The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times says the Maltese courts, in closed sittings are hearing new evidence on the Lockerbie case following a request by a Scottish group. It also says that a Maltese woman is seeking damages from the police after the migrant man who she says is the father of her son was allegedly killed by the security forces.
The Malta Independent interviews Paul Borg Olivier, who says the PN is an agent for change. It also highlights Labour’s call for Gozitans to have jobs in Gozo.
l-orizzont says Gozo has a third world hospital.
In-Nazzjon quotes the prime minister saying the PN reflects the people’s aspirations.
The overseas press
Al Manar TV reports the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has called for a week of protest against the United States over the American-made video which outraged Muslims over its depicture of the Prophet Mohammad. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told his supporters the world needed to see their anger, saying the United States must be held accountable for the Internet video. Nasrallah also called for demonstrations around Lebanon, including the southern coastal town of Tyre on Wednesday and the northern town of Hermel on Sunday. The video portrays Mohammad as a womaniser and in one clip posted on YouTube, he was shown in a sexual act with a woman.
Western embassies across the Muslim world remained on high alert and the United States urged vigilance after days of anti-American violence. Bloomberg quotes US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta saying the turmoil raging across the Muslim world was likely to continue into the days ahead, but that the violence appeared to be leveling off. The Pentagon has moved two warships to the coast of Libya. Marine rapid response teams have also been deployed to Libya and Yemen.
Meanwhile, the president of the Libyan parliament says about 50 people have been arrested in connection with the killing of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi last week. Mohamed Magarief told CBS News he had "no doubt" the attack was pre-planned.
But the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said that preliminary information indicated the consulate attack was not pre-meditated. She told ABC News last week's assault began with a "spontaneous" protest over the anti-Islamic video, which followed similar demonstrations in Egypt, where the US embassy was stormed. Rice said that as the event unfolded, it seemed “to have been hijacked...by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons. And it then evolved from there."
Pakistani Daily Times reports a demonstrator was killed in clashes with police as hundreds they tried to march to the US consulate in Karachi in protest against the anti-Islam video. The police fired tear gas and used water cannons on the demonstrators as they approached the heavily-guarded consulate.
Pope Benedict XVI has called on all Christians to do their part to end the “grim trail of death and destruction” in Middle East. An Nahar says that during an open-air Mass Sunday for tens of thousands of pilgrims from across the region, he said justice and peace were needed in building “a fraternal society, for building fellowship”.
A religious foundation in Iran has increased a reward for killing British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million in response to alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad. Jomhoori Eslami reports that the 15 Khordad Foundation would pay the prize to whoever acts on the 1989 death fatwa issued by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the author of the novel “The Satanic Verses”, calling his book blasphemous.
Dawn says the international coalition in Afghanistan has apologised for an airstrike that killed eight civilian women in a remote part of the country. Sunday’s US strike was targeting known insurgents and killed as many as 45. Afghan President Mohammed Karzai had earlier strongly condemned the killing. They women had been collecting firewood when the area came under attack. It happened on the same day that four American soldiers were shot dead by a policeman in southern Afghanistan.
Iran says that advisers from its elite Revolutionary Guard are providing non-military assistance in Syria. Abrar quotes General Mohammad Ali Jafari saying Teheran might take military action if its closest ally was attacked by outside forces. The statement was the first official acknowledgement that Iran has a military presence in Syria.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran is just six months away from having the nuclear bomb. Haaretz says he chided the international community for “its failure to set a clear red line on Iran’s nuclear programme” that would trigger a military response. Tehran has always maintained its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes.
Irrawady reports Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has left Burma for the three-week visit to the US. She is expected to meet President Obama and be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour and other awards she could not collect because of her many years under house arrest.
The Irish Independent says a boardroom row is on the cards after Independent News and Media warned it would not be happy to see the Irish Daily Star shut down, calling the decision to do so as "disproportionate". It comes after a St James’s Palace spokesman for the Royal family announced lawyers would go to court today seeking damages and an injunction against further publication of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge. The case against the French magazine Closer would begin in Paris in the afternoon and was expected to be held in public. Mondadori also publishes Italian gossip magazine Chi which has promised a 26-page special edition featuring images of the royal couple on holiday in Provence. Royal officials said no decision had been taken on separate legal proceedings in Italy.