Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1489656
TRUTH IS OF NO COLOUR WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT SUNDAY • 8 JANUARY 2023 • ISSUE 1210 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY maltatoday www.franksalt.com.mt/ftb BUYING YOUR FIRST HOME? save thousands with our offer! PAGE 2 PAGE 8 Labour knows its former chief justice is slow. It allowed him to retire PAGE 3 and EDITORIAL Bickering over Standards €1.95 No controls over free school transport, NAO investigation finds PAGE 4 Money down the bus lane Go on... make us laugh 40,000sq.m Gozo airstrip to be approved without any environment impact assessment in government bid to complete it by end-2023 with 15 daily f light movements from 6am to 1am JAMES DEBONO THE Environment and Re- sources Authority has exempted the proposed "rural airfield" in Xewkija in Gozo from the need of a full Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), after con- cluding that the impacts of the development are unlikely to be significant to the point of war- ranting such a study. Instead of seeking an EIA on the introduction of the fixed- wing service and extension of the airfield, it has called for a separate study on the airfield's noise impact. The EIA waiver will facili- tate the Gozo ministry's 2023 deadline for the completion of the project, which has only had preliminary studies that fall short of an EIA, whose terms must be drafted in a public consultation of residents and NGOs. Gozo airfield to get ok without impact study MATTHEW VELLA THE Maltese government will dissolve a state-owned compa- ny once planned to implement a controversial facial recognition CCTV system in touristic hot- spots, supplied by the Chinese technology giant Huawei. The Safe City Malta project was created by the Muscat administration in partnership with Huawei, but was called out by privacy experts like Prof. Joseph Can- nataci, a special rapporteur for the United Nations. In 2018, the La- bour administration announced that the facial recognition CCTV would be deployed in 'problem areas' like Paceville and Marsa. The surveillance project was to be implemented through a pub- lic-private partnership between Safe City Malta and Huawei. State ditches controversial Huawei CCTV company Actor and broadcaster Colin Fitz INTERVIEW MT2