The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times and most of the other newspapers lead with the presentation given yesterday by officials from Sargas on an alternative power station. In other stories, The Times says the Health Ministry has launched an inquiry after an adult patient was sent home wearing only a nappy.
The Malta Independent reports that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando will not contest the next general election. It also reports that the MHRA is expecting a tough winter for tourism.
l-orizzont reports that Motherwell Bridge is to dismiss 11 workers.
In-Nazzjon highlights comments made last night by the Governor of the Central Bank, Josef Bonnici, that Malta can overcome the challenges ahead of it.
The overseas press
24 Ore reports that the yields on Italian bonds soared to record highs on Friday, threatening to drive Rome into bankruptcy, a scenario which French and German leaders agreed would spell the “end of the euro”. Italy already must scrape together €150 billion in order to pay for bond redemptions that are due between February and April. The eurozone's third largest economy faces an overall debt burden of €1.9 trillion.
Meanwhile, Corriere della Sera reported that credit agency Fitch said that Italy was probably already in recession and declassified eight Italian banks, adding that their outlook was negative.
L’Echo reports ratings agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded Belgium’s credit rating by one notch, to AA from AA+. The agency expressed concern about funding and market pressures.
According to Budapest Business Journal, Hungary has lashed out at Moody's in response to a credit downgrade to junk status, accusing the credit rating agency of a “financial attack”. Moody's lowered its valuation of Hungarian bonds late on Thursday by one notch to Ba1, just below the level considered suitable for investment. Markets responded with nervousness, as interest rates for the country's debt soared to above 9 percent and the national currency, the forint, neared an all-time low against the euro.
Deustche Welle reports that Russia's state-run energy giant, Gazprom, has purchased the gas pipeline system in neighboring Belarus for €1.89 billion, providing Moscow with more control over the transit routes that run to its primary energy customer, the European Union. Gazprom already owned half of the pipeline system. In exchange for ceding full control of its pipeline system, Belarus is set to receive gas from Russia at a significantly reduced price. Moscow has also agreed to lend Belarus €7.2 billion for the construction of a nuclear plant as a part of the energy deal.
The Justice and Development Party (PJD) said it had won the largest number of seats in Morocco's parliamentary election on Friday. Lahcen Daodi, second in command of the moderate Islamist party, told Reuters his party had won the highest number of seats. However, government officials could not immediately confirm the party's claim. Turnout was 45 per cent. The PJD would be the second moderate Islamist party to lead a North African government since the start of the region's Arab Spring uprisings, following Tunisia.
Al Ahram says Prime Minister-designate Kamal Ganzouri has asked Egyptians to "give me a chance" as tens of thousands rally in Cairo against the military rulers. In his first public comments since being named, he said he would not name a new government before Monday's polls. The protesters in central Cairo's Tahrir Square want the parliamentary elections postponed.
A French TV journalist has claimed she was punched and roughed up, then sexually assaulted while covering protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Caroline Sinz told France 3 TV, her employer, that she and her cameraman were set upon by young men in the square then separated. She said she was punched, then “subjected to a sexual aggression in front of everyone in full daylight”. Later she told RMC radio boys aged 14 to 16 “tore off my clothes and undergarments” and assaulted her. It is the second attack reported in a single day on women journalists working there. Mona Eltahawy, a prominent Egyptian-born US columnist, said she was sexually assaulted, beaten and blindfolded near the square by local police. She said the police then dragged her to the nearby Interior Ministry by her hair and detained her there for 12 hours.
Dawn says Pakistan police have arrested a woman in Karachi suspected of murdering her husband, then chopping his body into pieces and boiling them to try to get rid of the evidence. Zainab Bibi, 42, told authorities she killed her husband because he tried to sexually assault her 17-year-old daughter from another marriage. She allegedly sedated her husband by mixing sleeping pills in his tea and strangled him with rope. She and her nephew then cut him up and boiled the flesh. Police say they discovered her plot after neighbours complained about a bad smell coming from her home.
Bild reports that a woman weighing 240 kilos has given birth to a six-kilo baby boy – without the need of a Caesarean operation. According to the Berlin hospital, the boy is the biggest baby to have been delivered naturally in Germany. The woman has 13 other children.