The following are the top stories in the local and international press today:
The Sunday Times says that the letter threat received by Malta Transport official Konrad Pule earlier this week had been opened by his pregnant wife. In another story on a survey it conducted, the newspaper says that Christmas has lost its religious meaning.
Malta Today named nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando as the newsmaker of the year.
It-Torca leads with a human story on the late Jamie Zammit, who died on December 17 after a long battle with illness. His mother talks about her sufferings at these celebratory times. In another story it says that weapons destined from Somalia could have been transported from Malta.
Kullhadd quotes the Pope’s address yesterday, in which he emphasised the need for a more intensive dialogue with Muslims.
Illum leads with a snakes and ladders game with photos of Maltese personality who dominated this year’s news.
The international press
The International Herald Tribune reports that European flights are almost back to normal after air passengers spent the night at airports in Paris and Brussels because of the freezing weather that disrupted Christmas travel. Some 200 people slept overnight at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where 400 flights were cancelled. Elsewhere, significant snowfalls in Germany and Italy continued to cause problems across the transport network. In northern Italy, heavy rain has caused flooding in parts of Venice. The Danish authorities on the Baltic island of Bornholm say they had given up trying to clear roads blocked by snowdrifts.
Pravda says Russia's lower house of parliament has voted 350 in favour and 58 against to approve the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which was passed by the US Senate last Wednesday. The agreement would reduce the two sides' nuclear arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads.
De Telegraf reports Dutch police they have arrested 12 Somali men on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in the Netherlands. Islamic extremists have called for violence against the Netherlands in revenge for anti-Islam statements made by the far-right politician Geert Wilders, who described Islam as a "fascist ideology" and called the prophet Muhammad a "barbarian, mass murderer and a paedophile.
Avvenire says Pope Benedict XVI has expressed his hope for an end to conflicts around the world. In his traditional Christmas Day message from St Peter's Basilica, he called on Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist in peace, urged China's Christians to remain hopeful in spite of limitations, and prayed for those hit by natural disasters in Latin America. He also appealed for peace in Somalia, Darfur and Ivory Coast.
Reuters reports that the presidents of Benin, Sierra Leone and Cap Vert will fly to the Ivory Coast on Tuesday to tell incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to quit or face force. Gbagbo has so far resisted calls to cede power to rival presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara after a November 28 election which African neighbours, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union all say Ouattara won. A spokesman for Gbagbo's government, which is also facing travel bans and funding freezes, said in an interview with Radio France Internationale that the ECOWAS threat of force was "unjust."
Meanwhile, The New York Times quotes the UN saying it had so far counted 14,000 refugees fleeing Ivory Coast for neighbouring Liberia since the vote, as fears mount that the dispute will rekindle a 2002-03 civil war. The UNHCR said on its website humanitarian needs were increasing for the "mostly women and children refugees as well as for the villagers hosting them". Nearly 200 people have died in violence since the election.
Abuja Inquirer says President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria has said his government would do all it can to find those responsible for a string of bomb attacks that killed at least 32 people and injured 74 others near the central city of Jos on Christmas eve. The attack took place in the region straddles Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and the Christian south. In a separate development, at least six people died in attacks on churches by suspected Islamists in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.
The Washington Times reports President Barack Obama has condemned as "outrageous" Saturday's deadly suicide bomb attack on a town in north-western Pakistan. A female bomber killed at least 43 people in the attack on a large crowd receiving food aid in Khar in the Bajaur region. The town is in tribal areas close to the Afghan border - a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold. People displaced by fighting had been getting food at a distribution centre.
The BBC says police in West Yorkshire have revealed a list of "ridiculous" 999 calls which they say put lives at risk by diverting resources away from real emergencies. One reported a packet of rice missing from a cupboard while another called for advice about a snoring dog. And one woman decided she needed police help when a black cat got into her house. Emergency operators in the UK had also taken calls about a broken freezer and a dead pigeon in a garden. A police spokesman said: "These calls are so ridiculous it's astonishing."