Press digest

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

The Times says a key figure in the Air Malta revival plan has stepped down.

The Malta Independent says Gaddafi forces hit oil facilities. It also reports about a Libyan Under-Secretary’s meeting with Lawrence Gonzi yesterday.

In-Nazzjon leads with claims by the Finance Ministry that the Opposition wants to undermine the Air Malta reform programme.

l-orizzont says that according to the New York Times, several tourist destinations are benefiting from instability in North Africa. It also given prominence to the talks yesterday between Dr Gonzi and the Libyan Under-Secretary of State for International Cooperation.

The overseas press

Reuters reports soldiers loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have moved to crush rebel fighters in the western city of Zawiyah. Residents said pro-Gaddafi forces were in the main Martyr Square after rebels retreated. Libyan state TV broadcast images of Col Gaddafi's supporters parading through the town. Earlier, a doctor told the agency the offensive had left at least 40 dead and many injured.

Al Jazeera reports that forces loyal to Gaddafi have launched new air raids on the oil city of Ras Lanuf and a bombardment near rebel positions around the east Libyan oil terminal of Sidrah , blowing up storage tanks at the facility. Clashes were also reported from the town of Bin Jawad, where a witness said the Libyan military was using "gunboats" against opposition forces. Other witnesses reported seeing warplanes bomb oil facilities.

Meanwhile, there appeared to be a growing consensus among Western and Arab governments that a no-fly zone could be enforced to stop attacks by Gaddafi's air force. However, Associated Press reports that President Barack Obama's top national security aides have emerged from private talks at around 2 a.m. (Malta time) with a growing sense that imposing a no-fly zone over Libya would have a "limited impact" on halting the kind of violence raging there. Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Sky News the current UN Security Council mandate does not authorise the use of armed force. Col Gaddafi told Turkish TV that Libyans would "take up arms" against Western powers if a no-fly zone was put in place”.

There have been diplomatic initiatives on the part of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Expresso reports that a Libyan government official met the Portuguese Foreign Minister in Lisbon at Libya’s request. Portugal is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and chairs its sanctions committee on Libya. The same Libyan official had earlier met Malta’s Prime Minister.

Three members of the BBC Arabic team have given graphic accounts of how they were arrested, blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten by government forces while reporting on the conflict in Libya. The men were threatened with mock executions, using live bullets and held in bloodstained cells where they heard other people screaming in adjacent rooms.

The Times quotes British Foreign Minister William Hague accusing Iran of unacceptable behaviour in Afghanistan after international forces seized a shipment of rockets thought to have been intended for the Taliban. Mr Hague said the rockets were clearly meant to give the Taliban the capability to kill Afghan and international forces from significant range. The Iranian government said the allegations were baseless.

Illinois Globe announces that the American state of Illinois has officially abolished the death penalty making it the sixteenth state in the US to do so. There had been a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois since 1999.

Al Ahram says the former head of the UN Atomic Agency, Mohammed Elbaradei has announced that he intended to stand for election as president of Egypt. However, he said he would also vote against amendments in the constitution in a referendum next week as the country needed an entirely new constitution instead.

USA Today reports a Pakistani television executive Muzzammil Hassan, who launched a US Muslim TV network. has been jailed for 25 years for beheading his wife after she tried to divorce him. A jury in Erie County court in Buffalo spent just an hour deliberating before convicting him of second-degree murder last month in the 2009 death of Aasiya Hassan, who also was from Pakistan. Together, the Hassans started the Bridges TV network to build cultural understanding and counter negative images of Islam after the 9/11 attacks.

El Pais says a group of Spanish nuns was being investigated for possible tax evasion after reporting a huge sum of cash stolen from their convent. The money was kept in a cupboard at the home of the mostly elderly Cistercian nuns in Zaragoza. Police said they first reported €1.5 million stolen, then lowered the figure to €400,000. The money came from bookbinding of old documents and restoration of antique books, and paintings by Isabel Guerra, a sister known in the Spanish media as the "painting nun".