The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says an investment of €200 million by the private sector will create medical hubs in Gozo and the former St Luke’s Hospital as the government seeks a radical transformation of the healthcare system. In another story, it says about 50 weak birds requiring rehabilitation, which were seized from a smuggler last Monday, are being kept in “some office somewhere”, highlighting the absence of an adequate facility to hold them in.
The Malta Independent says Opposition leader Simon Busuttil yesterday toned down his assault on the Prime Minister when asked about bribery allegations saying he only had suspicions that this happened.
L-Orizzont describes yesterday’s agreement with Bart’s Medical school as “the biggest investment ever seen by Gozo”.
In-Nazzjon leads with yesterday's attack in Tunis in which a number of tourists were killed.
International news
Tunisian President Bejki Caid Essebsi has vowed to “exterminate” perpetrators of a gun attack that killed at least 19 people, including 17 tourists, outside a museum. He told Watania TV, two of the attackers were killed in a gunfight with police, and that security forces were hunting for two or three others believed to have been involved. Essebesi said the attack outside the National Bardo Museum showed the country was involved in a war with terrorism.
SVT reports at least two people have died and eight others injured after two men entered a restaurant as clients inside were watching football and started shooting with automatic weapons in Sweden’s second biggest city of Gothenburg. The death toll was expected to rise. The police believe the crime is gang-related. No suspects have yet been arrested.
The Swedish security service has accused Russia of conducting “extensive” espionage operations, using as many as one third of its diplomatic staff in the country for clandestine intelligence gathering. Aftonbladet quotes SAPO chief analyst Wilhelm Unge saying his outfit last year stopped several attempts by Russia to obtain Swedish technology for its military forces. He identified Russia as “the biggest intelligence threat against Sweden”.
As election results confirmed the right-wing Likud party won the most seats in Israel’s general election, the EU responded with an appeal to re-launch the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Le Soir quotes the 28-nation bloc’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini saying, the EU was committed “to re-launch of the peace process”.
Palestinian leaders have expressed disappointment with the results. Al Ayyam quotes chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat saying it meant they must press forward with their own steps towards independence. He pledged to “speed up, pursue and intensify” all diplomatic efforts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would form a centre-right government within three weeks.
Börzen Zeitung reports the OECD has revised upwards its growth estimates for the eurozone. Low oil prices and the effects of the European Central Bank quantitative easing measures are helping Europe to escape stagnation. Economic prospects for China and Brazil have fallen, but the US is recovering well. Projections for the eurozone are for 1.4 per cent growth in 2015, higher than the 0.9 per cent seen in 2014. The area is expected to grow two per cent in 2016, rather than the 1.7 per cent forecast in November.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says more than 10,000 people from 39 European countries took part in a peaceful rally in Frankfurt just hours after the European Central Bank unveiled its new headquarters. The demonstration was organised by Blockupy, an alliance of trade unions and anti-capitalist groups critical of the ECB’s role in restrictive austerity measures in EU member states, such as Greece.
Kathimerini reports the Greek parliament has overwhelmingly adopted a “humanitarian crisis” Bill aimed at helping its poorest people, ignoring apparent pressure from the European Union to halt the legislation. This first package of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ social measures, including free electricity, drew support across the board in parliament, including from the conservative, former ruling New Democracy Party.
Two million British citizens working abroad could become illegal immigrants overnight if Britain were to leave the European Union, former attorney general Dominic Grieve has told The Guardian. In a hard-hitting attack on Eurosceptics inside and outside the Conservative Party, Grieve condemned those who want to tear up the UK’s international treaty obligations and withdraw from both the EU and the European Court of Human Rights.
China has taken the opportunity of the unexpected success of adherence to its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, opposed by the US, to have fun behind Washington. After the news that Britain, France, Germany and Italy, to mention only the main allies of America in Europe, have joined the project, deputy finance minister Shi Yaobin told the financial newspaper Handelsblatt that “the US would be welcome if the wanted to join AIIb”, considered by the Obama administration is a rival of the World Bank and the Asian Developmente Bank, whose main shareholders are the US and Japan. The US questions whether AIIB would have sufficient standards of governance and environmental and social safeguards.
The New York Times reports the Pentagon has confirmed one of the leaders of al-Qaeda Somali al Shebaab, Adnan Garaar, has been killed by a drone while travelling in a vehicle in the south of the country. Garaar was the mastermind of the bloody attack of September 2013 to the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in Kenya in which 67 people were killed.
A Colorado woman was beaten, stabbed and had her unborn baby cut from the womb yesterday in a brutal attack by another woman she didn’t know. Police told The Longmont Times-Call the alleged attacker, a 34-year-old woman, showed up at hospital with the dead fetus, claiming she had a miscarriage. She was arrested. The victim underwent surgery and is expected to recover.