The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says Malta registered small third quarter economic growth according to revised Eurostat figures. It also reports that John Dalli has severed business interests ahead of his appointment as European Commissioner.
The Malta Independent says John Dalli has spoken on plans to safeguard the health sector in the EU. It also reports that consumers have complained of having paid a euro more for a 12 kilo gas cylinder.
l-orizzont says the MUT is still awaiting justice for all teaching grades with regard to the payment of allowances. It also carries a GWU statement claiming discrimination against ambulance drivers.
In-Nazzjon says the Xarabank team has belied a story on l-orizzont on the interview aired on Friday with Franco Debono. The newspaper also reports that Malta Freeport has had a good year. It says €140 million have been invested by the freeport since privatisation.
The international press
EU Observer reports that Catherine Ashton faced questions from European lawmakers about her suitability as the EU's new foreign policy representative. In a three-hour session, Ashton made it clear that strengthening the international voice of the 27-nation bloc would be at the top of her agenda. She said the EU needed effective partnerships with all relevant players - "the US, China and Russia, but also Turkey, Japan, Canada, India, Brazil and South Africa".
L'Osservatore Romano says the Pope has denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen saying that peace depends on safeguarding God's creation. He issued the admonition in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, an annual appointment during which the pontiff reflects on issues the Vatican wants to highlight to the diplomatic corps. Officials from 193 countries met at the summit but failed to produce a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The International herald Tribune reports three American soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan while a French officer died north east of Kabul as fighting intensified amid a build-up of foreign forces aimed at routing the Taliban. It was the deadliest day for the Nato-led force since January 3, when four Americans and one Briton were killed.
Toronto Sar reports that a man has pleaded not guilty to plotting to bomb Canada's main stock exchange in 2006, as prosecutors claimed he aimed to profit from wreaking economic havoc to fund other terror attacks. Shareef Abdelhaleem, 34, was arrested with 17 alleged Islamic extremists after the group sought to purchase three tonnes of bomb-making ingredient ammonium nitrate from undercover police officers.
The Irish Times says Northern Ireland's first minister Peter Robinson will step down for six weeks after his wife admitted to having an affair with a teenager. Robinson's wife Iris, who is expected to leave her seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the British House of Commons, admitted to having an affair with a 19-year-old and helped raise £50,000 (€55,600) from two wealthy developers for him so he could set up his own café.
The Daily Telegraph carries a picture of a 30-year-old woman who has told a court in Versailles she drunkenly plunged a knife into the naked body of a Frenchman she picked up in a bar, but had no idea why she did it.
Nigeria's Daily Champion says 11 children aged between five and 13 were being held at a juvenile jail in northern Nigeria awaiting trial following sectarian clashes that left 70 people - many of them children and minors - dead last month.
California Globe reports a landmark US Federal Court case on same-sex marriage has got underway in California, with attorneys arguing that outlawing weddings between gays and lesbians violates the US constitution
Diario says Mexican officials have transferred 214 detainees from Ignacio Allende prison in the eastern state of Veracruz to a penitentiary 50 kilometres away to make way for a Mel Gibson film.
The Vatican has slammed the multi-million-dollar 3D sci-fi blockbuster Avatar as "technology without human emotion". In its review of the film, L'Osservatore Romano also hit out at the "enormous cost" of the film, reportedly at €208 million making it the most expensive movie ever made.
The Evening Standard says a church vicar has blessed the mobile phones of workers in the City of London financial district. The special service at the St Lawrence Jewry church, which dates back to 1136, was attended by around 80 people who held their phones and other gadgets in the air while vicar David Parrott blessed them. The idea came from a historic tradition where workers would bring the tools of their trade such as ploughs to be blessed on the first Monday after people return to work following Christmas.
According to the New York Daily News, the police could use a James Blake's angry messages on Twitter about a former childhood friend as evidence in court to prove he later murdered him with a shotgun.