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

Times of Malta says the Home Affairs Minister’s security driver, Paul Sheehan, was hospitalised yesterday after he and his brother flew into a rage when a magistrate turned up outside their mother’s home for an onsite inquiry. It also reports Opposition leader Simon Busuttil’s reply to the Budget speech during which accused the Prime Minister of being weak in the face of abuse.

In its report of Dr Busuttil’s speech, In-Nazzjon quotes the leader of the Opposition saying the Budget was a cover up in every sense.

L-Orizzont leads with the Prime Minister’s reaction to Dr Busuttil’s Budget speech saying it was the most negative speech ever made by the leader of the Opposition.

The Malta Independent says that the lawyer who accompanied PC Sheenan for police questioning was from Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia’s legal firm.

 

International news

A grand jury has ruled that Darren Wilson, a white police officer accused of shooting dead an unarmed black teenager in August, will not be charged. Fox News said yesterday Missouri governor Jay Nixon called for “peace, respect and restraint” as protesters across the country planned demonstrations. The fatal shooting of Michael Brown sparked angry protests in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson.

Pope Francis will today address the European Parliament – the first time in 26 years a pontiff has addressed the Strasbourg body. Ansa reports the Pope, who yesterday prayed for divine help for his trip, will then meet EU officials. Before returning to Rome, he will also address the Council of Europe.

A no-confidence motion in the EU’s new chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker has no chance of success after the Eurosceptic lawmakers who brought it traded insults with the bigger parties in the European Parliament yesterday. According to Reuters, the motion calls for Juncker to be removed because of his long tenure as prime minister of Luxembourg when the country was at the centre of controversial corporate tax avoidance schemes. The vote is set for Thursday.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has underlined the importance of “stabilising” Libya to curb illegal immigration. AGI says that during a news conference with President Al Sisi of Egypt, Renzi said at the moment there were five million Egyptian refugees in Italy. He lauded the Egyptian leader for his efforts to control the flow of undocumented migrants.

Meanwhile, Mitiga airport in Tripoli had been hit in an airstrike. A single warplane made a low pass over the airport after which a witness told the Libya Herald there was a loud explosion followed by a plume of black smoke. No casualties were reported although there had been hundreds of people at the airport. Al-Watanya interrupted its religious programme to break the news.

Announcing he had accepted his Defence Secretary’s resignation, President Obama thanked Chuck Hagel for his “exemplary” service. Fox News says Hagel confirmed he would remain in his role until a successor emerges.

Press TV quotes President Hassan Rouhani saying he was confident of Iran and world powers ultimately reaching a nuclear agreement, after a deadline was extended through to July. US Secretary of State John Kerry also lauded “substantial progress”. Iran and six major powers failed on Monday to resolve 12 months of talks on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but gave themselves another seven months to overcome their outstanding differences and forge a deal.

El Pais says Spanish authorities have arrested four Catholic priests accused of child abuse in the southern city of Granada. The country’s Interior Ministry says investigations into the case began “some time ago”.

At least 210 women, including 79 between 14 and 18 years and eight girls between 10 and 13, were raped during the night between October 31 and November 1 in Tabit, a village in the troubled region Sudan. Il Tempo says this was confirmed by the “Italians for Darfur” organisation. The perpetrators were Sudanese army personnel and pro-government militias as an act of retaliation following the disappearance in the area of one of their comrades.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set off a new controversy, declaring that women were not equal to men and accusing feminists of not understanding the special status that Islam attributes to mothers. CTV News reports that addressing a meeting in Istanbul on women and justice, Erdogan said men and women were created differently, that women could not be expected to undertake the same work as men, and that mothers enjoy a high position that only they could reach.

The New York Times reports the upright piano upon which Sam plays “As Time Goes By” in Rick’s Cafe in the 1942 hit “Casablanca” sold at auction for $3.4 million (€2.7 million), gum and all. The price included a 12 percent commission. Bonhams on Madison Avenue did not identify the buyer of the piano, which was on the screen for only 70 seconds.

USA Today says hundreds of piglets on the way to market were rescued from a truck that overturned on an interstate outside of Indianapolis. Some 700 pigs died as a result of the crash, but hundreds of others were saved. The truck was carrying 2,058 pigs. The driver was not seriously injured.

Business Edge reports Ontario has moved to regulate the sale of electronic cigarettes, ban all flavoured tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, and mandate calorie counts on restaurant menus with its “Making Healthier Choices Act”. The restaurant and motel industries asked for regulations on e-cigarettes so they would not have to fight with customers who were not clear on the rules.

Austria Times says the EU has given the green light to the Austrian Freedom party to promote a local beer named after the village of Fucking. And because the beer is a light beer, and the German word for light is “hell”, the beer from Fucking is naturally known as “Fucking Hell”.
The EU accepted that although it might be an obscene swear word in the English language, in the German language it was simply the name of the village – and a light ‘hell’ type of beer. The Bavarian towns of Kissing and Petting have the same problem, as does the eastern German town of Pissen. But so far, there are no plans to name a beer after them.

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