Yana Bland or Yana Bland Mintoff (' Yana Joan Mintoff) is a Maltese Labour politician, economist and educator. Mintoff was born on 21 August 1951, the daughter of the former

Prime Minister of Malta The prime minister of Malta ( mt, Prim Ministru ta' Malta) is the head of government, which is the highest official of Malta. The Prime Minister chairs Cabinet meetings, and selects its ministers to serve in their respective portfolios. The P ...

Dom Mintoff Dominic Mintoff, ( mt, Duminku Mintoff, ; often called ''il-Perit'', "the Architect"; 6 August 1916 – 20 August 2012) was a Maltese Socialist politician, architect, and civil engineer who was leader of the Labour Party from 1949 to 198 ...

and Moyra De Vere Bentinck, by whom she is descended from both Dutch and British nobility.Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.:

Burke's Peerage Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great ...

(Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), Vol., p. 3183.

Career

As a teacher in the United Kingdom, Yana Mintoff was a member of the Socialist Workers Party. On 6 July 1978 Mintoff took part in a demonstration in the

UK House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...

; in a protest against the presence of UK troops in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

, three bags of horse manure were hurled from the public gallery during a debate on

Scottish devolution Devolution is the process in which the central British parliament grants administrative powers (excluding principally reserved matters) to the devolved Scottish Parliament. Prior to the advent of devolution, some had argued for a Scottish ...

; John Mcsherry and Mintoff were arrested and she was later fined. On her return to Malta, she helped establish the Association of Women of the Mediterranean Region. Mintoff helped compile four books of collected works: *Militarism in the Mediterranean, Malta 1994 *Health in the Mediterranean, including interviews with Tuareg Nuclear test Victims, Malta 1995 *Nobody Can Imagine Our Longing: Refugees and Immigrants in the Mediterranean, Plain View Press, Austin TX 1996 *In Search of Peace, Plain View Press, 1998 An economist by training, her publications include an article published in the ''International Journal of Health Services'',

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

, MD, USA. In Texas in 1998, Mintoff was a founder and superintendent of the Katherine Anne Porter School, a

charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autono ...

in Wimberley. Having returned to Malta to tend to her ailing father, Mintoff addressed the Maltese Labour Party's General Conference of 2012. She was a candidate in the 2013 Maltese general election, but failed to get elected to the House of Representatives.

Family

Mintoff's first husband was Geoff Mainwaring. She married David P. Bland in 1991. Her children are Cetta S. Mainwaring and Daniel X. Mainwaring. After the couple separated, Mintoff formed a relationship with a younger man from Romania, Gheorghe Popa. On 24 October 2016, Popa became suspicious that she may have been dating another man, which led to a fight involving knives at the family residence in

Tarxien Tarxien ( mt, Ħal Tarxien) is a town in the South Eastern Region of Malta. Its population stood at 8583 in March 2014. The town is most notable for the Tarxien Temples, a megalithic temple complex which is among the oldest freestanding struct ...

. Her son, Daniel Mainwaring, intervened to stop the fight from escalating. As Mintoff and her son went to seek medical attention, Popa allegedly set the house on fire which lead to severe structural damage to the property. The 39-year-old Romanian was found in the vicinity after a man hunt, soaked in blood.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mintoff, Yana Living people 1951 births Maltese women activists Maltese educators Maltese environmentalists Maltese women environmentalists Maltese emigrants to the United States People from Hays County, Texas Alumni of the University of Exeter Bentinck family Beauclerk family Socialist Workers Party (UK) members