Press digest

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

The Times says Austin Gatt has denied ditching a favourable Italian gas pipeline deal, saying the decision was taken by the Cabinet before he became minister.

The Malta Independent says the parties were in ping-pong in the Xarabank debate.

In-Nazzjon leads with yesterday's debate, quoting the prime minister as saying that the PN government would create jobs and keep finances sound.

l-orizzont focuses on Labour's plans to have free childcare centres.

The overseas press

The fate of foreign hostages held at the remote In Aménas gas facility in southeastern Algeria is hanging in the balance as their Islamist captors demand a prisoner exchange and an end to French military action in Mali. The Al Qaeda-linked gunmen, cited by Mauritania's ANI news agency, said they still held seven foreigners at the site deep in the Sahara desert near the border with Libya. An Algerian security official put their number at 10. The Algerian state news agency APS said nearly 100 of the 132 foreign nationals had been freed. Of the 650 hostages liberated, 573 were Algerians. APS said 12 Algerian and foreign workers died since a rescue operation began on Thursday. Eighteen of the hostage takers were also "put out of action". About 30 foreigners remained unaccounted for. An Algerian government official said the kidnappers, who claimed to have come from Niger, were heavily armed with machineguns, assault rifles, rocket launchers and missiles.

ANI said militants were demanding the release of “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rehman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombings, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving sentence for attempted murder. Both are in US prisons. US officials have refused to “negotiate with terrorists”.

As international military operations continued in Algeria and Mali, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has urged NATO to be more innovative and flexible so it could keep "relentless pressure" on al-Qaeda and be able to respond to a broad range of security threats in the future. The State Journal quotes Panetta saying NATO member states must work together to help other countries beef up their security and ensure that terrorists could not establish safe havens anywhere in the world.

Kiev Post says prosecutors have accused Ukraine's jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of organising the 1996 murder of a powerful lawmaker and warned that a guilty verdict could put her behind bars for life. Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said the fiery 52-year-old had been informed by prosecutors that she and another former prime minister detained in the United States were formal suspects in the murder of Deputy Yevgen Shcherban. Tymoshenko's defence denied her involvement and called the charges political.

Moscow Times reports Russian doctors have been battling to save the eyesight of the Bolshoi Ballet's artistic director Sergei Filin after he was the victim of an acid attack. He suffered severe burns after being confronted by a masked attacker outside his apartment. Earlier this month, Filin reported a campaign of harassment that included having his email hacked into and his car tyres slashed.

Business Insider reports former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has been charged with corruption by a federal grand jury in the United States. He is accused of taking cash bribes and gifts of more than $160,000 while New Orleans struggled to recover from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The alleged offences include bribery, conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud and filing false tax returns.

Dawn says an officer who was investigating a corruption case against Pakistan’s Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has been found hanged from a ceiling fan in his room at a government dormitory. The police are investigating whether he killed himself. Faisal’s death came days after the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Ashraf and 15 others in connection with an old corruption case, when as minister of water and power, Ashraf oversaw the import of short-term power stations which cost the government millions of dollars but produced little energy.

USA Today reports nine more children have died from the flu, bringing the total this season to 29.The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said 30 states and New York City were reporting high influenza rates, up from 24 states last week. And more than 5,000 people have required hospitalisation to treat their flu symptoms. New York has declared a state of emergency over the crisis.

The Daily Telegraph announces that Falkland Islands government has scheduled a referendum on the islands' political status for March 10-11. Argentineans claim British forces stole the territory from them 180 years ago and have ruled it as a colony ever since.

A Brazilian judge has ordered the erotic trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey” to be taken off bookshop shelves in the city of Macae, or at least wrapped, to prevent children from opening them. O Globo reports Judge Raphael Queiroz Campos issued the order after he saw children in one of city's shops looking through erotic books. Eleven copies of the "Grey" series by British author E.L. James were among 64 books taken from the shelves of two bookshops because their content was deemed "improper" for children under 18. The books can be returned to the shelves only if they are sealed and placed out of reach of minors.