The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The local press is dominated by yesterday’s compilation of evidence in court against former Police Inspector David Gatt.
The Times reports how a court heard of a crime planner obsessed with the mafia. It also reports how the European Court decided yesterday that a ban on abortion by Ireland violated a woman’s rights.
The Malta Independent says that David Gatt wanted revenge against Eddie Fenech Adami. It also carries comments by Austin Gatt that the PAC had proved the government right on the power station extension contract.
In-Nazzjon also reports how David Gatt was plotting revenge against Eddie Fenech Adami. In other stories it reports that Palumbo is the preferred bidder for the superyachts facility and that Malta is first in e-government services in Europe.
l-orizzont also reports that David Gatt was allegedly motivated by revenge. It also features a GWU statement that it would not accept imposition of mandatory private pensions.
The overseas press:
Fox News quotes IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn stressing Europe must press urgently ahead with developing a comprehensive and integrated crisis-management plan or risk pushing its sovereign debt and financial crisis to "the edge of the cliff". In a wide-ranging discussion at a Thomson Reuters Newsmaker event in Washington, he said European officials were "too much behind the curve" in comparison with the speed at which markets were moving, risking further contagion in the euro area.
Meanwhile, EU Observer says that at their meeting in Brussels, the 27 EU leaders have agreed to set up a permanent mechanism to bail out any member state whose debt problems threaten the 16-nation eurozone. EU President Herman Van Rompuy said that in 2013 the permanent mechanism would succeed the eurozone's €750-billion temporary bail-out fund that was used to bail out Greece and Ireland.
The UK nationals focus on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's release on bail and his vow to ‘continue his work and protest his innocence’. Sky News quotes him saying he was preparing for indictment on US espionage charges after a secret grand jury investigation. Sweden wants the Australian extradited from Britain over alleged sex offences which he denies.
The New York Times reports that the UN Security Council has expressed deep concern over the violence which has left at least 20 people dead in the Ivory Coast as soldiers loyal to the two rival presidents fought gun battles on the streets of Abidjan. After last month’s disputed election, Alassane Ouattara was dclared the winner by the country’s electoral commission but the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo has refused to cede power.
The Washington Times says President Barack Obama has warned that defeating al Qaeda would take time. He said the war remained a "very difficult endeavour" but that the US was "on track to achieve our goals". The President said there had been "significant progress" and that al Qaeda "is hunkered down" finding it harder to recruit, train and plot attacks.
Asia Observer reports that Japanese police have arrested a man after a knife attack outside a train station that left at least 13 people injured. The man boarded two buses in the city of Toride, some 40km north-east of Tokyo, and attacked passengers, mostly school children.
According to Corriere della Sera, centrist parties who failed in a bid to topple Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with a confidence vote in parliament this week have responded to the setback by saying they would form a 'third pole' that aims to revamp Italian politics. Meanwhile, Mr Berlusconi has said that other eight MPs were ready to join his coalition – but he would not divulge their names.
USA Today says officials in the US state of Oklahoma have executed a prison inmate using a drug cocktail that included a sedative typically used to euthanize animals. John David Duty, 58, is thought to be the first US prisoner to be executed using the sedative pentobarbital. Duty had killed a cellmate in 2001. A shortage of sodium thiopental in the US forced the state to make the change.
Variety announces the death of American film director Blake Edwards. He was 88. His wife, the actress Julie Andrews, and other members of his family were at his side. He was best known for making the Pink Panther films starring Peter Sellers, the classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Victor/Victoria and 10. He never won an Academy Award for any of his films, but was given honorary Oscar in 2004 for his "extraordinary body of work".
Metro reports that a jealous 80-year-old husband has been jailed for two years after he launched a hammer attack at his love rival at London’s Waterloo Station train concourse after catching him kissing his errant 61-year-old wife. The court heard that Stuart Pask battered John Hanson about the head with a hammer he had hidden in a plastic bag. Hanson, who suffered head wounds but later recovered, had met up with Pask’s wife for the first time in weeks since ending their affair.