The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta and The Malta Independent report that Air Malta and other airlines have made two-crew in cockpit mandatory. Times of Malta also reports how a surplus had pushed the government debt down.
In-Nazzjon reports that Paul Sheehan broke bail conditions. He did not sign at a police station once, and signed late on another occasion.
l-orizzont says the Mosta Mayor is not replying to questions about a report on council road works compiled by a company in which the mayor's husband was involved.
The overseas press
Ansa reports Italy’s highest court has overturned the murder conviction against Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend in the 2007 slaying of Knox’s roommate, bringing to a definitive end the high-profile case that captivated trial-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic.
As German prosecutors sought to piece together the puzzle of why Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz crashed the Airbus A320, France 24 reports police in the French Alps toiled to retrieve the shattered remains of the 150 people killed in Tuesday’s crash. CTV News says Lubitz appeared happy and healthy to acquaintances, but a picture has emerged of a man who hid evidence of an illness from his employers – including a torn-up doctor’s note that would have kept him off work the day he crashed the plane into an Alpine mountainside.
The New York Times reports the UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution to step up the fight against Islamic extremists in Libya but without lifting the arms embargo.
Greek and eurozone officials have confirmed Athens has submitted a new and more far-reaching list of reform proposals to unlock badly needed bailout money. Nikos Filis of the leftist Syriza party told DPA news agency the list contained 18 reforms, which, if carried through, would enable the nation to boost revenues by €3 billion euros, while wage and pension cuts were not part of the proposals.
Israel killed more than 2,000 Palestinian civilians in 2014 – the highest number in any year since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967. Sputnik says a UN report, entitled “Fragmented Lives”, documents an increase in the number of Palestinians injured, incarcerated and displaced, compared with the two previous years.
Meanwhile, Metro reports Amnesty International has accused Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes and displaying “a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians” during last summer’s 50-day war in Gaza. The report comes a week before a formal Palestinian accession to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Wednesday.
The Tribune says 70,000,000 Nigerians go to the polls t6oday in the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections, held in a climate of terror sown by the Islamist militants of Boko Haram. More than 360,000 soldiers and policemen will be deployed to ensure security in 150,000 polling stations across the country..
British doctors have performed the first successful heart transplant in Europe using a non-beating heart. Channel News 4 reports the new procedure involved restarting the heart in the donor five minutes after death. The organ was then removed and transferred to a heart-in-a-box machine, where it was kept nourished and beating and its efficiency was monitored before the transplant surgery.
Fox News says President Obama has rolled out plans to cut inappropriate antibiotic use by half, in an effort to tackle drug resistance. Drug-resistant bacteria, also known as superbugs, kill 23,000 people a year in the United States. Measures include developing diagnostic tests to determine whether an infection is bacterial or viral.
According to Eurasia, the capsule carrying a Russian and an American who are to spend a year away from Earth has docked with the International Space Station. Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly are to spend 342 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, about twice as long as a standard mission on the station.
Il Mattino reports a new app for women in danger, developed by Federfarma pharmacists’ association, has been launched in Naples. It is designed to allow users to quickly report violence against women or to learn more about how to seek protection. It also allows users to locate the nearest anti-violence centre and consult laws on murder, stalking, and rape.
Fuji TV says a Japanese civil servant who made up deaths, and even claimed he was going to the same person’s funeral twice, has been sacked. Shigenori Natori, 60, was fired from his job managing public parks in Sendai weeks ahead of his retirement after taking 16 days of bereavement leave over a five-year period, supposedly because of the deaths of 12 relatives. He also had his retirement handshake reduced by half as punishment
As Indian companies scramble to meet a deadline to appoint women to their boards, some wealthy business owners have a solution that meets the letter if not the intention of the law: appointing their wives. All India Radio says India’s market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, has set a final deadline of April 1 for all of the country’s listed companies to name at least one female director. In the 12 months after the SEBI order was first announced in February 2014, only 580 companies out of thousands had appointed women. More than 80 appointments were family members of company owners.