Press digest

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

The Times says MPs will get €4 million more in this legislature following an increase in their honoraria.

The Malta Independent says a decision is expected soon on a new blood bank.

In-Nazzjon says work to convert Zammit Clapp Hospital into a nursing home will start shortly.

l-orizzont reports that two companies have stopped oil exploration efforts because disputes have persisted on the delineation of the median line.

The overseas press

An international opinion poll commissioned by the BBC has suggested that official corruption is the single most talked-about global concern. The survey found bribery, corruption and official greed wre discussed with friends and families more than climate change, poverty, unemployment or even ising food and energy costs.

Le Parisien says heavy snow in Paris brought buses to a halt, suspended flights at Charles de Gaulle airport and prompted the closure of the Eiffel Tower. Snow that had already hit other areas of France spread to the capital.

ABC reports that elsewhere in Europe, a boy drowned in southern Spain when his father's car was swept into a flooded river. In Poland, three more people died because of the extreme cold, bringing the total number of people that lost their lives since the severe wintry weather began in late November to 66. Sub-zero temperatures turned Scottish roads into deadly ice sheets and in Portugal, high winds carried off cars, uprooted trees, tore off roofs and blew over electricity poles, leaving around 30 people injured.

La Prensa says traffic through the Panama Canal – which connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – has been temporarily suspended because of heavy rain. Rains had pushed water levels in lakes that form part of the canal to historic highs, potentially endangering shipping.

Like other Chilean nationals, La Tercera has extensive coverage of the fire which left 83 inmates dead and another 14 injured during a riot in a severely overcrowded Santiago prison. Many died of smoke inhalation. The San Miguel prison was designed to hold 700 people but was crammed with 1,900 prisoners when the fire broke out.

The New York Times reports the UN Security Council has issued a statement saying that Ivory Coast opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara won the disputed presidential election. The statement came after three days of debate at the UN, in which Russia expressed concern that the UN was exceeding its mandate. Incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo is defying international pressure and continuing to cling to power. His stance led West African regional bloc Ecowas to suspend Ivory Coast.

Le Matin says Haitian presidential election candidate, Michel Martelly, who narrowly missed a spot in the second round run-off, has called for calm. Demonstrators have set fire to the headquarters of Haiti's governing party. They accuse it of rigging the vote in favour of its candidate, Jude Celestin.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told BBC business editor Robert Peston he sensed there would be “a major crisis in the euro area” early next year because “the euro's problems were bigger than just its governments' debts”. Mr Brown warned that Europe must also solve the euro's structural rigidities and the enormous debts of its banks, underlining that the structural reforms needed to make the euro work as a single currency area had not been carried out, or even agreed.

The Wall Street Journal reports WikiLeaks supporters apparently attacked the websites of the Swedish prosecutor and MasterCard in retaliation over moves made by them against Julian Assange, who has published secret US diplomatic cables that have angered and embarrassed Washington.

Meanwhile, Aftonbladet says the Swedish prosecution authority, whose arrest order for Assange over accusations of sexual offences led a British court to remand the 39-year-old WikiLeaks website founder in custody, said it had reported the online attack to police.

According to L’Unione Sarda, a convicted double murderer was caught on his native island of Sardinia after police traced lottery tickets he had played to a bar in Cagliari. Riccardo Piras, 59, was sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1980s for the execution-style murders of two drug traffickersnwho failed to pay for a shipment from the Netherlands. He dodged police for more than 20 years but in the end was betrayed by his "passion" for gambling.