The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports that a man is suspected to have killed his partner and than killed himself. It also reports comments by Joseph Muscat that future amendments to the divorce law should be subject to a referendum or an election.
The Malta Independent reports how Parliament will vote for the first time on divorce today.
MaltaToday says Mepa is shifting goalposts to sanction illegal buildings. It also says that Albert Mizzi is not interested in buying Air Malta.
In-Nazzjon reports how a group of Air Malta workers filed a judicial protest against the Airline Pilots Association, which is threatening to strike.
l-orizzont says only a quarter of funds meant to reduce hospital waiting lists have been used.
The overseas press
France says it has had contacts with envoys from Muammar Gaddafi who say the Libyan leader was "prepared to leave". Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told French radio the Libyan regime was sending messengers everywhere – “to Turkey, to New York, to Paris” – offering to discuss Col Gaddafi's exit. But, he added, such contacts did not constitute negotiations. "There are contacts but it's not a negotiation proper at this stage." Mr Juppe did not say who the emissaries were.
Meanwhile, France 24 reports that the French Parliament has voted to pursue France’s participation in NATO operations in Libya, four months after the first airstrikes against forces loyal to Gaddafi to protect civilians. Hours after the vote, Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said Tripoli regretted France’s decision to prolong the country's military intervention.
The Wall Street Journal says EU governments have committed at a meeting on Tuesday to backstop banks that fail stress tests. Ahead of the publication of financial-sector stress test results on Friday, officials said all vulnerable banks must recapitalize themselves, be recapitalized by their governments or restructure.
The Financial Times reports that Italy’s borrowing costs soared to their highest level in over a decade amid highly volatile trading as market contagion from Greece forced Silvio Berlusconi to appeal for national unity and sacrifices to cut the nation’s debt mountain. The paper says the Italian prime minister’s appeal – the most sombre in his three years in charge of his centre-right government – was intended to rebut widespread criticism in the Italian media and the markets that his coalition was rudderless and divided by disputes between him and Fnance Mnister Giulio Tremonti.
The Irish Examiner says international credit agency Moody’s has downgraded the Republic of Ireland’s credit rating to junk status, making it even more expensive for the country to borrow money. The decision came a week after the agency did the same for Portugal. Moody’s says it believed both countries might need a second financial bailout. The move by Moody’s came despite EU finance ministers agreeing measures to ease pressure on struggling European countries.
New Europe reports the EU Commission's internal market commissioner Michel Barnier has put credit rating agencies on warning, saying he wanted “to have transparency concerning their methods, particularly when they're rating countries”. He questioned an agency's ability to downgrade countries in international programmes, particularly when they have the support of other governments and institutions.
The BBC says global media giant News Corporation, which is reeling from a huge scandal over phone hacking in Britain, has announced that it was to buy back $5 million-worth of its own stock in the United States. Initially, the move, to halt the scandal-driven slide in its share price on Wall Street, was successful but the gains were later wiped out.
In the UK, the Daily Mirror says the phone hacking scandal has wiped £6 billion (€6.83 billion) off Rupert Murdoch's fortune. The Daily Telegraph reports senior executives at News International could be investigated by police after Met detectives accused them of attempting to thwart the first phone hacking investigation. The Sun claims former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's allegations that the paper hacked into his son's medical records were false. The Independent front page is also about the hacking scandal: it leads with the call from David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband for Rupert Murdoch to drop his BSkyB takeover bid.
A leading senator in the United States has called for an investigation into whether the alleged phone-hacking in Britain by News Corp. had broken American laws. Bloomberg quotes John Rockefeller saying he was also concerned that the phone hacking extended to relatives of people killed in the September 11 attacks.
Deutsche Welle quotes ILO officials saying the organization had received an encouraging response from several countries about their willingness to join the Convention on Domestic Workers. ILO delegates adopted the treaty last month by 396 votes in favour, 16 against and 63 abstentions. It ensures domestic workers the same rights as other workers: vacation time, maternity leave and social security.
According to Jakarta Post, a bomb-maker was killed by his own device as he tried to give Islamic school pupils a lesson in how to make explosives. Police in Indonesia said he appeared to be the victim of a homemade bomb being prepared to attack officers. The school has been sealed off by two platoons of soldiers while investigations continue.