The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports that a drug expert has warned of a new ecstasy risk.
The Malta Independent says 34,000 Maltese are registered on Ask.fm.
MaltaToday says Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca called on MPs to give children a voice.
In-Nazzjon says the Opposition is showing it is positive and constructive by voting for a President from the other side of the political fence.
l-orizzont quotes Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca saying she would have liked to do more as Social Policy Minister.
The overseas press
A rebel group in eastern Libya has agreed with the government to end its seizure of vital oil ports within days, a senior leader told Reuters, raising hopes for an end to an eight-month stalemate that has dried up state income and fuelled chaos.
Le Soir quotes Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen saying the organisation would react to all threats made by Russia against allies. Opening of the 28-member-state North Atlantic Council sitting, he said Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region was the gravest threat to European security for a generation. Nato foreign ministers have agreed to suspend all practical civilian and military co-operation with Russia. Rasmussen had earlier categorically denied reports that Russia was pulling its forces back from its border with Ukraine.
The Washington Post reports the US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to provide aid to Ukraine, back a $1 billion loan guarantee for the Kiev government and impose sanctions over Russia‘s annexation of Crimea.
Al Jazeera says US Secretary of State John Kerry has insisted it was completely premature to write off the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. After cancelling a visit to the West Bank, Kerry said a lot of possibilities were in play, even though a dispute threatened to derail his efforts to extend negotiations beyond this month.
L’Avvenire quotes Pope Francis saying too many Catholics had lost enthusiasm for their faith and risked falling into “the spiritual disease of sloth”. During his regular morning Mass at Santa Martha’s House, Francis said some are “even embittered” and at times, hypocritical. They may attend Mass each Sunday but their spirits were closed to others and their spirits risked falling into the sin of sloth, or laziness and apathy, he warned. “They do not bother to go out to proclaim the Gospel! They are anesthetized,” he said.
Al Bawaba reports two Tunisian policemen have been sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a young woman in a case that had triggered angry protests.
Il Sole 24 Ore says new figures showed unemployment in Italy rose to 13 per cent to 3.3 million in February – the highest level in about 37 years – and were described as “shocking” by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on a visit to London. Unemployment among youths aged 15 to 24 rose to 42.3 per cent – about 3.6 percentage points above the level recorded last year.
Bild reports a Lufthansa flight made an emergency return to Munich airport on Tuesday after a man armed with a razor blade took a flight attendant hostage. The 28-year-old Kosovo man had boarded the flight to Budapest, after being deported from Germany due to the rejection of an asylum request. The man barricaded himself in a toilet with the flight attendant. Police say the Kosovo passenger, who spoke Albanian, surrendered with the help of an interpreter.
Al-Arabiya quotes the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying more than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011. Of these, 51,212 were civilians, including 7,985 children. The group said the figures included 37,781 members of the armed opposition, and 58,480 loyalist forces, including more than 35,000 soldiers.
ABC reports the British submarine HMS Tireless has joined nine other ships and 10 aircraft in the hunt for wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Trafalgar class submarine arrived in the southern Indian Ocean and would help search for the plane’s black box recorder. It will soon by joined by Royal Navy coastal survey ship HMS Echo.
A man has been left without genitals and with three missing toes after a witch doctor told him that losing his body parts would make him rich. The man, who has been hospitalised in Zambia after he allowed the hyena to eat his manhood, has told The Times of Zambia he was promised by a witch doctor that by sacrificing his body parts he would become rich. Despite the horrific ordeal, he admitted he was still hopeful of becoming rich. The hospital described the man’s condition as stable.