The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta quotes the prime minister saying the EU is to discuss its game plan on Libya.
The Malta Independent says a German entrepreneur is to help refugees between Libya and Malta.
In-Nazzjon says Manwel Mallia is to return to the Cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs. His responsibilities will also include the granting of visas, a responsibility not currently held by the ministry.
l-orizzont describes the planned €200m investment in Gozo and St Luke's Hospital as 'historic'.
The overseas press
Le Soir reports European Union leaders have said that economic sanctions against Russia will not be lifted until the Minsk peace agreement on eastern Ukraine is fully implemented.
Deutsche Welle reports following three hours of emergency talks with German and French leaders, Greece has agreed to submit a reform list “within days”,
Fox News says President Obama has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington would “re-assess” its policies after his election win called into question crucial US diplomatic cover for Israel at the UN. Two full days after Netanyahu’s shock election victory, the White House said Obama called the Israeli leader to congratulate him.
The United States and Iran are drafting elements of a nuclear deal that commits Tehran to a 40 per cent cut in the number of machines it could use to make an atomic bomb, officials have told The Associated Press. In return, the Iranians would get quick relief from some crippling economic sanctions and a partial lift of a UN embargo on conventional arms.
Le Matin reports Tunisia said it would deploy the army to major cities and arrested nine people after an attack on a museum which Islamic State militants called “the first drop of the rain”. The latest tally is of 21 dead, on top of two of the terrorists, and 47 injured. At least 18 of the victims were tourists, in addition to a security agent, a bus driver, and one of the museum’s cleaning ladies.
The New York Times quotes UN investigators saying Islamic State jihadists appear to be committing genocide against the Yazidi minority in Iraq. They called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice at the International Criminal Court.
Radio Nigeria reports Boko Haram militants had carried out massacres in Bama, the second-largest city in the Nigerian state of Borno. Following the city’s liberation by Nigerian troops, survivors described the brutal manner in which the extremist group applied their version of Islamic law, telling of corpses piled into wells and mutilated bodies found on a bridge.
An Afghan woman was burned alive for allegedly setting a copy of the Koran on fire. Her body was then reportedly thrown into a river, after it was set alight near the capital’s Shah-e-Doh Shamshira shrine, according to Khaama Press.
ABC reports the death of former conservative Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who led the country from 1975 to 1983 but later turned against his party over its tough immigration policy and involvement in the Iraq war. He was 84.
Il Tempo says beleaguered Infrastructure and Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi has said he would resign from the Italian Lower House today over allegations of a connection to a corruption case involving public contracts. He made the statement while recording an appearance on RAI’s programme Porta a Porta.
Ansa reports Italy’s Supreme Court has upheld a 26-month jail term for a 24-year-old man who had yanked a cell phone away from his former partner to check her text messages to find proof of her alleged infidelity. In what may be a ground-breaking ruling, the court concluded that taking someone else’s phone by force to read one’s private conversations is similar to outright robbery.
Le Figaro says French police have found the corpses of four babies in the freezer at a house in southern France, after a man reported finding a dead baby in a cooler bag in his family’s home. The man, 40, told police he did not know whether his wife had been pregnant. The mother, aged 35, has been hospitalised and will undergo a medical exam.
The presenter of a German satirical TV show admitted that a picture of Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, sticking up his middle finger while talking about Germany was “false”. Jan Boehmermann used computer graphics to manipulate the image from a conference at Zabreb in 2003 to show the minister making the gesture.