Malta and international press digest

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

The Sunday Times says Labour leader Joseph Muscat has met Raymond Caruana’s brothers. Caruana was shot dead in a PN club 22 years ago. It also reports that cocaine was found in the apartment and car of Renzo Borg, the Birkirkara man shot dead late on Thursday.

The Malta Independent carries a picture of yesterday’s Republic Day investiture ceremonies. It reports on the minimum wage levels in Malta and abroad and also says that an international study has shown that Malta has the second most irritable children in the world. In another study, it says that up to 500,000 workers in the European semiconductor industry risk being laid off.

MaltaToday says questions are being asked about the high rate of deliveries by caesarean section in Malta. It also reports that the current education system is producing plagiarists.

It-Torca speaks of a ‘storm over tourism’ a phrase used last week by Kevin DeCesare, president of the Malta Hoteliers Association, amid fears that arrival numbers will drop. It publishes a letter sent by trade unions to the Prime Minister disputing his calculations on the impact of the utility tariffs. It also reports how Kevin Borg has won the Swedish Pop Idol contest.

Il-Mument says €26 million are being invested in old people's homes. It reports that Anton Tabone was among the leading personality to be decorated in yesterday’s Republic Day ceremony.

KullHadd asks if a private hospital is being built on ancient tombs in Bulebel.

Illum says a nurse in Gozo broke a union directive in order to save the life of a baby.

The Press in Britain…

The Sunday Telegraph has pictures of four Royal Marines killed in Afghanistan, including three who died in an attack by a suspected suicide bomber aged just 13.

The Sunday Mirror leads with the same story and shows friends of the marines erecting crosses in memory of their comrades.

The News Of The World reveals one of the British soldiers killed by the suspected teenage suicide bomber had just got married.

The Sunday Express claims the Taliban has 12 child bombers. Yesterday British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a surprise visit to UK troops near the front line with Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan.

The Sunday Times says, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has warned that Heathrow's controversial expansion plans should be rejected unless noise and air pollution are dramatically cut.

Daily Star Sunday carries an interview with X Factor winner Alexandra Burke.

And elsewhere…

Bild am Sonntag quotes German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier saying there will not be any speedy decisions on a second economic rescue package. At the same time, both agreed that all necessary measures must be taken to preserve jobs amid the global financial crisis.

South China Morning Post says the leaders of Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to work more closely to deal with the fallout of the global financial crisis.

Gazeta Polska reports that the UN climate conference in the Polish city of Poznan has ended with a dispute over a proposal to levy a tax on carbon trading among the world's wealthy nations. The move, expected to raise billions of euros for poor countries, exposed a deep rift between the developing countries most vulnerable to global warming and the industrialised nations that are being asked to foot most of the bill for combating climate change.

Pravda says over 100 delegates representing 40 regions of Russia have founded a new opposition group called Solidarity. The Kremlin critics include former world chess champion Garry Kasparov voted to create Solidarity, which is aimed at challenging the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Frankfurter Rundschau reports that German authorities have launched an investigation into the theft of confidential data of more than 10,000 credit card customers of the state-owned Landesbank Berlin. Police in Frankfurt said authorities had secured boxes of credit card data saved to microfilm and sent anonymously to the newspaper. The information includes names, addresses, account numbers and recent transactions of cardholders.

USA Today says US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made an unannounced visit to Iraq. The trip comes as around 150,000 US soldiers stationed in Iraq are preparing to pull out of the country by the end of 2011. As operations in Iraq wind down, the Pentagon plans to deploy more troops to strengthen forces in Afghanistan.

The Times of India says the Indian Navy has captured 23 Somali and Yemeni pirates who attacked a merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden. A navy ship patrolling the waters sent its marine commandos on a helicopter in response to a distress call from an Ethiopian flag-bearing vessel.

Asia Times reports that the surviving gunman in last month’s deadly attack on Mumbai has written a letter to the Pakistani consulate to request “legal aid”. A number of Indian lawyers have refused to defend Kasab in his criminal case amid outrage over the attacks that killed 164 people in the country’s financial capital.

Teheran Times reports that a militant group has attacked the office of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned airline in Tehran over a Saudi-backed peace initiative with Israel.

Aftenposten says six people were killed and 12 others injured when a fire raged through an apartment building in Oslo. Norwegian police said 30 people were evacuated from the building after police received an alarm call.

Il Tempo reports that Rome has declared a state of emergency as the swollen Tiber river threatened to flood and the death toll from the heavy rains battering Italy rose to four. The Tiber had risen about 16ft as Italy was hit by days of bad weather. Downpours disrupted traffic yesterday from Milan in the north to Palermo, Sicily, in the south, as trains were delayed and many streets were flooded or blocked by fallen trees.

Jamaica Gleaner says two men have been arrested for allegedly stealing 100 truckloads of sand from a beachfront construction site in Kingston.

Los Angeles Times reports that a pizza delivery man fought off a robber armed with a gun in Florida by flinging a hot pizza at him before running for safety.