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	Top 10 Stories Read Online By Massimo Farrugia Times of Malta January 8, 2007 http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=248376 Stories with an international flavour and religious controversies were among the most popular items among those visiting the online version of The Times - timesofmalta.com - last year. An issue which drew a great deal of interest internationally and made it to the top 10 stories, dealt with sexual abuse allegations made by disgraced United States Congressman Mark Foley in October 2006. Mr Foley, a 52-year-old Republican who resigned from Congress after his suggestive e-mails to young male assistants surfaced, claimed he was molested as a boy by a Gozitan priest who was then serving in the US. Foreign and local media hounded the house of Fr Anthony Mercieca, 72, in Victoria as the world's spotlights turned on Gozo. By the time the Archdiocese of Miami named the priest, he had already spoken to the Maltese and international media. A feature which proved to be popular with timesofmalta.com visitors dealt with the most famous traitor in history, Judas Iscariot. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown's best seller that popularised the idea that Jesus Christ had had a child through Mary Magdalene - created a lot of debate as it made it to the big screen last year. So it was not surprising that the release of what is believed to be the gospel of Judas Iscariot by National Geographic would also ride the wave of interest, re-awakening a debate on the role of Judas in human salvation in the Catholic doctrine and what motive lay behind the emergence of the apocryphal text. The feature in The Times (April 15) looked into the claims of the gospel of Judas discussing what effect it could have on established Christian beliefs. It's unusual events that make the front pages, even if news is not necessarily good. By now, most of us would have forgotten that an Aero Grand Prix was held in Malta last September 2006 were it not for a midair crash that killed a Swedish pilot. Soon after the start of the race, aerobatic pilot Gabor Varga and Irishman Eddie Goggins collided in the air between Fort St Elmo and Tigné Point. The Times' photographer Matthew Mirabelli's captured the victim's Yak-55 nose diving into the water and the Irish pilot bailing out of the aircraft just in time. The tragic death of a 19-year-old girl at the start of the new year was also one of the most read stories on timesofmalta.com. New Year 2006 got off to a bad start when Jeanette Mifsud fell from the bastion across the road from the Mediterranean Conference Centre, in Valletta, where she had just been celebrating the arrival of the New Year. A news story about the driveway of a house in Fgura that collapsed as a result of excavation works next door was also one of the most popular. Rachel Caruana's Fiat 500 plummeted two storeys and her family were unable to live in their house for fear that the entire building might collapse. Amid the scores of houses being pulled down and excavated around Malta and Gozo for speculation purposes, the incident rekindled the debate on the enforcement of excavation regulations. It must have been the cold winter that made so many people read a news item on the gas crisis last January. As a gas shortage in Europe prompted Russia to cut provisions to Ukraine, affecting most countries in Western Europe, Malta's gas supplies were unaffected. It was the international stories which browsers preferred, as two stories on the Democrats' victory in the US House of Representatives last November, the Danish cartoons satirising the prophet Mohammad in February proved to be among the most popular. An editorial on North Korea's nuclear programme also made it to the top 10.
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