Malta and international press digest

The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press today:

The Times says the government will probably have to absorb €100 million in dockyard debts when the enterprise is privatized.

The Malta Independent quotes the Prime Minister saying this is the best time for Malta Shipyards to be privatized as demand for ship repair facilities grows. It also carries Enemalta figures showing that energy consumption was lowest when the surcharge was highest.

In-Nazzjon also carries the Prime Minister’s remarks on the shipyard, and reports a sharp improvement in the gainfully occupied in February.

l-orizzont leads with evidence in court by two former MEPA officials who said they had suffered persistent pressure from Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando to approve the Mistra disco permit.

The Press in Britain

The Guardian says Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has called for a new era of relations with Britain following a torrid two years under former President Vladimir Putin, now prime minister.

The Times says the credit crunch has hit the high street with a vengeance as shock figures from Marks & Spencer wiped £4bn off the value of Britain's leading retailers.

The Independent calls the “disastrous M&S profit warning” as the UK retail sector’s very own black Wednesday.

As M&S shocked the City with the profits warning, The Financial Times says Britain is facing the most severe consumer downturn since the 1990s.

The Telegraph quotes Bank of England reports that families will see their living standards fall for at least a year because of the credit crisis and soaring oil prices.

The Daily Express reports that it has handed the prime minister 100,000 reasons for slashing the punishing fuel duty that is threatening to paralyse Britain.

The Scotsman says new contract for Scottish GPs, that gave them a 38 per cent pay rise over three years, has failed to reduce health inequalities or improve access for patients.

According to The Daily Mail, the risk from violent crime is now so high that people should walk away if they see someone else in trouble - in case they end up losing their own life.

Metro says the number of children admitted to hospital with stab wounds has doubled in the past five years.

The Mirror tells how Prince William has helped seize £40m of cocaine as part of a Royal Navy helicopter team. The 26-year-old had his first taste of front-line action as his frigate, HMS Iron Duke, hunted down a speedboat off the West Indies.

The Daily Record says police rescued 59 female sex slaves during a blitz on human trafficking in Scotland.

And elsewhere…

The rescue of former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages makes world headlines as world leaders were swift to welcome the news.

El Tiempo says the hostages were freed after army spies in Colombia infiltrated FARC and tricked the local commander in charge of the hostages into believing they were going by helicopter to FARC's supreme leader. The hostages are now in a military base in Bogota where Betancourt was reunited with her mother.

De Standaard reports that patients will be able to shop around Europe for the best treatment anywhere in the European Union under wide-ranging proposals to guarantee health rights announced yesterday. If approved by EU governments, the controversial move would guarantee that costs are covered by the patient’s own national health scheme back home.

Washington Post announces that the US and Poland have reached a tentative deal to install a US missile defence system on Polish soil.

New York Times says a US draft resolution is calling for asset freezes, an arms embargo and travel bans on members of the Zimbabwean government over the country's widely criticised election.

The Jerusalem Post leads with the deadly rampage in Jerusalem by a Palestinian driving a bulldozer, killing at least three people and wounding 45 before he was shot dead.

Beirut’s The Daily Star quotes Hezbollah’s leader saying the militant group will hand over two captured Israeli soldiers in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners in Israel. The UN-brokered exchange would take place later this month.

Al Quds Al-Arabi reports that Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki has dismissed the threat of an attack against his country, saying the US would not “resort to such craziness” while the US economy is suffering and the country is bogged down in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

France’s Liberation also publishes a commentary by Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that a compromise is possible in the country’s stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme.

The Lancet says the number of people surviving breast, colon and bowel cancer has doubled in the past 60 years. This is despite a massive increase in the number of cancer cases owing to a growing population and people living longer.