Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/265009
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2014 9 Police on the employment of a radio-controlled plane to uncover illegal trapping. The comments stated: "Our police is greatly out- numbered by hunters. It is impossible to keep up. I do not agree with invasion of privacy but if hunters are breaking the law over and over again what do we expect? If an area is prone to illegal activities it is going to be surveyed by CCTV cameras and so on like Paceville." "Being Maltese and proud of it means preventing crimi- nals, not encouraging them. FKNK has exposed itself as nothing more than a front for people who want to break the law and get away with it. The only people who have any ob- jection to this monitoring are those who want to break the law." Following the FKNK's threat of criminal proceed- ings against the authors, en- vironmental NGO BirdLife accused the hunters' lobby of "curtailing and attacking" people's right to freedom of speech, saying this was a fa- miliar attempt for the hunt- ing community to prevent Maltese people from enjoying their rights. "The hunting community already prevents Maltese peo- ple from enjoying the coun- tryside through their illegal occupation of public land. They have already expanded their efforts to bully and har- ass the people of Malta by try- ing to prevent a referendum to abolish spring hunting and now to add salt to the wound they are attacking people's fundamental right to freedom of speech too," Steve Mickle- wright, executive director of BirdLife said. "It is deeply worrying that the police are spending their time investigating these com- plaints when they are unable to control acts of illegal hunt- ers. We call on the people of Malta to show their contempt for the hunting community's latest attempt to harass and bully people by signing the petition for a referendum to abolish spring hunting." Doing well but still under shock, the singer – who made it to the Malta Eurovision Song Contest's finals earlier this month with her song 'Brand New Day' – said that what started out as a nice day turned into a horrifying experi- ence. Together with their father and a friend, the sisters spent the morn- ing sightseeing before heading off to lunch. Feeling tired, Davinia and Natasha preferred going back to their hotel to rest. Their father called a cab, gave the taxi driver the directions and saw them off. "The driver knew where to go, we got in the car and he drove off. But after two minutes, as we entered a quiet street, two men jumped out of nowhere shouting and banging on the car," she said. Davinia was sitting on the right side, her sister to the left behind the driver. As the two men kept trying to open the taxi's doors, the girls fought back, holding tight to their doors. "One of them grabbed my sister's arm while the other was pulling at the driver. Everyone was shout- ing and at one point I noticed a van with more men waiting at the side," she said. Although they were hidden, Da- vinia said the men in the van were armed. "Both of us were in shock and we did not know what to do. The driver fought back, he got punched but he managed to save us. He drove away as fast as he could… I've never rode in a car driving so fast," she added. Still reeling from the shock, the two spoke immediately to the ho- tel manager and the head of se- curity who advised them against reporting the matter to the police: "In the panic and the shock, we did not even take down the number of the taxi's registration plate. We were told that we would have to go back to Istanbul for the court case. We're just glad it's over." The Pace family has been in con- tact with Reuben Gauci, Consul General of Malta in Istanbul. Dav- inia Pace said Gauci was very sup- portive, even offering to go visit them at the hotel. On Facebook, Davinia Pace reas- sured friends and followers that she and her sister were doing well. Pace added she was "disgusted" by what human trafficking meant. financially mishandled, resulting in excessive financial losses. This was the situation with the Book Fair until 2013. "The previous years' book fairs used to exceed the budget allocation of €40,000, putting at risk the fate of the book fair itself. It's no secret that offi- cials of the previous government ad- ministration had, last year, informed book fair participants of the possibil- ity that the next fair would not take place, simply because the 'money was running out'. And when I entered of- fice in July, I actually found out that preparations for the Book Fair 2013 had actually been kept on hold." Camilleri says the last book fair had to make the necessary trims to the set-up had to bring his own grandiose plans down to earth in the process. "I opted to work on the council's finances and administration to se- cure the book fair's survival," he says, refusing suggestions that its lacklus- tre attraction was down to a lack of ideas. "Looking back, I can say that the re- sults of this initiative proved positive. My fellow councillors and myself car- ried out a rigorous cost-cutting exer- cise on commercial contracts and re- tained the same amount and quality of service. We increased incentives with a new literary journal for emerg- ing authors and book donations to libraries. We re-branded the event, naming it the National Book Festi- val, as opposed to Fair, emphasising the celebration of its literary-cultural aspect, and downplaying, to some ex- tent, the commercial one." Participation fees for all exhibitors were reduced and for the exhibitors who opted to use a smaller stand, participation-rates were reduced by almost half compared to those of the previous book fair. "Instead of exceeding the budget allocation by €20,000, as was done in 2012, the National Book Coun- cil made a surplus of €5,000. Now, we can say with confidence that the National Book Festival is here to stay and with government's €94,000 budget allocation for Book Fest 2014, we have more funding for new excit- ing initiatives. This government takes education and culture very seriously and people like me appointed to po- sitions of cultural management have a great responsibility to bear: we are being pressed from politicians to de- liver and rightly so." News Police after online commenters following hunters' defamation report 'They kept banging on the car, one of them grabbed my sister by the arm' Council has its books in order, says new head Mark Camilleri: after his acquittal from obscenity charges on the publication of a short story by Alex Vella Gera, he now heads the National Book Council Davinia Pace Lino Farrugia