The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how a note betrayed a wife’s adultery.
The Malta Independent leads with the Irish austerity plan to claw back €15m. It also says that leads on the Valletta gunman are scarce.
l-orizzont highlights a report which says that the minimum wage is too low. It also reports a PL statement criticising the government for not taking back land in Qawra which ended up on GO plc’s books during privatisation.
In-Nazzjon says the breast screening service has, in a year, achieved the three-year targets. It also says that the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools has so far invested €90m in new schools.
The overseas press
Irish prime minister Brian Cowen has outlined €15 billion of cuts to state spending as part of a four-year rescue plan to get the country back on its feet. The Irish Times says it included axing 24,750 public sector jobs, slashing welfare spending by €2.8 billion and raising an extra €1.9 billion from income tax. The government would also reduce the minimum wage by one euro to €7.65 an-hour. VAT would rise from 21 per cent to 24 per cent by 2014. Mr Cowen said he wanted to protect health and education spending as far as possible.
The Irish Independent reports that trade unions and workers’ rights campaigners have accused the Irish government of treating the least well-off as fair game in a slash-and-burn Budget plan. Public sector union leader Jack O’Connor said the four-year roadmap to recovery had all the hallmarks of a roadmap back to the stone age.
The Irish Examiner quotes a senior citizens' lobby group, Older & Bolder, expressing concern that many of the measures proposed in the plan would have a corrosive effect for older people on low, fixed incomes.
London’s The Independent reports on the "desperate fight to save the euro" as confidence in the single currency was undermined by the latest financial crisis in Ireland. The Financial Times fears the Eurozone's turmoil was spreading to Portugal and Spain. EU Observer says the European Commission has distanced itself from remarks by Germany's chancellor and finance minister that the Irish debt crisis could threaten the single currency. Declaring 'Britain is better off out', the Daily Express uses its front page to launch a campaign to get the country to leave the European Union.
Le Soir says Belgium has joined Portugal, Spain and Italy on the hit list of countries that may be heading for financial crisis as international money market traders pushed the cost of insuring the country’s debts to record levels.
The second day of nationwide protests in the UK against education cuts and higher tuition fees makes the front page of The Daily Mail. It observes that rioting girls became the disturbing new face of violent protest in and around Whitehall and Trafalgar Square where a police van was smashed and sporadic skirmishes took place The Met said 32 arrests were made. Rallies have been held across the country, including in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Cambridge and Brighton. Four arrests were made in Manchester, four in Bristol and one in Brighton.
Il Tempo reports that Italian students, protesting against education cuts, clashed with the police in the area of the houses of parliament in central Rome. Eight police officers were injured, a member of the Senate staff had a dizzy spell, two students were arrested and 27 were reported to criminal prosecutors. The protestors called on Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini to resign.
The Dominion Post says New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key has promised an investigation into the deaths of 29 miners at the Pike River mine on South Island. The men were declared dead after a second explosion ripped through the shaft where they were trapped. It could take months to recover the bodies because of the high concentration of toxic and explosive gases in the mine.
Le Mattin reports that Haiti needed at least 1,000 more nurses and 100 doctors to stem deaths from its cholera epidemic. The UN's top humanitarian official has said health workers in Haiti are also having to cope with shortages of almost all necessary equipment. The Haitian government says more than 1,400 people have died. Meanwhile, the World Bank has announced a $10 million (€7.5 million) emergency grant for Haiti.
Upkhabar says unmarried women in Lank, a village in northern India, have been banned from using mobile phones – to stop them arranging forbidden marriages that are often punishable by death. The village council has also decided that unmarried men could use mobile phones only under parental supervision. Local women's rights groups criticised the measure as backwards and unfair. Police said 34 couples eloped last month in Muzaffarnagar district, where Lank is located in Uttar Pradesh state. The elopements led to eight honour killings.