The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says that according to a recent report, more than 300 16-year-olds “disappear” every year from school and employment records, falling into idleness or the black economy. In another story it reports the testimony of a magistrate about an incident in her courtroom last October when a man threatened to kill her, a police inspector and his family in a fit of rage.
The Malta Independent leads with a story on The Guardian’s report yesterday that former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone held €880,000 in two Swiss bank accounts. In another story it says that illegal street bike racing is taking place on Ta’ Penellu hill in Mellieha.
In-Nazzjon quotes Valletta Rehabilitation Committee chairman Kenneth Zammit Tabona saying that the monti should not be visible from City Gate.
L-Orizzont says that the cause for the beatification of Grand Master Andrew Bertie will start next Friday.
International news
Libyan militias linked to the Islamic State have taken control of the state radio station in the city of Sirte, 500 kilometres east of Tripoli, establishing their headquarters in the city center. Jihadist websites showed ISIS militants armed with Kalashnikovs in front of the microphones in the recording studio. They also aired verses from the Koran and speeches by their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi. Libya Herald reports supporters of the Islamic State in Sirte extended their hold over the town by seizing its Ibn Sina hospital. Meanwhile other IS fighters were reported to have attacked oilfields southeast of the town.
As the Italian embassy in Tripoli renewed its invitation to Italian citizens still in Libya to leave the country, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni warned that Italy was ready to fight ISIS so long as any military action is conducted under a legal framework established by the United Nations. He told SkyTg24 that Italy was becoming deeply concerned about a threat from ISIS and could not accept that a few hours away there was such an active terrorist threat.
USA Today says the Pentagon has confirmed that Islamic State militants have captured the town of Al-Baghdadi in western Iraq, close to a US military base, where US forces are training Iraqi troops. Earlier, the jihadists attacked the US base, in what experts believe might have been a probe that could foreshadow a coming clash involving Americans. All eight Islamic State fighters were killed by Iraqi forces in the raid and none of the 400 US military personnel at the base were involved.
Meanwhile, Al Ahram says Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahla, said there was no evidence of the beheading of some of the 21 Coptic Christians kidnapped by Islamic State in Sirte last year. Inviting all national forces to fight terrorism, Mahlab announced that the government would give $157 per month to the families of the kidnapped men until their return. The jihadist website Dabeq, had shown Egyptian workers wearing orange suits ready to be executed. The online magazine also claimed responsibility for the attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli last month.
Canadian police have foiled a plot by two suspects who were planning on going to a mall and killing as many people as they could before killing themselves on Valentines Day in Halifax. A police official told The Associated Press the suspects were on a chat stream and were apparently obsessed with killing and death and had many photos of mass killings. Police and other officials said it was not related to Islamic terrorism.
La Sicilia says a Somali human trafficker has been sentenced to 30 years in prison by a court in Agrigento. He was one of the organisers of a boatload of immigrants which was wrecked off the cost of Lampedusa with 366 deaths in October 2013. Mouhamud Elmi Muhidin, 34, was also convicted of violence against immigrants. Muhidin was identified by a group of immigrants who survived the shipwreck.
AFP says fighting continued in Ukraine yesterday, throwing doubts on a ceasefire deal due to take effect over the weekend, as the US said Russia was still deploying heavy arms and Kiev warned that shelling of civilians had intensified. At least 28 civilians and soldiers were reported killed in the latest upsurge in fighting.
The New York Times reports that a laptop computer seized during the arrest of an Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan revealed a precious booty of information “comparable to that obtained by computers and documents found in 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the raid in which the Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden”. The discovery was made during the operation conducted last October by US special forces to capture Abu Bara al-Kuwaiti and has contributed to a significant increase in night raids of the US and Afghan commandos against Taliban and Qaeda insurgents in Afghanistan.
Boko Haram have killed 12 people in their first attack in Chad. The Pan-African Koaci website said the militants crossed Lake Chad and then set fire to the village of Ngouboua before being driven back by the Chad army. A soldier and four others were wounded.
Clarin says the prosecutor who inherited a high-profile case against Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez is reaffirming the accusations. Gerardo Pollicita formally reopened the investigation into whether the president helped Iranian officials cover up their role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in which 85 people were killed. She has strongly denied the accusations and Tehran has repeatedly denied involvement in the bombing.
The inhabitants of Milan are most inclined to curl up with a romantic read for Valentine's Day. Ansa reports that, according to an Amazon survey, second went to Trieste where famed Irish author James Joyce lived, while the sun-drenched Sardinian capital Cagliari ranked third. Verona, where tourists pay homage at the balconied home of star-crossed lovers Juliet and her Romeo, actually ranked only 10th.
Universal’s Fifty Shades of Grey is dominating the North American box office, with early estimates for yesterday pointing to a launch as high as $85 million at 3,646 locations. Variety says Fifty Shades carries a relatively demure $40 million production budget, so Universal will be in the black long before the end of the weekend.