Laurence Grech, the former editor of The Sunday Times, was yesterday awarded the National Order of Merit during a ceremony held annually at the Palace, in Valletta, to mark Republic Day.
Mr Grech, who was appointed a member of the Order, joined Allied Newspapers Ltd in 1963 and was named sub-editor of The Sunday Times of Malta in 1964. Three years later, he became assistant editor and later deputy editor. In 1991, he was appointed editor of The Sunday Times.
Mr Grech was film critic of The Times of Malta and also its parliamentary editor for a number of years. He has been Malta's correspondent for Ansa, the Italian news agency since 1985. He is a fellow of the Salzburg Seminar on American Studies (1981) and participated in a US International Visitor's Programme in 1983. In 1989 he was appointed member of the Commission for the Advancement of Women.
During the same ceremony, Malta's High Commissioner in London, Michael Refalo, a former Cabinet minister, was made companion of the National Order of Merit. International law professor David Attard was made an officer.
Gozitan Joseph S. Attard, who did a lot of work among Maltese emigrants in Australia, entrepreneur Charles Busuttil, of Foster Clarks Ltd, and climate change expert Michael Zammit Cutajar were appointed members.
Toly products group chairman and CEO Andrew Gatesy, Joseph Edward Montebello, a Maltese migrant in Australia who gave exceptional voluntary service to the Maltese community, Nylon Knitting Ltd owner Luigi Pezzoli and Maltese heritage promoter Claudia Sagona were made honorary members.
A medal for bravery was awarded to AFM staff sergeant Roger Mulvaney, who, on September 1, with no regard to his own safety, saved the life of a French tourist who had found himself in difficulty after saving a local swimmer at Il-Karraba, limits of Gnejna Bay.
The tourist was trapped in a crevice and efforts to pull him up proved futile. Mr Mulvaney dived in, swam underwater through a cave entrance and then crawled to the man in distress. He managed to extricate the man while being continuously battered against the rocks and intermittently submerged by the strong waves.
Notwithstanding the fact that he acted selflessly and heroically, injuring himself in the process, he only submitted a report upon the insistence of his superiors.
The Midalja ghall-Qadi tar-Repubblika was awarded to Harry Dominic Alden, who has contributed significantly to the local contemporary artistic developments in a career spanning over 60 years. Stage, radio and television entertainer Terry L. Bencini, television presenter and producer Gloria Mizzi and Din l-Art Helwa communications officer Simone Mizzi were also awarded the medal.
President Eddie Fenech Adami said the people honoured had given outstanding witness to values such as the provision and the dignity of work, care of cultural identity, education, respect of human rights, solidarity, protection of the environment and the family.
These values, the President said, were not to be taken for granted but had to be constantly sustained not only by the state but also through individual and personal endeavours.
"One can legitimately ask at this point: In today's globalised environment is the promotion of these values becoming easier or more difficult? I am afraid that the need for the protection of some of these values is in practice becoming more difficult."
He said that one should feel proud that Maltese society still treasured Christian moral principles that have nurtured the country's national identity and one had to make sure these values were passed on to future generations.
The investiture ceremony followed the customary ceremonial parade at St George's Square, in Valletta.