The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times says the tax probe into oil firms allegedly involved in the oil procurement scandal has been widened. It also reports that the two parties held big mass meetings yesterday, in Sliema and Floriana.
The Malta Independent, reporting on yesterday's mass meeting, quotes the prime minister saying that hard-won achievements could be lost if the PL wins on Saturday. Meanwhile Joseph Muscat said this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring about change.
MaltaToday says that Gonzi and Muscat focused on job creation in yesterday’s speeches.
l-orizzont quotes Joseph Muscat saying the choice on Saturday is a historic one.
In-Nazzjon, quoting Lawrence Gonzi, says this is not the time to change direction.
The overseas press.
Preparations for electing the new Pope begin in earnest today as the College of Cardinals opens daily talks to sketch an identikit for the next pope and ponder who among them might fit it. Reuters reports the idea is to have the new pope elected during next week and officially installed several days later so he could preside over the Holy Week ceremonies starting with Palm Sunday on March 24 and culminating in Easter the following Sunday. Among those considered a fair prospect for the job are Italy’s Angelo Scola, Canada’s Marc Oullet, Brazil’s Odilo Scherer, Ghana’s Peter Turkson and the US’s Timothy Dolan.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has told Der Spiegel magazine that Germany would not allow Romania or Bulgaria to join the European open-border Schengen zone. Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007, are obliged to join the area but the process has been delayed pending the completion of other obligations like tackling corruption and organized crime. EU interior and justice ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday with this issue on the agenda.
Austria’s far right has lost power in the state of Carinthia according to ORF TV projections. The nationalist Freedom Party saw its voter share drop to around 20 per cent from 44.9 per cent at the last election in 2009. The centre-left Social Democrats , which is in power nationally, looked set to take control of the state for the first time since 1999. It garnered the highest share of the vote, 37.1 percent. In the other state being contested, Lower Austria, the ruling centre-right People's Party retained a majority.
Novinar reports tens of thousands of Bulgarians rallied across the country on Sunday, in the latest sign that the government's resignation last month failed to calm public anger about poverty and corruption. In the capital Sofia some 7,000 demonstrators blocked traffic on several key boulevards for hours. More than 20,000 gathered in the Black Sea city of Varna where the initial protests against high electricity bills started last month. Smaller protests were held in about a dozen other cities. Bulgaria has been rocked for three weeks by violent demonstrations over high electricity prices, deepening poverty, cronyism and corruption in the European Union's poorest member state.
AFP quotes Libyan foreign ministry saying gunmen have attacked an Egyptian Coptic church in Benghazi, assaulting two priests. The event came just days after dozens of Egyptian Christians suspected of proselytising were arrested. The foreign ministry “strongly condemned” the attack but did not elaborate or give any details of injuries.
Libya Herald says the transport of natural gas from Libya to Italy, through a major pipeline in the country's west, was halted on Sunday after clashes between tribesmen and forces guarding the natural gas complex. The unrest was the latest of ongoing tribal clashes that are hampering efforts to bring Libya under control of the central government.
Al Ahram reports US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Washington would give financial aid worth $250 million (€192 million) to Egypt, rewarding Mohammed Morsi's political and economic reform pledges. Kerry said the aid supports Egypt's “future as a democracy”.
Al Gomhuria says a policeman was killed and an army officer was among dozens of people wounded on Sunday in the Egyptian city of Port Said as residents clashed with police. The military intervened in the latest in a cycle of violence which continues to rock Egypt two years after the uprising that ousted longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Dawn reports a bomb blast outside a Shiite mosque in Karachi has killed at least 45 people and injured 150 others in a neighbourhood dominated by Shiite Muslims. No one has claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban have targeted Shiites in the past, claiming they are heretics.
The story that Queen Elizabeth has been admitted to hospital dominates many of the British front pages, including The Daily Telegraph. The Queen, who is 86, was taken to hospital “as a precaution” after suffering symptoms of gastroenteritis. According to her spokesman, she is in “good spirits” and is otherwise in “good health”. All official engagements planned for this week – including a visit to Italy – have been postponed or cancelled.
The Guardian says Cardinal Keith O’Brien, until recently Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, has apologised for sexual conduct that had at times “fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”. He stepped down from his post as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh last week, a day after three priests and a former priest made allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour against him. He will not be attending the Conclave to elect the successor to Pope Benedict.
Huffington Post reports a pregnant young woman who was feeling ill was heading to the hospital with her husband early Sunday when the car they were riding in was hit, killing them both – but their baby boy was born prematurely and survived. Nachman and Raizy Glauber were killed when a BMW slammed into the car they were in, and their infant son is in serious condition in a local hospital. The driver and passenger in the BMW fled the scene, and are wanted by police.
According to Newsday, a baby born with the AIDS virus appears to have been cured. Scientists announced a child from Mississippi, who's now 2 ½ years old, and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection. They added that there's no guarantee the child will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing uncovered just traces of the virus' genetic material still lingering. If so, it would mark only the world's second reported cure.