The Times says that Alfred Sant is to undergo surgery today. It also reports that Air Malta pilots held marathon but fruitful talks with the airline management yesterday. A court ordered a mother to return her daughter to her father in Malta.
L-Orizzont, after referring to Dr Sant's hospitalisation, reports that the Marsa open centre is considered as being the "best among the worst" open centres because migrants at least have a roof over their heads. They are living in former classrooms.
In-Nazzjon also reports on Dr Sant. Another story on its front page is about the introduction of a new waste collection scheme to replace deposits on bottles. It also reports on the art auction for L-istrina held yesterday
The Malta Independent predicts that 2008 will be a rainy year, basing itself in the traditional irwiegel. It also has Dr Sant on its front page.
The Malta Business Weekly says Christmas trade has been somewhat slow moving but there is strong competition for New Year's Eve business.
The Press in Britain...
The Sun says that following the public response to their pre-Christmas appeal, Madeleine McCann's parents have launched a new publicity blitz in Morocco as they try to find their daughter.
The Daily Express also gives the 11,500-Maddy-poster blitz in Morocco a front-page mention but leads with the story that millions of allergy sufferers may have been given hope of a cure with no side effects.
The Times says that more than 3,000 people have died in the last three years as a result of reactions to medicines that were meant to help them. More than 13,000 others needed lengthy hospital treatment for the effects of their allergic reaction, but survived.
The Daily Mirror says shoppers spent £1 million per minute in the Boxing Day sales frenzy.
The Financial Times feels that UK retailers' fears of bleak trading look to have eased after the last-minute surge of shopping.
According to the Guardian, the sales surge masked the growing gloom over the New Year slump. A poll by the newspaper showed that 55 per cent of the public are confident about their personal finances despite fears of an economic slowdown.
The Daily Telegraph reveals the scandal over Labour's £670,000 in illegal donations will return in the New Year: it quotes sources saying criminal charges may be imminent.
The Daily Mail claims the driving age will effectively be increased to 18 in a radical overhaul of how young people are prepared for the road.
The Record says police have rescued 17 sex slaves following a series of raids on vice dens across Scotland.
The Independent claims Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces a humiliating defeat over plans to allow police to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge.
The Daily Star says comedian Catherine Tate is in hot water after claims her Christmas show contained a sketch that may have been racist. It also reveals that footballer Peter Crouch has confessed to a recurring nightmare where he turns into a dwarf.
and elsewhere...Most Paris newpapers dedicate their front page to the sentence of eight years forced labour imposed by a court in Chad on six French aid workers found them guilty of trying to kidnap 103 children. Le Parisien sats the Zoe's Ark workers were charged with fraud and kidnapping last October after finding the children, whom they were planning to fly to France. The French foreign ministry in Paris said it would ask the authorities in Chad to transfer the six to France.
Lagos' The Guardian reports that at least 34 people have been killed when a ruptured gas pipeline exploded in flames as they tried to scoop fuel from the gushing leak.
The Jakarta Post reports that up to 78 people are feared dead in western Indonesia after days of torrential rain triggered landslides.
Asharq Al-Awsat, the London Pan-Arab daily, reports diplomatic efforts were still going on to exert pressure on the Afghan government to reverse its decision to expel two UN senior diplomats, one British and the other Irish, amid claims they held talks with the Taliban.
San Francisco Chronicle says the country zoo remains closed as police try to determine how a female tiger escaped from its enclosure, killing one man and mauling two others.
La Sicilia reports that Italian traffic police found 17 illegal immigrants hugging each other for dear life in a freezer truck near Rimini.
The Times of India says Hindu extremists attacked Christians celebrating Christmas in the eastern state of Orissa, ransacking and burning at least six village churches.
Munich's Abendzeitung reports that a mother has confessed to killing her infant sons over Christmas. Police arrested the 37-year-old mother in the town of Beratzhausen, near Regensburg, Bavaria, after the grandmother found the children dead in the bath with their faces and necks bearing signs of violence. Their mother, who was sitting in another room, had offered no explanation. The father, 45, who was at work at the time the children were killed, had been ruled out as a suspect.
In New Zealand, the Southland Times reports that a grandmother found a dead mouse after she pulled her cracker over dinner on Christmas Day. Betty Lawrence said it ruined her Christmas.