Press digest

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

The Sunday Times says there will not by any co-option to fill John Dalli's seat in Parliament since Dr Peter Micallef has declared he will be a candidate in the casual election. He is the favourite for the seat. The other possible candidate, Robert Musumeci, has not declared his intentions. In another story, the newspaper says the police will vet lyrics of a rock festival planned for Nadur carnival in order to avert offensive words.

The Malta Independent on Sunday says John Dalli is expected to resign from Parliament next week. It also says the Freeport extension was approved by Mepa on the basis of less noisy equipment and other environmental measures.

MaltaToday says the Prime Minister has told Robert Musumeci not to stand in the casual election for John Dalli's seat. It quotes government officials insisting that there was no connection between bidders Palumbo and Midi for the privatisation of the superyacht facility. It also reports that Joseph Muscat has again promised a free vote on divorce should he be prime minister.

KullHadd says the Nationalist Party wants to provoke the PL because it is worried how the PL in opening to people and ideas. It also says that a woman had to give birth on a stretcher at Mater Dei Hospital because there was no bed for her.

Illum interviews former minister Michael Falzon, who says the prime minister is being distracted and given wrong advice.

Il-Mument says the dockyard will become a contributor to the economy and state coffers once it is privatised. It also quotes the prime minister insisting that before divorce, the country needs to discuss ways to strengthen families.

It-Torca claims that bureaucracy led a girl to drugs and prostitution. She was not sent her social benefits because the authorities did not have her addrerss. In other stories, the newspaper says columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia was called in for questioning by the police over her blog. It also reports that the GWU is having talks on behalf of Enemalta workers.

The overseas press

London's The Sunday Times reports that Gordon Brown has welcomed the commitment of the world's wealthiest countries to write off Haiti's debt in the wake of last month's crippling earthquake. The Prime Minister said the G7 bloc of countries -US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the UK - had recognised that a "nation covered in rubble must not also be covered in debt". The move was confirmed at a summit of finance ministers in Canada.

Deutsche Welle quotes German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle saying Iran still had to prove to the rest of the world that it was willing to make meaningful concessions regarding its nuclear programme. These comments came 12 hours after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki - a surprise visitor at this year's Munich Security Conference - said that he expected a deal between his country and Western powers "in the not very distant future".

Kyiv Post says tensions in the Ukraine is high as voters prepare to go to the polls today in a close and bitter presidential run-off between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich. Many commentators predict a narrow victory by opposition leader Yanukovich, but fiery Prime Minister Tymoshenko is threatening to summon protesters in a replay of the 2004 "Orange Revolution" if she deems the second-round election unfair.

Focus reports German tax investigators are in France for negotiations with an informant to buy stolen Swiss bank data on 1,500 alleged tax evaders. According to the German magazine the unnamed informant had insisted on a secret meeting in a neighboring country for fear of being arrested in Germany. The decision to buy the illegally-obtained information has divided the German government and strained relations with Switzerland.

The Washington Post says a blizzard of record-breaking proportions has buried the east coast of America in thick snow, bringing a vast region to a standstill and leaving thousands without power. The monster storm, dubbed 'Snowmageddon' by US President Obama, saw nearly a metre of the white stuff dumped on Maryland - with trees and power lines toppling under the weight.

Adelaide Now reports that all Australian homes will soon have to undergo a mandatory energy-efficiency assessment costing up to €950 per property. The assessment has to be done before any property can be sold or rented under new laws to tackle carbon emissions.

The Baltimore Sun says two of America's leading feminists are on a crusade to get the women of the world to have a lie in, or at least to take a nap. Arianna Huffington, the publisher of The Huffington Post, and Cindi Leive, the publisher of Glamour, have joined forces to identify women's sleep deprivation as "the next feminist issue". They cite studies that indicate that women are more sleep-deprived than men, including one that says American women are getting 90 minutes less than the seven to eight hours recommended for someone to be well and perform well.

The Daily Star says searchers have located the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed in the sea off Lebanon last month killing 90 people. Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said boxes had been found under the rear part of the fuselage. The Boeing 737-800, with 83 passengers and seven crew on board, went down on January 25, just minutes after takeoff from Beirut's airport during stormy weather. No survivors were found and only 15 bodies were recovered.

Lawyeer Howard K Stern and the two doctors who treated Anna Nicole Smith have a date with a jury on August 4, celebrity gossip website TMZ reports. The three face a total of 23 felonies. Smith, a former Playboy model, died of an accidental overdose in February of 2007 at a Florida hotel.

Le Parisien reports that two burqa-wearing bank robbers have held up a post office near Paris, using a handgun concealed beneath an Islamic-style full veil. Staff let the pair through the security double doors of the banking branch of the postal office overnight, believing them to be veil-wearing Muslim women, before they flipped back their head coverings and pulled out a gun, officials said. They made off with €4500 seized from the staff and customers. France is seeking to restrict use of the head-to-toe Islamic veil on the grounds it is incompatible with French values.