Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Friday was probably the first premier to live tweet the hijacking of an airliner from his official Twitter handle even as he continued posting updates after the hijackers surrendered.
Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat makes Twitter history.
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In a series of tweets, the 42-year-old politician alerted the world to the hijacking of the Afriqiyah Airways flight with 118 on board. The first tweet was sent out personally by Muscat while the rest were the work of others managing his handle.
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In a series of tweets, the 42-year-old politician alerted the world to the hijacking of the Afriqiyah Airways flight with 118 on board. The first tweet was sent out personally by Muscat while the rest were the work of others managing his handle.
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Many news reports around the world quoted Muscat’s tweets, including an update that the flight had 82 men, 28 women and an infant.
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Muscat, who has been the prime minister since 2013 and leads the Labour Party, was uniquely placed to comment on the developments – he was leading a meeting of the country’s National Security Committee in Castille to end the hijacking crisis.
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There was little else in Muscat’s Twitter timeline that would have attracted as much attention from audiences around the world.
In the recent past, the premier with more than 39,000 followers has tweet or retweeted about subjects such as the film Assassin’s Creed, which was filmed in Malta, grossing $14 million at box office and the recent inauguration of a new monument to Valetta architects Girolamo Cassar and Francesco Lapparelli.
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.
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