The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press today.

Times of Malta reports that yesterday’s Germanwings crash is looking like having been an accident. It also reports comments by Archbishop Scicluna that Church attendance is down to 40%.

MaltaToday also leads with yesterday’s crash. It also says a third whistleblower has come forward with information about private works in Gozo allegedly paid by the Gozo ministry.

The Malta Independent leads with yesterday’s plane crash and also reports that voting documents are being passed on to neighbours and tenants illegally. Policemen are then turning up the next day to ensure the voting documents were properly delivered.

In-Nazzjon says Zebbug council paid €30,000 to a company run by a former Labour candidate for consultancies, events and marketing. It also says there have been five resignations in a year from the Council for the South.

l-orizzont quotes Ray Ferris, a former Enemalta official accused of bribery, saying he had been scared of reporting oil trader George Farrugia because of his associations with senior officials in the corporation including the chairman.

The overseas press 

The Germanwings A320 crash in the France Alps, in which all 144 passengers and six crew members onboard were killed, dominates the international media. Most of the people on board were German, Spanish and Turkish nationals.

As emergency workers suspended recovery operations for the night, France 24 reports there was still little clue as to what caused the crash. A black box has been recovered from the crash site, where rescue efforts have been hampered by the mountainous terrain.  

According to Reuters, Islamic State militants have claimed a suicide bombing that killed seven people at an army checkpoint in the Libyan city of Benghazi and triggered retaliatory air strikes by army forces. In a separate incident in Libya’s second-largest city, where army forces are fighting Islamist militants, a rocket hit a residential building, killing a 17-year old girl and another person. Three others were wounded. It was unclear who fired the rocket.

Kathimerini reports former Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou has been found guilty of removing relatives’ names from a list of potential Greek tax evaders and given a one-year suspended prison sentence. 

Channel News Asia says thousands of people have lined the streets of Singapore where the body of the founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has been ceremonially moved to parliament, where he will lie in state until Saturday. Singapore is observing a week of mourning for the deeply respected leader, who died in hospital on Monday aged 91. A state funeral will be held on Sunday.

Radio Nigeria reports Boko Haram militants have kidnapped more than 500 women and children from the northern Nigerian town of Damasak that was reportedly freed this month by troops from Niger and Chad. Residents say they killed about 50 of them before leaving.

Afghan Post says at least six children were killed in the southern Afghan province of Khost, when a bomb exploded on the ground on which they had just started a game of cricket. Ten others were injured. Police attribute the responsibility of the attack to the Taliban, for whom cricket is not compatible with Islam and therefore young people should not play it.

ABC quotes Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying he supported the proposed the development of a Chinese-led Asian regional bank as long as it was transparent and was not run by a single country. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, which is expected to be established by the end of 2015, has raised concerns in Washington that it would compete with established international lenders such as the World Bank.

Radio Free Asia announces nearly 100 people are due to appear in court in Myanmar in connection with a student protest that ended in violence. The group took part in a protest two weeks ago to demand changes to a controversial new education Bill which centralises control over higher education.

CNN reports President Obama has announced the United States would delay its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan following the request from his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani. A joint statement said the US would continue to maintain 10,000 troops in Afghanistan until the end of the year.

Le Soir says the European Commission has warned Italy it must step up efforts to contain a bacterial disease blighting olive trees in the southern province of Lecce. The bacteria is also threatening citrus fruit and vineyards. The Commission says at least 10 per cent of the 11 million olive trees in Lecce are infected and has recommended the destruction of the infected trees and restricting any trade in species vulnerable to the disease.

Detroit Free Press says a mother has been arrested after officials found the bodies of two of her children – a 14-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy – dead inside her freezer. Neighbours said they had not seen the dead children for about a year. Two of the woman’s other children, aged 17 and 11, were found at a neighbour’s home and placed in protective custody.

La Gazzetta dello Sport reports Italy national football coach Antonio Conte was embroiled in a fresh row over the use of foreign-born players of Italian descent – the so-called ‘oriundi’ – after calling up Sampdoria’s Brazilian-Italian striker Eder and Palermo’s Argentinian-Italian attacking midfielder Franco Vazquez for a Euro qualifier in Bulgaria next Saturday and a friendly with England in Turin three days later. Inter Milan coach Roberto Mancini said only Italian players should rightly play for Italy. But the president of the Italian soccer federation (FIGC), Carlo Tavecchio defended Conte’s decision.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.