Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/318021
TWO loud blasts struck a busy cafe in downtown Djibouti frequented by West- erners yesterday, and at least 15 people were wounded. A Frenchman is among three killed. Police cordoned off the scene. It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts. The witness said he saw at least 10 peo- ple sitting near the area of the cafe, with bloody wounds. 21 Armed Forces of Malta personnel and their Dutch colleagues were on the same site at the time of the attack. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday tweeted that the men had been airlifted back to the Dutch vessel De Zeven Pro- vencien. YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT maltatoday €1.20 Download the MaltaToday App now xxxxx SUNDAY • 25 MAY 2014 • ISSUE 759 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY Turnout 4% down, PL could retain absolute majority Newspaper post PBS CHAIRMAN TONIO PORTUGHESE INTERVIEWD pgs 12-13 GWU to rent out offices to ARMS JURGEN BALZAN ARMS Ltd (Automated Rev- enue Management Service) – the billing company for En- emalta and the Water Serv- ices Corporation – is looking into the possibility of open- ing an office in Valletta and renting out the space cur- rently owned and occupied by a General Workers Union subsidiary. Contacted by MaltaToday, GWU president Victor Cara- chi yesterday did not deny that the union would be rent- ing out the offices currently used by its travel and insur- ance agency, to ARMS Ltd. Asked whether the union would be letting out the Un- tours offices on Old Bakery Street to the state billing company, Carachi said: "I have no comment to give." Pressed whether he ruled out the possibility, the veteran trade unionist repeated that he had no comments to give. Currently, ARMS's offices are located in Gattard House, Blata l-Bajda, but the compa- ny is in the process of open- ing a number of regional of- fices, including Valletta. THE voter turnout yesterday stood at 75%, nearly four percentage points down from 78.79% turnout in 2009. There was no clear indication how this would influence the final result but it appeared that voter absten- tion was possibly higher in Labour strongholds, though the trend also appeared in traditional PN majori- ties. The only district which had the same turnout was Gozo. Predica- tions based on extrapolations based on consecutive MaltaToday polls in- dicate that the Labour Party would reduce its support but possibly still retain an absolute majority of votes. The extrapolation was made as a result of polls conducted between 4 May and 22 May, after remov- ing those respondents who did not know and respondents who said they would not be voting. The extrapola- tion put the mean at 52.4 for PL and 43 for PN. A total of 344,374 Maltese voters including 7,880 EU citizens living in Malta were eligible to vote yesterday. 21,856 votes were not collected equiv- alent to 6.3% of all eligible voters. Turnout has constantly fallen in every EU election since 1979 and in Malta the trend has been similar. Voter turnout five years ago dropped down 79%, 4% less than 2004. When the first European Parliament elec- tions were held in Malta in 2004, turnout was 82.4%. A total of 254,084 cast their vote in 2009– 3,393 more than the 2004 elections. In 2009 the lowest turnouts were in traditional Nationalist-held electoral districts, namely the twelfth district and the highest turnouts were in the Labour strongholds. PAGE 10 CONTINUES ON PAGE 3 CONTINUES ON PAGE 49 Carmen Ciantar touted for CEO's role in billing company Maltese troops unharmed in Djibouti grenade attack Official Turnouts % 2009 % 2014 Dist 1 80 75.2 Dist 2 81 75.9 Dist 3 82 75.0 Dist 4 83 79.4 Dist 5 80 77.2 Dist 6 80 78.3 Dist 7 82 76.5 Dist 8 80 75.9 Dist 9 76 70.8 Dist 10 75 67.0 Dist 11 78 74.2 Dist 12 72 64.1 Dist 13 77 76.9 CONTINUES ON PAGE 49 Real's Cristiano Ronaldo, gestures, at the end of the Champions League fi nal soccer match between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, at the Luz stadium LA DECIMA, REAL TRASH ATLETICO