Press digest

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

The Times says Malta is to try to sell more rights for oil exploration. It also says that the EU has proposed higher taxes on diesel to help the environment.

The Malta Independent focuses on the visit to Malta yesterday by the European Council president.

In-Nazzjon reports how the EU was urged to do more to help Malta deal with illegal immigration. It also reports how Joseph Azzopardi was jailed for 29 years for the murder of a young woman, Therese Agius.

l-orizzont gives prominence to the €5,340 cost of each new tree at the Valletta bus terminus. Its main story, however, is that no compensation is to be given for the fuel price rises.

The overseas press

Al Jazeera reports the international contact group on Libya has agreed to set up a temporary "trust fund" to help channel assets to the opposition Transitional National Council in Benghazi. The financial mechanism being set up would allow international donations to be made directly available to Gaddafi's opponents – possibly from frozen assets of the Libyan regime. At the one-day summit in Doha, the group called on Gaddafi to step down, saying he and his regime had lost all legitimacy and he must leave power allowing the Libyan people to determine their own future.

The Wall Street Journal says President Barack Obama has outlined a package of tax increases and spending cuts aimed at reducing the huge US budget deficit by $4 trillion by 2023. He called for raised taxes on the rich as well as cuts in government spending on health and defence in what he termed a balanced approach to cutting the deficit. He blamed former President George W Bush for turning a surplus he inherited from the Democrats into a huge deficit.

Corriere della Sera reports Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he would not seek another term of office when his present mandate ends in 2013. Speaking to foreign journalists in Rome, he said he intended to complete his ambitious plans to reform Italy's judicial system.

Meanwhile, Ansa says that the Italian House of Representatives passed a hotly-contested government justice reform bill that would shorten the statute of limitations for defendants with no criminal record. The vote was 314 votes for and 296 against. The opposition greeted the result with calls of "Shame! Shame!", saying the measure was designed to time out one of four criminal trials Berlusconi faces.

Al Ahram reports Egypt's prosecutor general has ordered the detention of former President Hosni Mubarak, ahead of an investigation into corruption and abuse allegations. He is said to be in an "unstable condition" in hospital with heart problems. He has been ordered to be detained for 15 days. His sons Alaa and Gamal have also been detained amid allegations of corruption and violence.

El Universal announces that forensic experts in Mexico have found 13 bodies buried in shallow graves in northwestern Sinaloa state. Investigators said the victims had been shot in the head, execution-style. The find came at the same time as officials unearthed another 10 bodies in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, bringing the total to 126.

USA Today reports the FBI will supply high-tech surveillance aircraft to authorities investigating a possible serial killer on Long Island in New York later this week. Police have discovered 10 sets of human remains since December near a highway leading to Jones Beach State Park. Helicopters and aircraft equipped with special cameras will reportedly be used in the hunt for further human remains. The police search is being hampered by the density of the seaside brush.

According to Der Spiegel, Silvana Koch-Mehrin, a rising star in Germany's Free Democratic Party, is being accused of plagiarizing parts of her doctoral thesis and her university has started a probe. Similar allegations cost Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg his job as defence minister. Anonymous Internet researchers claimed that a dissertation she wrote on monetary union contained a number of passages that were copied from other authors and not properly attributed to them.

Variety reports that Catherine Zeta Jones has received treatment for bipolar disorder after dealing with the stress of her husband's battle with throat cancer. Her publicist said the 41-year-old actress made a decision to check into a "mental health facility" for a brief stay. Michael Douglas, who was diagnosed last year, said in January his tumour had gone and he was beating the disease. Last September, Zeta Jones said she was "furious" that doctors failed to detect the cancer earlier.

Le Parisien says a woman has been ticketed in a suburban Paris shopping centre for wearing a face veil, in the first reported sanction under a new ban on the garments. Another woman in another Paris suburb was stopped for wearing a veil, but was let go with a warning. Many of the country's five million Muslims see the ban as a stigma. President Nicolas Sarkozy says such veils imprison women and wanted a ban to uphold French values of equality and secularism.