The following are the top stories in the Maltese and international press today:
Photos of yesterday’s peace walk in Valletta dominate today’s papers in Malta.
The Times says that Italy is to immediately start deporting immigrants.
The Independent quotes the Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni saying that the much awaited patrols outside the Libyan coast are to start in January. It also reports on two teenagers who were critically injured in a traffic accident.
Malta Today says that the Association of General Retailers and Traders is divided on the future of its director-general, Vince Farrugia, who may be contesting for the European Parliament elections.
In-Nazzjon reports on new tendencies in travel for next year. It has a story on the number of requests for assistance in Maltese embassies and a picture of the sales in Malta.
l-Orizzont reports on complaints by bakers over losses following the liberalisation of market and on Monday’s shooting incident in Siggiewi.
The press in Britain
The Daily Mail is angered by an 'insulting' 75p a week rise in spending money for thousands of pensioners in care homes. It pictures Rebecca Adlington, the gold medal winning swimmer, who has been awarded an OBE.
Olympic champion cyclist Chris Hoy, who won three gold medals in Beijing, has told The Daily Record of his joy at being knighted - as his mother landed an MBE for her work as a nurse.
Chris Hoy features also on the front page of The Guardian which splashes the news that the private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database to keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use.
The decision to award the Treasury's top official a knighthood has "cast a shadow" over the New Year's Honours List, according to The Times. Pictured are two less controversial winners - Adlington and Paraolympic swimmer Eleanor Simmonds.
The Daily Express reports new evidence has emerged of how the taxpayer is funding a public sector boom as private sector jobs are cut.
According to The Herald, police in Scotland could be asked to pay thousands of pounds towards their training.
The Daily Telegraph reports pupils face a repeat of the chaos that engulfed Sats tests last summer with examiners warning of a "significant risk" that results could be delayed.
The Scotsman leads with the sentence of a year’s hard labour, imposed on a Scottish missionary and his wife in Gambia, for criticising the country's president.
It's Celebrity Big Brother time and the Daily Star says a "vicious catfight" has broken out behind the scenes between Sven Goran Eriksson's ex-lovers Ulrika Jonsson and Nancy Dell'Olio.
The Sun says that a mixed-race couple who astonished doctors by having one black twin and one white have done it again: Miya Durrant has her father Dean's black skin and her sister Leah is white like her mother Alison. Their first twins were born in 2001.
According to The Mirror, footballer Steven Gerrard, charged with assault, has vowed to prove his innocence.
And elsewhere…
Key world powers have called on Israel and Hamas to implement an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and southern Israel. The Washington Post reports that foreign ministers from the so-called ‘Quartet’ – the US, the UN, the EU and Russia – have appealed "for an immediate ceasefire that would be fully respected".
The Jerusalem Post quotes Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warning the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza are just "the first of several stages".
In turn, Felesteen says Hamas, which continues to launch rocket attacks into Israeli towns, warned it would respond "using all available means".
The New York Times quotes a UN agency spokesman putting the number of Palestinian dead at at least 360 since air strikes began on Saturday, with 1,600 injured. At least 62 of the dead were civilians.
Kyiv Post says Ukraine's state energy firm Naftogaz has paid its debt of $1.5 billion to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom to avoid a New Year cutoff of supplies.
De Standaard reports Belgium has a new prime minister.
Arlington Post says the embattled Democratic governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, has named Roland Burris, a 71-year-old ex- state attorney, as the new senator to replace President-elect Barack Obama despite charges that he tried to sell the seat.
Berliner Morgenpost reports that the European Commission has approved a German plan to stave off recession by offering firms over €15 billion in low-interest loans.
Le Parisien reports that the number of journalists, bloggers and media workers killed doing their jobs fell to 62 this year from 106 in 2007.
USA Today quotes a Nasa report showing seat restraints, pressure suits and helmets used by the crew of the space shuttle Columbia were not fit for purpose.
Environment Daily reports climate experts predict that the average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be almost half a degree Celsius above the long term average, making next year considerably warmer than this year and the hottest since 2005.