The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how some Maltese Corinthia workers have returned to Malta after the attack on the hotel two days ago. The head of the Tripoli administration is believed to have been the target of the attack. The newspaper also reports that the Competition Authority is investigating diesel prices after reports that a petrol station owner was pressured not to cut prices.
The Malta Independent says Muscat and Busuttil have urged all Maltese to leave Libya. It also reports that a German boy is reported to be missing from Malta. He also has a Swedish passport and may have been taken out of the country.
l-orizzont says IVF services have started being provided at Mater Dei Hospital.
In-Nazzjon says there are different claims of who was behind the attack on the Corinthia Tripoli Hotel.
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 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.
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.
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. Survivor Roman Kent urged future generations not to forget history, declaring, “We do not want our past to be our children’s future.”
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. The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut lifted travel bans they had imposed a day earlier and New York City’s subway system restarted after being closed for 10 hours, but officials urged people to stay off snow-covered roadways. The snow was forecast to continue into early this morning.
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”. Lent, the period of fasting and penitence before Easter, begins on Ash Wednesday which this year falls on February18.
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.