elements of the Nationalist Party regaling us with mo- ments of true-blue nostalgia, when the world was simpler and all the more bigoted and patriarchal for being so, and when the dictates of the Church were considered to actually be gospel by a sizeable part of the Maltese population. Yes, I miss the days of stolid masculine leaders who en- forced our ideological norms with staunch conviction. Mintoff vs Eddie was such a re- assuring binary for many. It all started going downhill the moment brainiacs like Alfred Sant started cutting in on the action. We don't need no Har- vard education! Give me that perit action and that provincial village lawyer grit, and I'm hap- py as pie. This is why it's so important to fight for our right to remain narrow-minded and pig-head- ed in our simple ignorance (no intend- Thinking along the lines of that mindset, it's no surprise that kids' cartoons become a covert threat. Much like the cockroaches that your adora- ble fluffy cat brings in as a gift under the cover of night, Pep- pa Pig and its ilk are insidious messengers for the outside world. When in fact we all want to be safe as houses, literally. What's the point of building houses, otherwise? We certainly seem to be build- ing a lot of them. It's some- thing Edwin Vassallo should consider. If society were in fact so corrupt, then why are we so keen on aggressively building the exact same structures that would keep the outside world at bay? We are even destroying large swathes of our true-blue na- tional landscape to do so, to say nothing of traditional vil- lage cores which would previ- ously be dwarfed by the Church and nothing else. Yes, now that you mention it, the threat of vi- cious polar bears – lesbian or not – feels rather remote, when considering more immediate risks. Do say: "Equating the mere ap- pearance of LGBTIQ+ characters in children's entertainment with explicit material is irrational on top of being reactionary: it as- sumes that all there is to the lifestyle is explicit sex, and it dehumanises gay people every- where." Don't say: "Poor Edwin clearly the memo, though. token gay Russian mercenaries in Ukraine OPINION PAGE 6 The Skinny Malta, shrunk down MICHAEL FALZON The Queen is dead... long live whoever is next PAGE 5 No 157 – Attack of the Lesbian Polar Bears RAPHAEL VASSALLO Air Malta is also 'too big to fail'… PAGES 10 & 11 EDITORIAL Too easy to say: 'Malta is full up' PAGE 2 CLARIA CUTAJAR Failing to enact the new Equality Act leaves workers vulnerable to abuse PAGE 12 Private military companies are used because they are cheaper long term, not requiring for soldiers' benefits maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 SEPTEMBER 2022 CLASSIFIEDS & COMMERCIALS ARTS • TV • WHAT'S ON Luke Galea Markapaġna presenter "Life after finishing a PhD taught me that there's a lot of uncertainty, which I wasn't ready to deal with and face" maltatoday Get the critical perspective on politics, culture and society Be the first to enjoy our print newspaper with a subscription When you need to decode what politicians are saying, when you want to understand why Malta's crazy construction industry is impacting upon your life, when you need to step out of the social media and understand the world from a different perspective, our journalists and columnists will provide you with expert reporting, analysis and commentary. 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