The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times, The Malta Independent and l-orizzont report that the call for expression of interest for the new power station will be issued next week. The Times also reports how a teenage girl was forced into prostitution.
MaltaToday says the police are probing the January civil service exam for mass fraud. The exam process had been stopped for investigation.
In-Nazzjon says Joseph Muscat is trying to please everyone in government appointments.
The overseas press
The Netherlands has said it opposes a proposal for an €11.2 billion increase in the EU’s 2013 budget. Het Financieele Dagblad quotes Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who also chairs the Eurogroup of finance ministers, telling the Dutch parliament in a letter that he could not agree with the supplementary budget, which the British government had described as “totally unacceptable”. Dijsselbloem urged the EU to be more rigorous and look for possible savings in the budget.
Cyprus' Financial Mirror reports the resignation of Finance Minister Michalis Sarris after an investigation was announced into how the country ended up nearly bankrupt. He has faced strong criticism for his handling of Cyprus's negotiations with its international creditors. President Nicos Anastasiades said that ordinary citizens who were shouldering the burden of “actions and omissions” by officials want to see those responsible punished.
Börzen Zeitung quotes Eurostat figures which show that unemployment across the 17-country eurozone last February hit 12 per cent for the first time since the currency was launched in 1999. The EU’s statistics office said that a net 33,000 people in the eurozone joined the ranks of the unemployed. Spain and Greece continued to suffer from unemployment rates above 26 per cent, and many others were seeing their numbers swell to uncomfortable levels.
The Financial Times reports that data protection authorities from France, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy have agreed on joint legal action against Google to try to force the tech giant to overhaul its privacy practices. Last year, Google merged 60 separate privacy policies from around the world into one universal procedure. The European organisations say the new policy does not allow users to figure out which information is kept, how it is combined by Google services or how long the company retains it.
Reuters says Israel has launched an air strike on the Palestinian Gaza Strip – the first such attack since an eight-day war in November, saw 170 Palestinians and six Israelis killed. A statement from the Hamas Interior Ministry, the Islamist movement that controls the territory, said Israeli planes bombarded an open area in northern Gaza, but there were no deaths or injuries. An Israeli military statement confirmed there had been a strike in Gaza, but gave no further details.
Meanwhile, Haaretz reports Palestinian prisoners rioted following news of a fellow inmate's death of cancer, and Israeli prison guards fired tear gas to quell the disturbances, an Israeli official said. Palestinian officials said Israel was responsible for the death of 64-year-old Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, charging medical negligence. The Prisons Authority said three prisoners and six guards were evacuated for medical treatment after inhaling tear gas.
The Washington Post says the US has appealed to China and Russia to do everything in their power to help reduce tensions with North Korea, as Pyongyang announced it had reopened the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which has the potential to produce weapons grade uranium. The latest North Korean threat provoked aggravation from the isolated regime's main diplomatic ally, Beijing, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. China expressed “regret” at Pyongyang's announcement, and Ban called for North Korea to lower its high-pitch, aggressive rhetoric because it might invite a “firm response”. North Korea had closed Yongbyon in 2007.
CNN reports Atlanta educators – principals, teachers and testing coordinator – have surrendered to authorities after being indicted by a grand jury in a cheating scandal that rocked Atlanta Public Schools. They will face charges of racketeering, theft by taking and making false statements about their roles in an alleged plot to falsify students' standardised tests.
Ekstra Bladet says that tens of thousands of Danish teachers have been barred from schools after talks over working hours with municipal authorities failed to produce an agreement. The National Teachers Union says 52,000 teachers were locked out, preventing hundreds of thousands of pupils from attending school. Thousands of teachers held impromptu protests throughout Denmark.
Bloomberg reports the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that numerus clausus, which seeks to limit the number of students who can attend university courses, does not violate the right to study. The ruling follows a case brought by eight Italian students. In its decision the court said the rule is compatible with calls for the right to study embodied in the European convention on human rights. The court found that the Italian rule did not exceed the wide margin given to EU member states to regulate university studies.
A British government minister is being asked to put his money where his mouth is. Opponents of a raft of welfare changes that took effect this week want Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to make good on a claim that he could live on £53 (€62.5) a week – the amount one welfare recipient said he has left after paying for housing and heat. As the petition secured nearly 300,000 signatures, Smith told the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian it was a distraction because he had experienced life on the breadline during two periods of unemployment.