Salvinu Busuttil writes:

Susanna Agnelli, who has just passed away, was a good friend of Malta. Sister of the fabled Gianni, Fiat's late chairman, Susanna shared Gianni's enthusiasm for innovation and social causes, having served as a nurse during World War II.

She had accepted the invitation extended to her by the UN Secretary General (at my suggestion) to sit on the first board of the UN International Institute for Ageing (INIA), which Malta had successfully promoted at the UN and which was inaugurated in 1989 at its premises in St Paul's Street, Valletta, by Javier Perez de Cuellar, then the UN Secretary General (and subsequently my colleague as Peru's ambassador to France).

On the initiative of President Emeritus Vincent Tabone, and in collaboration with Prof. John Rizzo Naudi, then Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly, I had been designated to push for the creation of the Institute in Malta, addressing the UN Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) to obtain the UN's agreement to set it up in Valletta. In so doing, I was ably assisted by Salv Borg, now Malta's Permanent Delegate to the UN.

At the first board meeting of INIA, Susanna had strongly commended the Institute's work programme and (although making it clear that the Agnelli Foundation could not be involved financially at that time) promoted its realisation through INIA's first Director, Dr Alfred Grech. We had also received support from the UN Vienna office through its head, my good friend Margaret Anstee (who in her autobiography singles out Dr Censu Tabone for alerting the international community on ageing issues, yet another Maltese contribution to the UN General Assembly). In all these endeavours, Ms Agnelli was a continuous source of inspiration.

She will be missed by many, not least by those (including me) who avidly read her trite answers to readers' letters in the weekly Italian magazine Oggi.