The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press: The local press is dominated by the passing away of President Emeritus Censu Tabone.
The Times reports that the Gentleman President died gracefully aged 98.
The Malta Independent says Censu Tabone was a great communicator.
In-Nazzjon also describes Censu Tabone as a Gentleman of Politics.
l-orizzont puts Censu Tabone on the backpage and instead leads with comments by the MUMN president that instead of inaugurating a hospital woodland, the health minister should concentrate on the bed shortage.
The overseas press:
Reuters report that distraught parents have flown to Switzerland after a bus carrying a group of Belgian school children home from a ski trip crashed into the wall of a Swiss tunnel, killing 22 children and six adults. Twenty-four passengers remained in hospital, including three children in Lausanne with critical injuries, but the other survivors were out of danger. Swiss President Evelyn Widmer-Schlumpf and Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo paid tribute to the victims and the 200 rescue workers who pulled the injured from the wreckage after the bus rammed into a wall inside a tunnel on Tuesday night.
The US soldier accused of killing 16 civilians, including women and children, in Afghanistan on Sunday has been flown to Kuwait. The BBC quotes US officials saying legal proceedings against the unnamed staff sergeant would now be conducted in another country. Members of the Afghan parliament had demanded that he should be put on trial in their country but the US has always insisted that charges of wrongdoing by its soldiers be dealt with within the American military legal system. If found guilty he could face the death penalty. The Taliban have promised revenge attacks.
Fox News says that the US soldier’s transfer coincides with a visit by US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, whose arrival in Afghanistan was marred by an incident involving a vehicle A stolen pick-up truck was driven at high speed onto the runway where Mr Panetta's plane was intended to stop at the British base in Helmand province, Camp Bastion. The vehicle ended crashing into a ditch and bursting into flames. It quotes a military source saying the strange incident on the tarmac on Wednesday at Camp was an attempted attack.
The New York Times says that seeking to project a united front on Afghanistan after a spate of bloody setbacks on the battlefield, President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that their countries would stick to the timetable for winding down the war by the end of 2014. They insisted that the American-led coalition was making gains in preparing Afghans to take over their own security. On Iran both reaffirmed the need to allow economic sanctions to take their toll before considering military action. The two leaders also appeared united on Syria, expressing frustration at the inability of the West to stop the government of President Bashar al-Assad from killing thousands of civilians in Homs and other Syrian cities.
CNN says former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich today starts a 14-year prison sentence on a corruption conviction. He was convicted of corruption in June 2011 after a jury returned 17 guilty verdicts against him. Among other allegations, he was accused of trying to profit as he considered whom to appoint to take Barack Obama's open Senate seat. Blagojevich called his impending prison stint a "dark and hard journey," and said he should have been more humble.
Le Monde reports world leaders have welcomed the verdict of the International Criminal Court which has found the Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers between 2002 and 2003. It was the court's first verdict since it was set up 10 years ago. He will be sentenced at a later hearing.
In the UK, The Guardian has published what it says are e-mails sent and received by president Assad of Syria and his wife. The e-mails appear to show that Assad took advice from Iran on dealing with the uprising against him.
Bloomberg reports the American bank Goldman Sacks has insisted it acts in the best interests of its clients after stinging public criticism from one of its own directors. Greg Smith, who headed Goldman's equity derivatives business in Europe, wrote to The New York Times saying he was quitting the bank because he was sick of hearing his colleagues talk of ripping off their "muppet" clients. Goldman Sachs' boss, Lloyd Blankfein, has rejected claims that the bank’s environment was "toxic and destructive" and said Smith’s views did not reflect the banking giant's values.
Asia News says rallies have been held in South Korea as a controversial free trade agreement with the United States came into force. Supporters believe it would boost trade and benefit both countries but critics say it favours American workers over their South Korean counterparts.
ABC News reports 13 Cuban dissidents have occupied a Catholic church in Havana, demanding an audience with Pope Benedict when he visits Cuba later this month. The Church condemned the protest, saying places of worship should not be used for political demonstrations.
The Washington Post says American actor George Clooney has given a first-hand account to a US Senate committee of the suffering he witnessed during a trip to the volatile border area between Sudan and South Sudan. The actor secretly travelled across the border to the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, where his party apparently witnessed a rocket attack. He said what was happening in the area was "ominously similar" to the violence in Darfur, where the UN estimates that 300 thousand people have died and 2.7 million been displaced since conflict broke out in 2003.
Corriere dell'Umbria says that an Italian man is suing his wife's lover seeking monetary compensation for the moral damage caused by the extra-marital affair. The man from Spoleto claims the affair caused his wife to have "obsessive behaviour that ruined family life" and he is seeking €600,0000 in damages: €200,000 for himself and €200,000 for each of his two children. The accused lover says he's never been involved with the married woman, and even if he was, her heart and libido are legally free to wander from the bonds of matrimony. "My client denies being the woman's lover," said the lawyer of accused home-wrecker. And even if it was true, she is not the property of her husband. And there is no law keeping a man from going to bed with a married woman."