The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.

Times of Malta reports on the start of the electoral campaign for May’s MEP elections saying European issues were far from the messages that party leaders pitched to voters. In another story, the newspaper quotes an opinion piece by former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi where he says the Civil Unions Bill should not have included gay adoption.

L-Orizzont reports on the shooting in Hamrun yesterday and says two men, aged 18 and 38, were slightly injured. A 31-year-old man was arrested.

The Malta Independent says PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami and MP Claudio Grech have strongly denied allegations that if the PN decided to vote in favour of the Civil Unions Bill, they would have resigned.

In-Nazzjon dedicates its front page to the Nationalist Party’s first day of campaigning for the MEP elections.

International news

The number of people known to have died in South Korea’s Ferry disaster last week has risen to more than 100. Choson Iblo reports of the 476 people on board, 201 people were still missing.

Bloomberg reports divers haven’t yet reached the dining hall on the third-level, where many people were thought to be at the time of the incident.

Parents of the schoolgirls abducted from the Nigeria state of Brno last week say the number being held is far higher than the official figure. The principal of the school from where the girls were taken told the BBC that 230 people were abducted – a hundred more than the government had said.

US Vice-President Joe Biden is expected to put on a public show of support for the interim Ukrainian government in meetings in Kiev later today. Kyiv Post reports Biden plans to meet with Ukraine's president and prime minister as well as lawmakers to back their confrontation against militants seeking to separate from Ukraine, and to warn Russia that the US may impose more sanctions on it if it continues to provoke unrest.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told NBC that Putin was trying to bring back the Soviet Union. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was increasingly being called on to save southeastern Ukraine from chaos.

The Washington Times says UN Secretary General Bank Ki-moon has been joined by the US and its western allies in condemning Syria’s decision to hold a presidential election in June.

Fuji TV reports a group of nearly 150 Japanese members of parliament, including cabinet ministers, have visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan’s war dead including 14 World War II convicted war criminals.

Utah Globe says a man accused of robbery and assault was shot and killed in a Salt Lake City court after he lunged at a witness giving evidence.

Fox News reports two death-row inmates in the United States have won a stay of execution after challenging secrecy laws about the source of the lethal injection drugs.

Huffington Post says Mexico and Columbia are holding public memorials for the Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died last week.

USA Today reports thousands of marathoners have taken to the streets of Boston, as the city honoured three killed and more than 260 injured in a bomb attack last year.

According to Gulf News, Qatar has reduced the number of stadia it plans to build for the 2022 soccer World Cup by a third amid rising costs and delays.

 

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