The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The local newspapers are dominated by the terrorist attack on the Corinthia Hotel Tripoli.
Times of Malta says at least eight people died in the attack but all Maltese employees were safe. The prime minister will give a statement in parliament this evening.
MaltaToday says the attack on the hotel was carried out by suicide bombers.
The Malta Independent says four foreigners and five guards were killed.
l-orizzont asks if the target of yesterday’s attack was the head of the Tripoli administration.
In other stories, The Malta Independent says the Energy Ministry has denied that Godwin Sant, a former MRA official implicated in the oil procurement scandal, was ever part of the minister’s secretariat.
The overseas press
Tripoli’s private satellite television station al-Nabaa quotes Libyan authorities confirming five foreigners – an American, two Filipinos, a Frenchman and a South Korean – were among 13 people killed when two gunmen stormed a Tripoli’s luxury Corinthia Hotel in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group, before blowing themselves up. The dead also included five Libyan security guards killed in the initial attack and a hostage of unknown nationality who died when the attackers blew themselves up. At least five people were also injured. The Tripoli branch of the Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile Ansa quotes a report appearing in unidentified Libyan media saying ISIS was focusing on Libya as a means “to get to Europe” with illegal immigrants. Under the sub-heading of “illegal immigration”, ISIS is reported to have said, “If we can take advantage of this channel, the situation in these countries will turn into a living hell.” The report has yet to be verified as authentic.
Fuji TV says senior Japanese officials have met to discuss a video purporting to show Kenji Goto, a Japanese captive of Islamic State militants, warning that he and a Jordanian pilot being held with him had 24 hours to live unless Jordan released jailed female militant, Sajida al-Rishawi, who is on death row for her role in a bombing in Jordan a decade ago. In the audio recording, Kenji Goto’s voice is heard appealing for the governments of Japan and Jordan to secure his release.
AFP reports Greece’s new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has distanced himself from a threat by EU leaders to impose further sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine, saying Athens was not consulted about the warning. In a statement two days after his radical left Syriza Party won Greece’s general election, Tsipras accused EU leaders of failing to consult his government on a joint declaration accusing Russia of “growing support” to separatists in Ukraine’s east.
A new European Commission counter-terror plan to be published later today would require 42 separate pieces of information on every passenger flying in and out of Europe. London’s The Guardian reveals the counter-terrorism plan includes the collection of the passengers’ bank card details, home address and meal preferences, such as halal. The data is to be stored on a central database for up to five years for access by the police and security services.
The Free Press says world leaders have joined about 300 Auschwitz survivors at the site of the former Nazi death camp to mark 70 years since its liberation by Soviet troops. Survivors urged world leaders to install an understanding of what happens when prejudice and hatred were allowed to flourish.
Reuters reports a US blizzard swept past New York City and struck hardest at some 4.5 million people around Boston, dropping nearly a metre of snow in areas and triggering high tides that breached a seawall and forced residents to flee their coastal homes.
Avvenire says Pope Francis has urged believers to overcome a “globalization of indifference” that was threatening to spread a feeling of distress worldwide. In his Lenten message, the Pontiff said the faithful must “open their hearts to God” to ward off a powerlessness that was causing individuals and communities to withdraw into themselves, closing “the door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him”.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo has told CNN he would not be pressured to issue a last-minute reprieve for two convicted Australian drug smugglers facing the death penalty. The two ringleaders of the so-called Bali Nine are due to be executed after appeals for clemency were rejected. Indonesian lawyers were hoping for a judicial review but Mr Widodo declared nothing would change his hardline stance against drug dealers.
Britain’s most senior judge has warned extreme internet pornography was driving people to inflict sexual violence and murder. The Daily Mail quotes Lord Thomas, the Lord Chief Justice telling the House of Commons’ Justice Select Committee he was “in no doubt” that access to adult material “peddled” on the web encouraged perverts to turn their fantasies into reality. He said many hardcore images available to download were “simply horrific” and cited a sadistic, sexually-motivated killing they had inspired – a murder of a teenage girl by a male friend who was obsessed with violent online porn.
Lord Thomas’s comment contrasted heavily with figures compiled by the Ministry of Justice which revealed hundreds of sex offenders were escaping with slap-on-the-wrist punishments for “abhorrent” crimes including grooming and assaulting children, which carry a maximum 14 years in jail. Metro says the figures show the police had given out 437 cautions over the past five years to perpetrators having sexual activities with children aged 12 or under.