Press digest

Following are the top stories in the local and international press today:

The Times quotes the Finance Minister saying that the high deficit, which reached €410 million by November, will go down next year.

The Malta Independent reports that more than €5,000 were collected in an annual charity run. It says that deaths on Christmas Day were the result of what was suspected to be strong drug overdoses.

l-Orizzont asks if the new development application for the Marsascala fishfarms was a hidden threat. In another story it compares the 1977 murder of Karin Grech in 1977 with the parcel bomb case in Qormi last week saying that both cases were similar but different.

In-Nazzjon quotes the President saying that this year’s l-Istrina gave a strong message of solidarity and values.

The international press

In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, says the 16 members of the eurozone must reduce their deficits by 2011. He said budget deficits in countries using the euro "should be reduced in 2011 at the latest, in some countries already in 2010, to preserve faith in state finances". Trichet also called on banks to ease a credit crunch by making loans readily available. "Banks must live up to their central role in providing credit to the economy," he said.

Iranian state television has confirmed that several people were killed in violent clashes in Tehran between authorities and opposition supporters during the climax of the 10-day Ashoura religious period and one of the holiest days in the Shi'ite calendar. The Iran news network did not reveal the casualty toll.

Le Parisien quotes a French Foreign Ministry statement stating as many as eight people may have been killed in the clashes. The statement condemned the “arbitrary arrests and violence committed against simple demonstrators defending their right to freedom of speech and their aspirations for democracy”. It also called for a political solution to the growing crisis in Iran.

Jaras, an Iranian reformist website, says a 20-year-old nephew of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi was among four people killed. The regime took down much of the mobile phone network, slowed internet services to a crawl and has banned most foreign journalists from Iran, making corroboration of events very difficult. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are said to be on the streets of Tehran with clashes also in other cities, among them Shiraz, Isfahan and Najafabad.

The Jerusalem Post quotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he would hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak later this week to seek ways to promote Middle East peacemaking. Egypt and Germany are mediating a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas where the Islamist group, in charge of the Gaza Strip, would release captured soldier Gilad Shalit and Israel would free some 1,000 of the 11,000 Palestinians in its jails.

The International Herald Tribune reports that security services on both sides of the Atlantic were under scrutiny as it emerged that Al-Qaida had warned of a terror attack just days before a former British student allegedly attempted to blow up a transatlantic airliner carrying 278 passengers. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to board the jet with explosives despite warnings of his extremism, including one from his millionaire father.

Meanwhile, as airline passengers faced the prospect of tighter security checks, Fox News says a second Nigerian, taken into custody after an incident on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, was "just sick" and not a threat. The man, aged in his 30s, was detained after being in the bathroom on Delta/Northwest Airlines flight 253 for an hour. The plane landed safely and the man was detained. The incident sparked a security.

Metro Express reports Croatian opposition candidate Ivo Josipovic of the Social Democratic Party has won 32.7 percent of the votes in the country's presidential election. He will now face a run-off election on January 10, his opponent likely to be Milan Bandic, who finished with 14.8 percent. Only 34 percent of the country's 4.5 million registered voters turned up – eight percent lower than at the previous election.

Ansa reports six people have been killed by an avalanche in northern Italy. The victims were two tourists who had gone missing in the Italian Alps and four rescuers who had been looking for them. The bodies of the six victims were recovered yesterday morning.

A Vatican court will judge 25-year-old Susanna Maiolo, the woman who launched a Christmas Eve assault on Pope Benedict XVI, "within a few weeks''. In an interview with Italian bishops' newspaper Avvenire, Vatican court president Giuseppe Dalla Torre said her mental state will be an important issue. Dalla Torre said he expects the court hearing to be quite straightforward.

Dawn says a heavily-armed Taliban commander was killed during an pre-dawn shootout at a mosque in eastern Afghanistan. A joint Afghan-Nato international force had goe to a compound in Wardak province to look for an insurgent believed to be responsible for planning attacks and buying weapons and parts for making bombs. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber has killed at least five people and injured 60 yesterday at a Shi'ite mosque at the climax of the 10-day Ashoura religious period and one of the holiest days in the Shi'ite calendar.

The Australian reports that residents of central and northern NSW and southern Queensland have been placed on flash-flood alert, while Western Australians have been told to brace for potentially catastrophic bushfire conditions as temperatures soar. Temperatures are expected to top 40C in the city, and the heat, coupled with moderate northeasterly winds, will pose the state's most severe bushfire threat of the season, authorities warn.

The Age says Lovely Mollick, the Bangladeshi mother of the separated twins Krishna and Trishna will soon fly to Australia to see her daughters. The girls were born in December 2006 and six weeks later were placed in an orphanage in Dhaka. They were later put up for adoption, in the hope they could receive medical care. Last month the twins, who have been in Australia for two years, were separated in a marathon operation in Melbourne. Mollick spoke of her delight that her children had survived the risky operation, but said she wanted them to stay in Australia for a better life.

TMZ reports that Ivana Trump, former wife of billionaire Donald Trump, has been escorted off a flight to New York in Florida by Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies after she started yelling at children on the plane. Trump, 60, allegedly began swearing in front of the children and when flight attendants tried to calm her down, she became even angrier. The police said asked her to get off the plane but Trump refused, so they escorted her off. She was not arrested or charged in relation to the incident.